There looms, large, uncertain, dim but glittering, the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. . .It is all true, or it ought to be; and more and better besides.
…from The Birth of Britain by Winston S. Churchill
The age of chivalry will never die because it will always live in the hearts of women. The very idea of chivalry feeds the pride they take in their beauty and the way they feel their dignity to be rooted in the finest of life and nature itself. And you had better notice it! In their souls is the hope of an ideal man to whom they long to give everything. What they see in their ideal and the hopes they set by it are found in the figure of the knight.
There are many keys to the female heart and perhaps the best among them is trust. Women are enchanting creatures of immense pride and they will not risk injured pride lightly. They will play with you but keep you waiting until they feel that you merit their trust. And who is more trustworthy than the one who will take chances and flirt with danger for her sake? They have taken to their hearts the idea that discretion is the better part of valor, and how they long to reward the man who is valorous for them.
Much is to be gained by taking seriously just how much women are taken with the romantic ideal of the knight and what he means to them. In fact, this ideal is found in women from cultures that do not even have a concept of knighthood or a well formed tradition of it. The image has a deep root in their wish to be sure that the male’s superior strength will serve them and make them want to offer him their grateful rewards. A female also sees the rewards she so willingly gives her knightly male as the way to grow love from him to her.
