It is rare though.
Dictionary.com defines chivalry as : "the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms." ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chivalry+ )
I've heard my grandfather talk about how our generation is basically screwed. Even the media says we don't know how to physically communicate with each other (minus the technology) never mind romantically connect.
I disagree.
I think our generation connects in different ways than past generations. You can't blame us for the ingenious inventions that have slipped into our hands like Blackberry's, laptops and Facebook.
How I love Facebook!
Back to what I said at the beginning of this post: here's my proof that chivalry is not dead.
There's a guy that I work with (we'll call him Jim), during the evenings mostly, who plays off this mask of being smooth with the ladies. Some of Jim's stories and attitudes makes me question whether he's a borderline player-BUT-he had one elderly customer approach him in a small panic. She couldn't find her daughter.
She kept punching the fact that her daughter had to use a walker and was supposed to meet her in our department.
Many other employees would have just paged for her daughter, but Jim actually paged her and then preceded to walk around the store to look for her. While he was looking she sat down in the corner on a purple bench. He returned about ten minutes later saying he found her and would show her where her daughter was.
He offered his arm to her and she rested her shaky arm in his.
This came as a shock to me. I literally watched them walk down the center aisle of our store, until my eyes got too blurry to make sense of them anymore. It wasn't a romantic chivalry that I was seeing, but it was chivalrous, and it shocked me because it was coming from Jim.
I would never have expected Jim to care to offer his arm out to her.
So--chivalry is not dead just rare, deeply embedded in the hearts of today's generation of men. My guess is that it will come out when he really cares about the person he offers it to.
I think the problem might be with an ideal. It is becoming increasingly popular to deny the existence of an ideal. Many are rejecting any type of metaphysical reality. Without an ideal world there is no basis for saying something is wrong such as incest, rape, murder, etc. Morality and rightness is reserved for the individual to choose; therefore murder can be right if the individual says so. If an ideal world does not exist, then chaos in this world will. In every individual, whether they want to admit it or not believes certain actions are wrong and others are right. An action can only be imperfect if there is a perfect one that it detracts from; therefore every person whether by their on admission or not believes in the ideal. If the metaphysical continues to be denied then our culture does not stand much of a chance.
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