Imagine a Time ~

"Imagine a time when common courtesy was a standard for all, when a genuine moral authority reigned supreme and when relations between the sexes were marked by mutual respect and honor. These were the hallmarks of the Victorian era."
So begins, The Benevolence of Manners, Recapturing the Lost Art of Gracious Victorian Living. Author: Linda S. Lichter.

"Fun in our gluttonous age is merchandise-dependent, but the roots of this syndrome predated our addiction to the tube. The authors of Middletown* noted that by the 1920s, the rich range of shared home entertainments had severely declined. Dancing to recorded music that divided the generations, as opposed to music you made and all enjoyed, became the major domestic amusement ~ when families weren't going their separate ways. And increasingly, they were.

"Living meant living it up, which demanded cash and a car. As one person interviewed by the Lynds observed, 'It almost seems as though family members simply couldn't wait to get out of the house and away from one another.'
"We have been deserting the hearth ever since."
~ L. Lichter, The Benevolance of Manners, ReganBooks /HarperCollins Publishers 1998.
* Studies by American sogiologists, Robt. and Helen Lynd, published in 1929