Something morally viral seems infect too men these days. They are starting to turn into something very different from the kind of man defined by the Age of Chivalry and the classic Code of a Gentleman. This change seems to be almost as radical as the dinosaurs believed to be changed into birds. But what is happening to so many men these days is a lot worse than a dinosaur being turned into a bird. It is even worse than the men in the Odyssey who were said to be bewitched by Circe and changed into swine. 

Instead – and this is certainly happening in American local news to a greater extent – too many men are being changed into monsters and waging a criminal war against the women and children of our country. 

This gross turning away of so many men from the code of chivalry no longer has anything to with the deprivation of a good education.  One of the worst misogynist murderers in recent history – Ted Bundy – was a law student at the University of Utah.   Lyle Menendez – who with his brother Eric killed both his mother and father in their Beverly Hills mansion for their money – was a student at Princeton University.  Scott Peterson of San Luis Obispo in California murdered his wife after he had graduated from the rarified Cal Polytechnic. 

This is not to say there are still plenty of good men around – even in our immediate neighborhoods and in our own homes.  This is also not to speak of the many great American men fighting crime, fighting fires and fighting murderous chaos in places like Afghanistan while they are protecting women and children. 

But the current abuse of women and children by men is historically speaking off the charts.  Today, in America, the most likely murderer of any pregnant woman is statistically the child’s father.  There are also major reasons spelled out on nightly local news programs why fathers of young daughters like me have so often been torn up by anxiety when our daughters come late from appointments. 

We tend to forget in the face of so much murderous modern news it was the classic code of a gentlemen that protected generations of women and children with endowed male muscle over many, many centuries. 

There are codes for gentleman all over the world. The Western Code of a Gentleman is one that has been derived and adjusted over the ages from the Laws of Chivalry listed here, which were incorporated into these secular sections of the oath of a knight: 

Now you can look over these laws and ask … would you or the man in your house have the right stuff and the courage to follow this oath and be anointed a knight and a gentleman in the Age of Chivalry? 

The Laws of Chivalry 

“This above all …to thine all own self be true.” 

“A Knight’s word must have the validity of a signed and witness oath.

Thus, give thy word sparingly, but adhere to it like iron.” 

“Refrain from speaking ill of others, for not all truths of the matter may be known.” 

“Pass not unverified words about another, for hearsay is, in a large part, 
a thing of falsehoods.” 

“Be thou honest with others, and have them known that honesty is likewise expected of them.” 

“The fury of the moment plays folly with the truth; to keep one’s head is a virtue.” 

“Contemplate always the consequences of thine acts upon others. Strive not to harm.” 

“Other Realms may well have diverse news on love between members and with others. When a Realm is visited or joined, one should discern quietly their practices, and abide thereby.”

“Dignity, a gracious manner, and a good humor are much to be admired.”

“As a Knight, thou haste power, and thy powers wax strongly as wisdom increases.  Therefore exercise discretion in the use thereof.”

“Courage and honor endure forever.  Their echoes remain when the mountains have crumbled to dust.”

“Pledge friendship and fealty to those who so warrant. Strengthen others of the Brethren and they shall strengthen thee.”

“Those who follow the Truth should be above reproach in the eyes of the world.”

You might notice how idyllic this Code of a Gentleman is and isolated from anything in the dark side.  That was the style of the Age of Chivalry, which in its art and poetry always put good and evil in different and very separate compartments.  The architects of this culture also warmed future generations never to mix good and evil, as they said the result of mixing good and evil would result in everything turning half evil.

It is hard to believe that the Age of Chivalry had criminals such as our modern sex offenders – in fact, both the poet Dante and the artist Hieronymus Bosch respectively devoted a volume of poetry named The Inferno and a painted triptych to representing the dreadful justice offered to the most dreadful offenders.  There would be no room in that society for social workers to integrate those who had once committed horrible crimes into a group home to attack another innocent victim. An instance of the dreadful medieval justice for those who committed the most horrible crimes included four horses spurred to four 90 degree directions, taking the criminal’s arms and legs along with them after the stirred horses ran North, South, East and West.

But that kind of horrible justice was reserved for the most horrible criminals.  At the civil execution of England’s King Charles I, the atmosphere was very different when the king fulfilled in spite of enormous obstacles the humor requirement in the Code of a Gentleman.  After tripping over the boot of one of Oliver Cromwell’s “Roundheads” at his own beheading, Charles quipped that “The Roundheads will be the death of me yet.” That kind of humor helped enable cavaliers to return to power against the humorless Roundheads in the very next generation, and once again re-establishing the cavalier’s Code of a Gentleman in England.

It may seem that America rejected this Code with the success of the War of Independence.  But there were few gentlemen even in England who adhered to the Code of a Gentleman as much as the first half dozen U.S. presidents – Gorge Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams.  We modern Americans may have strayed away from gentlemen into becoming dominated by a barbarian mass culture, but there is still in every day a chance to champion the Code of a Gentleman again.

Today, we see how the breeches of the Code of the Gentleman have created some terrible fissures in the moral landscape of the Santa Clarita Valley. For example, last year, the Domestic Violence Center of the Santa Clarita Valley had to respond to 787 crisis hotline emergency calls.  The Center also had to provide 596 shelter bed nights in protected locations.  All of this was largely because the endowed male muscle inherited by men to protect women and children had instead been used in the most unmanly way possible to attack them.

It is because that enough ladies and gentleman right out of the Age of Chivalry have come forth to offer the services of the Domestic Violence Center that the effort to rescue so many was achieved.  More information about how this was done and how a person can become more chivalric in this effort can be found by calling the Domestic Violence Center at (661) 259-HELP.

Three cheers for the Code of a Gentleman! 

Chris Sharp- Commentary

Chris Sharp is an Educator and a prize-winning professional writer. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.