A different manner of behaviour we can learn from Jane Austen

WE'VE heard it for years. Manners have all but disappeared, and the youth of today are, we're told by some social commentators, worse than any previous generation in their lack of good conversation and common courtesy.

Employers moan that graduate recruits possess few of the so-called "soft skills" such as listening properly and giving care and attention to customers. Of most concern, according to surveys, is the level of rudeness.

It's easy to tar all teens and 20s with the same brush, but we all know perfectly lovely, grounded, civil and caring young people as well as the shrieking and staggering kind overly visible on the streets at night.

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Yes, youngsters are subjected to so many more influences than ever before, and even the most motivated of parents can find it difficult to counter-balance the combined effects of the downside of popular culture.

So why doesn't someone experiment with taking a bunch of teenage tearaways and giving them a dose of what it was like to live by the social conventions of Regency England, where there were rules governing every aspect of social intercourse – and flouting those rules was to risk being shunned by society?

Arguably no-one has portrayed the manners of that time better than Jane Austen, whose six celebrated novels are still so popular today not just because they provide escapist boy-meets-girl tales set amid empire line frocks, visits to the haberdasher's and coy dance-floor conversations.

Society reflected in the books is all about restraint – maintaining politeness and courtesy even if you are seething inside, keeping a grip on raging emotions which might otherwise burst out to all and sundry and be the source of huge regret. If only the "celebrities" who spout forth every slight thought about their love life and body image to Heat magazine or those who reveal secrets of their sex life in workplace emails would abide by such a rule...

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Long-time Austen fan and expert Josephine Ross didn't write Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners as a self-help manual for today's miscreant youth, but in part as a glossary of the mores of the time for other fans or newcomers to the author's work.

She had also become riled by the way some TV adaptations of Jane Austen's work played fast and loose with the manners and conventions of the time. The writer didn't fabricate the way men and woman and different classes related to each other at the time, argues Ms Ross.

"A moment I particularly hated was when Mr Darcy swam in his own lake. It would never have happened, and certainly isn't in the book. And in another dramatisation, the coachmen are seen rolling around drunk, while waiting outside with the carriages outside a ball. That would never have been likely either, as a gentleman's carriage was so valuable that he never would have employed a drunk to drive it, just as a drunken chauffeur would not be hired today."

The rules of introducing one person to another, respecting a young lady's reputation at all times, addressing others respectfully, how to make small-talk while dancing, and the importance of making an effort to enjoy an event, however tiresome it seemed in prospect were learned by osmosis in Regency times.

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But, those less infatuated by Jane Austen might well argue that life back then relied far too much upon maintaining appearances.

"It's true that there were many social conventions to observe and rules to follow as part of polite society, but the author also encouraged readers to look beyond appearances – the 'varnish and gilding' – by showing how characters like Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park could be serpentinely charming or Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice was gushingly and laughably over-attentive to manners, but at the same time treated others badly. Often those with the most apparently 'perfect' manners are revealed to have the greatest flaws."

All this sounds like an argument against the old adage "manners maketh man". Josephine Ross thinks that while Regency England was indeed riddled with rules and conventions – some of which were there to protect reputations, particularly those of women – today the pendulum has swung too much in the opposite direction. "Society was very judgmental back then, but ideas about virtue continued to be a big thing right up to the 1960s. Thank goodness most of those ideas have gone, but in some senses things have gone too far.

"Now we have the 'respect agenda'. Respect is missing – both self respect, as in 'I will not endanger my reputation by drunkenly flashing my knickers in public' and respect for older people, who can be either ignored or treated badly.

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"Whatever you might think about some of the manners of Jane Austen's time, many of the conventions were based on sensitivity to the feelings and comfort of others. We could do with more of that today."

Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners by Josephine Ross is published by Bloomsbury, 7.99. To order from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop go to www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk or call 0800 0153232. Postage is 2.95

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