[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Code of Honor

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Someone with Social Stigma (Second-Class Citizen) can pull a Sweet Polly Olliver (may be more familiar to modern US audiences as a Mulan), murder their enemies in secret or otherwise act in any way they damn well please, as long as they manage to keep it a secret from anyone who matters to them socially.

A character with Code of Honour (Gentlewoman's Code) in addition to her Social Stigma has none of these opportunities open to her, because they would violate her Code of Honour.

Actually, very few women who pulled the cross-dressing stunt that I know of, in fiction or history, seem to have been regarded as dishonourable. Eccentric, for sure, but not disgraceful. Note how Shakespearean heroines get away with it on a regular basis.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

Before the Geneva convention it was quite dangerous for a medic to offer aid to enemy soldiers. A court martial would havery been the least they could expect in many areas.

Which Geneva Convention?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Actually, very few women who pulled the cross-dressing stunt that I know of, in fiction or history, seem to have been regarded as dishonourable. Eccentric, for sure, but not disgraceful. Note how Shakespearean heroines get away with it on a regular basis.

As far as I'm aware, few, if any, Shakespearean heroines display proper Regency etiquette, manners or conduct.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

Before the Geneva convention it was quite dangerous for a medic to offer aid to enemy soldiers. A court martial would havery been the least they could expect in many areas.

I cannot remember any precedent for a court-martial for aiding enemy soldiers or anything like it and I can remember it being fairly normal practice to aid enemy wounded.

There was no reason for such practice, seeing as a wounded man was normally out of the fight in any event. And the only chance to offer aid to enemy soldiers would be when the ground was occupied by your own forces in which case the enemy would be prisoners. There could conceivably be orders to not let enemy wounded distract from caring for friendlies but there was no logical reason to not care for enemy wounded simply because they are enemies.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Icelander

As far as I'm aware, few, if any, Shakespearean heroines display proper Regency etiquette, manners or conduct.

As I recall the Maid of Sarragossa certainly lived in the Regency period and was certainly not called dishonorable.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

As I recall the Maid of Sarragossa certainly lived in the Regency period and was certainly not called dishonorable.

She was called worse, but the propaganda value of her actions and her appeal to the common people overshadowed some of the improprieties.

In any case, she quite obviously did not have Code of Honour (Gentlewoman's Code). She was not gently born and she married one (or more) common soldiers as a teenager, without any appearance of consent from her family (and some doubt about her actual status as 'wife').

Might she have had Code of Honour? Certainly, but not one that shared much in common with the Code of Honour that Elizabeth Bennet lived by.

Sweet Polly Oliver and the real examples that inspired it were mentioned quite deliberately to show the difference between Social Stigma (Second-Class Citizen) and the much more restrictive combination of having both that Disadvantage and Code of Honour (Gentlewoman's Code).

Real or fictional women who dressed as men and took up arms were almost overwhelmingly not gently born and they implicitly or explicitly rejected the values that a proper gentlewoman of the Regency period would have lived by.

[Phil Masters]

The fact remains, though, that cross-dressing wasn't seen as explicitly dishonourable. It was just something that a respectable gentlewoman would be unlikely to do, because it would be ridiculous and there'd be no conceivable call for it. If you asked a Regency lady what could make one of her contemporaries "dishonourable", then she'd likely list breaking her word, not paying debts, (whisper) engaging in extramarital sex... Cross-dressing wouldn't cross her mind. If you hypothesised a lady, say, escaping a war zone by passing as a boy, I doubt that there'd be any great outrage at that part.

Come to think of it, Lady Hester Stanhope was very definitely a Georgian gentlewoman, and while I doubt that she'd qualify for a conventional Code of Honor (she didn't qualify for a conventional anything), the fact that she dressed in male clothing (okay, Turkish male clothing, but complete with sword) doesn't seem to have been held against her, so far as I know. Of course, it was just the least of her truly awesome aristocratic eccentricities.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Actually, very few women who pulled the cross-dressing stunt that I know of, in fiction or history, seem to have been regarded as dishonourable. Eccentric, for sure, but not disgraceful. Note how Shakespearean heroines get away with it on a regular basis.

Part of the problem here is there's certain amount of conformation bias in terms of us knowing about the celebrated examples. The less celebrated ones being more likely to be hushed up, or just not to have been passed down through history.

Of course equally we also don't know about the one's who successfully maintained the role without being discovered. So that negative proof argument I'm employing, is not only a negative proof one (so inherently dodgy) but can also go either way here!

Ultimately success (even if it's successful defiance in the face of eventual defeat) forgives a lot of sins.

Tl;dr our ancestors liked a good story with a heroic spin especially if it instilled other positive messages as much as we do now. And popular public opinion and/or exalted social standing has been a get out jail free card for otherwise damning behaviour since forever

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

The fact remains, though, that cross-dressing wasn't seen as explicitly dishonourable. It was just something that a respectable gentlewoman would be unlikely to do, because it would be ridiculous and there'd be no conceivable call for it. If you asked a Regency lady what could make one of her contemporaries "dishonourable", then she'd likely list breaking her word, not paying debts, (whisper) engaging in extramarital sex... Cross-dressing wouldn't cross her mind. If you hypothesised a lady, say, escaping a war zone by passing as a boy, I doubt that there'd be any great outrage at that part.

Come to think of it, Lady Hester Stanhope was very definitely a Georgian gentlewoman, and while I doubt that she'd qualify for a conventional Code of Honor (she didn't qualify for a conventional anything), the fact that she dressed in male clothing (okay, Turkish male clothing, but complete with sword) doesn't seem to have been held against her, so far as I know. Of course, it was just the least of her truly awesome aristocratic eccentricities.

I think there's a distinction to be made between cross dressing in extreme circumstances (weather that's fighting in a war, or going on potentially dangerous trips) and assuming a long term male role in society in order to avoid the constraints placed on female roles.

Famously although Jean of Arc was subject to a trial partly for it*, the church rules at the time were fine with women crossdressing for protection (on the general basis that a lesser sin is permissible to avoid the threat of greater ones).

An interesting one in the other direction, I think there was a few male heirs that were raised as girls in order to avoid appearing as a threat to older male siblings when it came to to inheritance


*a trial with clear political motivation and the judgement of which was later overturned by the church (although that was likely also subject to some political motivations)

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Come to think of it, Lady Hester Stanhope was very definitely a Georgian gentlewoman, and while I doubt that she'd qualify for a conventional Code of Honor (she didn't qualify for a conventional anything), the fact that she dressed in male clothing (okay, Turkish male clothing, but complete with sword) doesn't seem to have been held against her, so far as I know. Of course, it was just the least of her truly awesome aristocratic eccentricities.

She also travelled openly with a lover, so to some extent this may be her Status compensating for the reaction penalty of her CoH breaches.