VIEWSrnMissed Manners and Creeping Lawsrnby Philip JenkinsrnAl societies regulate personal behavior: That is part of whatrnBakes them societies, instead of mere aggregations of isolatedrnindividuals. Societies differ enormously, though, in justrnhow they perform this regulation, how much they rely on lawrnand the state, rather than informal or private means. If I walk intorna crowded room wearing a Cat-in-the-Hat hat, people willrnlaugh, since laughter is a powerful means of social sanction, anrninformal way of telling me my actions are deviant. If I am wearingrnnothing but said hat, people may still laugh, but additionalrnsanctions will be imposed in the form of arrest, trial, and criminalrnpunishment. All societies have extreme sanctions that theyrncan ey against personal behavior that is seen as threatening.rnWliat has been unusual in recent years about the United States,rnand many of its Eviropean clones, is the tendency to extend officialrnpublic sanctions to activities that, not too long ago, werernviewed as private. Instead of unoIFicial sanctions (such as saying,rn”Did you hear what he did? What a jerk”), we move all toornquickly to the realm of law, where the merely obnoxious and offensivernbecomes criminal. As American criminologist RaymondrnB. Fosdick lamented back in 1920, “We are of all people,rnnot excepting the Germans, pre-eminently addicted to thernhabit of standardizing by law, the lives and morals of our citizens.rn. . . We like to pass laws compelling the individual to dornwhat we think he ought to do for liis own good.” If anything, thernaddiction has grown worse since Fosdick’s time, with the expansionrnof criminal law to regulate interracial relations, sexualrnharassment, even smoking. As the realm that was once subjectrnonlv to good manners shrinks, the state happily expands to fillrnthe void, usually with announced goals that sound just wonderful:rnWlio would say a word against tolerance and social harmo-rnPhilip Jenkins is the author, most recently, of Hidden Gospels:rnHow the Quest for Jesus Lost Its Way (Oxford University Press,rnZOOl).rnny, the legislation of civility?rnIn most Western societies, historically, the official criminalrnlaw covers a far smaller area of life than most of us realize. Beforernthe rise of formal police systems in the 18th and 19th centuries,rna huge amount of interpersonal behavior was regulatedrnby quite elaborate community-based mechanisms that did notrninvoke the assistance of courts or the state. Since these informalrnmechanisms by definition were not recorded in elaboratelyrnfiled documents, historians generally know little about themrnand, therefore, write as if they did not exist. But literary evidencerntells us of events like the “love-days” that were commonplacernin medieval and early-modern England, when communitiesrnwould gather periodically to resolve rows, feuds, andrndisputes, dealing with matters as serious as murder and abduction.rnIn some European societies, the Church organized specialrnceremonies to reconcile rivals, to make them swear to abjurernviolence in the future, and even promise to love eachrnother. On a somewhat comical note, when modern historianrnJohn Boswell found puzzling records of these rituals, he believedrnthat he had found the liturgies of Ghurch-approvedrnsame-sex unions, or gay nrarriages, and he wrote a much-discussedrnbook presenting this utterly wrongheaded view. In reality,rnthe Church was just consecrating something the communityrnthought its proper role, namely, maintaining social peacernbetween people and families without involving kings, judges, orrnlawyers.rnLove-days were long-forgotten by the 19th and 20th centuries,rnbut for most of that period, the law had nothing like thernexpansive ambitions that it has today. Of course, the communityrnstill regulated what people could say and do, but generally,rnit did so by informal customs, the network of boundaries andrnsanctions that we can loosely call “manners.” Now, to talkrnabout the manners and proprieties of bygone ages is to suggestrnan elaborate charade of hypocrisy designed to provide a decep-rnAUGUST 2001/13rnrnrn