Melanie Hamilton Wilkes’ Guide to
Being a Proper Southern Lady
- Although a Southern lady’s wardrobe should contain the appropriate dresses, blouses, and jackets, as well as at least one pair of patent leather shoes, being a lady is more than proper clothes. It is an attitude.
- Ladies should not know too much about business and politics.
- Gentlemen are pleased to think ladies are ornamental, and it is an ill-advised ornament who contradicts her husband.
- Read many books, especially novels, because Southern ladies are frivolous.
- Read poetry because Southern ladies are sentimental.
- Read many sermons because Southern ladies are pious.
- If you must indulge in essays, choose Emerson because your gentleman may have a nodding acquaintance to his works.
- Most importantly, imitate the heroines of great novels because true Southern ladies talk as they do.
(From pages 298-299 of Rhett Butler’s People)
