Table manners are the social customs or rituals used while eating and drinking in a group setting. While different cultures have established different eating rituals, in general the rules pursue similar goals, with focus on cleanliness, consideration for other diners, and the unity of the group sharing the meal. Each gathering may vary in how strictly these customs are insisted upon.
Importance Sharing food in company of others satisfies the dual purposes of sustenance and community. Human brains are sensitive to the deviations from the routine, so in order to "fit in", every person is trained, from a very early age (babies start learning the meal schedule and chewing during weaning), to obey the table manners of a particular group. Shared meals are often used to celebrate or commiserate significant life events such as weddings, birthdays, personal achievements and funerals. The established patterns of table manners helps people to navigate these sometimes stressful occasions. Shared meals can assist to reinforce a social group and maintain its cohesiveness: in Victorian times manners were "the barrier which society draws around itself, a shield against the intrusion of the impertinent, the improper, and the vulgar." Eating habits can be used as class markers, for instance this role was played by caviar, champagne, goat cheese for upper classes, as notes by the Classical Antiquity (cf. works by Mozi for the ancient Chinese perspective).
Origins The need for eating − and the desirability of sharing of food − lies at the root of human behavior; thus, table manners have been argued to be as old as the humanity itself, and are present in any modern society. The eating rituals might be quite artificial, although their evolution is mostly guided by practical reasons for most of them, including neatness, cleanliness, and noiselessness. For example, eating spaghetti with bare hands, not unusual in the 19th-century Italy, is unacceptable nowadays. Not just the meals themselves, but their schedule (like breakfast–lunch–dinner sequence with a typical prohibition of snacking in between) are tightly controlled, probably stemming from the meals held when the ancient hunters and gatherers were bringing food to share from their outings.
Education Notable role in spreading the table manners was played by the court of Louis XIV (and its European imitators), where gaining the power required staying close to the king himself, the feat requiring, among other skills, good table manners in order not to offend other people. When the bourgeois gained access to court, etiquette books were produced to bring them up to speed, like Antoine de Courtin's Nouveau traité de la civilité qui se pratique en France parmi les honnestes gens by ("The New Treatise of the Civility Which Is Practised in France Among Honest People", 1672). The Church of France started teaching good manners in its schools and producing textbooks on the subject. After the 16th century, the spread of table manners was helped by the introduction of the institution of "childhood", where the introduction of children to the adult world was delayed and substituted by a crash course in civility that includes teaching of table manners starting at an early age.
Evolution Table manners evolve with time, but quite slowly. One of the purposes of any ritual is conservation, so the evolution of manners happens gradually and against unwillingness of most participants. The new habits are usually invented by the elites, and it takes decades and occasionally centuries before the widespread acceptance. For example, the introduction of forks into the Western etiquette took 800 years, from the first mention as a novelty in the 11th century document to the universal adoption as an affordable attribute of the civilized behavior. In the Western world, a major change occurred during the Renaissance, when the term "courtesy" (implying the noblemen mingling in the court) was changed to "civility", applying to everyone. In the process, a public display of bodily functions, from belching to spitting − and even mentioning them − became impolite. "Walls" were put around fellow eaters who started to use their own utensils, avoided touching even their own food by fingers, and adopted body postures minimizing brushes against their neighbors.
Critique and humor Early books on table manners mostly concentrated on the actions to avoid, sometimes providing extremely rude behaviour as examples of bad manners. In the 16th-century Germany, multiple humorous books on manner have been printed that used florid language to suggest ridiculous acts: "if you want to improve your health, increase your standing in the community, and do yourself justice, you really must grab what you want off the table". Jonathan Swift in his Directions to Servants suggests that the cook uses bare hands to do everything in order to preserve his master's utensils. Erasmus declared the external decorum to be the "crassest part" of philosophy. He still published a book, On Civility in Children (1530), that was reprinted many times.
Enforcement For those who fail to behave appropriately, society's primary punishment is social exclusion, a rejection that is felt perhaps most profoundly around the dining table. Bourgeoisie were notable for stricter adherence to the table manners than nobility, even in the absence of external constraints, such as a king. Their self-imposed restrictions were driven by fear of losing a lot in case of a blunder that turned out to be a better motivator than the obedience and self-interest of courtiers. Erasmus in his book for children suggests, "Grasping the bread in the palm of the hand and breaking it with the fingertips is an affected practice which should be left to certain courtiers. You should cut it properly with your knife..." (the modern handling of bread rolls in the West keeps the tradition of the court).
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
