Ladies First.

I want to assume that we all know the popular phrase "ladies first" and what it means. I am therefore writing about etiquette from that point of view, and I will pick few scenarios to show this ideal behaviour although there are diverse manners of it.

Let's say you are walking on the road with a lady, of course the number one rule is that you should both be walking against traffic but the lady should be on the inside of the side walk while the man should be on the outside. This is so that the man can easily push the lady out of danger in case there is one.

What of going through a door? Yes, ladies first right? But it's not so in all cases, as there are different kinds of doors with different manners of approach to showing etiquette. If it's a door that opens towards you, pull the door open and hold on to it until the lady enters. If it's a door that opens away from you, open the door, go through the door post and hold the door for the lady to come in and close the door thereafter.

If it's a sliding door, slide the door open, wait for the lady to go through and slide it shut after you. Now when it comes to the big automatic sliding doors found in hotels, you can sure go in together because the door post will be wide enough for the two of you except you are both on the big side which I still doubt can be a hindrance as those doors are really wide enough to allow up to six people and more go through together. The ordinary door post is just two feet plus wide, so the man should wait for the lady to be able to go through freely, but the post of the automatic sliding door is wide enough for two and the work to open the doors is being done by some electronic contraption so that both are free to go through at the same time.

When it comes to a revolving door, the man goes through first holding on to the rail handle to push while the lady comes in behind him. So it's all a matter of who is doing the work to open and close the door, the man should always do the work when he is with the lady. The man should also always give preference to the lady to go through first when appropriate and conveniently too.

The lady is always to be ahead of the man when ascending the stairs, this is so that in case she trips while climbing, the man can hold on to her to keep her from falling. It's the other way when descending, the lady should be behind the man so that she can hold on to him to steady herself in case she trips while coming down the stairs.

Some might ask "who made these rules and why should they be followed?". I don't know who made them and I am not sure anyone did. Who ever did make them was just a kind hearted fellow who used common sense to show polite behaviours that has evolved into a customary code.