Chivalry: Generosity

According to Scott Farrell, generosity is a large part of what makes a knight, or what contributes to making one chivalrous in today's society. It isn't about donating all worldly possessions to charity or buying things for those who have less in life. Generosity can include the sharing of attention, time, knowledge, and sometimes the only thing you need to share is a smile. The goal of generosity shouldn't be to feel better about yourself, that just seems like a good way to feed your smugness; the true aim of generosity is the creation of a strong sense of community, giving of one's self to encourage others to do the same.

As the defenders of the kingdom, knights had a certain stake in the welfare of the townspeople. The ideal knight was someone that chose their duty out of a great sense of valor and responsibility rather than a need to be elevated above the common folk to be seen as a hero. Defending the helpless is a job best done by those who do so out of the need to aid those who cannot help themselves rather than by those who need to feel the self-satisfaction of having done a good deed.

Generosity was seen as a knightly virtue because, at the time, most people didn't have very much to give. Whatever "spare" time anyone might have had was spent eating, sleeping, or working, so there really was not much time to help your neighbours without the risk of losing money for yourself and your family. As such, it wasn't really considered selfish if one was to forgo charity in order to provide for himself, so when someone was generous enough to lend a hand to a neighbour, or a stranger, it had a much greater effect than it does today.

A good deed, when done for selfish purposes, is no longer a good deed.

In today's dating world, at least in western society, the idea of the chivalrous man's generosity in romance evolved into the man paying for dinner (except in the Netherlands, they go dutch). The idea was that, even though the man was paying for the full date, he was not expecting anything more out of it. This idea has evolved even more due to the fact that people's dating ideals have changed, and our views on sexuality have grown as well, so there's a much more equal division of men and women paying for their dates now.

This isn't to say that a man should only be generous to those that he wants to sleep with. It's okay to feel good about charity, the issue is when you use that feeling to start announcing your charitable donations in an effort to make others feel somewhat less-than. In that case, you've become smug, and your charitable efforts become selfish. There's nothing wrong with making your generosity known, but there's a fine line between divulging what you do with your spare time and throwing it in someone's face.

On occasion, the generosity we show will reveal a softer side that our partner might not have seen before, and this can be a good bonding experience. You could even make a date out of doing something charitable, as that has the built-in result of making both parties feel good. Also, your girlfriend will think that you've helped to expand her mind and make her a better person, and you've suddenly won a bunch of brownie points that you hadn't been trying for, so that's a bonus.

These acts of generosity can even be secluded to your own home, such as agreeing to let your girlfriend's parents stay at your place for a few weeks, or to cede the choices to her on movie-night, or to teach her how to drive (warning: do not attempt to teach your significant other to drive, it will end in tears).

In the end, we all just have to be good to one another. Isn't that the world we want to live in?