When a man opens a door for a woman and she replies “Chivalry is not dead,” we see a trace of a great and long lost cultural institution. Chivalry is almost dead and forgotten. She has been reduced to a mere remnant of her former self, but she holds onto that thread of life. It is time for men of courage to restore Chivalry to her rightful place of honor. But first they must recognize who she is and from where she came.

Some think Chivalry is nothing more than polite manners, or a suave deference to women, but even political correctness and the refinement of a womanizer meet these criteria. Such external qualities are mere rumors of something far more potent and dangerous.

The shards of chivalry, though, are unsettling enough to modern society. They cause the dedicated feminist to sneer, and even the more traditional female to question such oddities or react with embarrassment. Neither does modern “manliness” know what to do with them. With the media’s infusion of the grotesque and brutal as the ideal of masculinity, especially through hip hop and reality TV, gentlemanly manners are often perceived to be acts of affectation or weakness.

But rest assured, Chivalry still lives and breathes. She waits, and quietly broods over her injuries. One day, perhaps soon, she will rise from behind her buttressed but broken walls and wave her banner high once again. Then she will be seen for whom she truly is, not just a set of arbitrary customs, but the rampart that stands between common sense and insanity. Men who have known her virtues, but perhaps not her name, will stand in the breach and defend the honor of all that is true, good and beautiful. On that day, mankind will see her revealed-both terrible and beautiful.