Dear Ladies,

**Riddled with Pride and Prejudice references

I was reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen the other day when I found myself falling, once again, in some sort of infatuation with Mr. Darcy. Of course, he’s dreamy, well-spoken, handsome, and every girl’s dream guy, but no matter how many times I read this novel or watch the 6 hour BBC episode series (no shame) I’ve found myself attracted to his great acts of chivalry the most. That’s right. I love Mr. Darcy because he is a gentleman.

Unfortunately, it seems that gentlemen are hard to come by. How did our society go from raising boys to become gentlemen and to treat women with respect to the newest Hardee’s commercial featuring 3 women in bikinis while a song about a threesome plays in the background?

After much consideration, I’ve decided that chivalry is not dead. You just started settling for a lot less.

As I kept thinking, I couldn’t help but notice that there is a correlation between the downfall of chivalry and the steady lowering of women’s standards. These two unfortunate events play off of one another. Ladies, as we lower our standards, men don’t work as hard to win us over. Soon men get bored, because there is no longer a chase, no longer something worth obtaining and in order to get their attention or keep them from leaving us, we drop our standards even lower. The cycle just continues. What happened to women like Elizabeth and Jane Bennett, women who knew who they were and what they wanted, women who didn't have to settle? What happened to setting standards and sticking to them? I once had a friend whom I admired greatly because of her standards, only to find years later that she completely dropped all of her standards for the man she eventually married. You may think she got a pretty good deal, right? Wrong. Their marriage is in shams, he cheats on her regularly, and the only reason they are still married is because they have kids. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like the kind of marriage I want. I’m tired of seeing girls/women settling for men who do not deserve them. Sadly, I have to say we've been galavanting around acting like Kitty and Lydia Bennett, silly and unrespectable.

Chivalry isn’t dead, it's just followed wherever being “lady-like” went.

Whatever happened to women who respected themselves enough to recognize the difference between being treated correctly and being treated incorrectly? Whatever happened to women who weren’t afraid to dump their boyfriends for disrespecting them or pressuring them? It is a man’s job to respect a woman, but it is a woman’s job to give him something to respect. Unbeknownst to half our generation, being “lady-like” isn’t a code word for a long list of do’s and don'ts for girls to follow to a tee. Being lady-like is knowing and understanding that you have value and insisting upon people treating you as such. Being a lady means that you respect yourself. If you don’t, others won’t either. Ladies, the world see’s what you put out there, so hold yourself to a high standard of grace and elegance. The more you act like a lady, the more likely he’ll act like a gentleman!

As I’ve mentioned before, chivalry is not dead. I genuinely believe that. I’ve been on plenty of outings with my guy friends or my dad where they have opened the car door for me, offered to carry my backpack and walk me to class, push in my chair at restaurants, etc. Chivalry does exist, and there are men out there that will treat you with the respect and care that God meant for you to receive. There are Mr. Darcy's in the world! Alright, maybe not quite like Mr. Darcy, but hey, a girl can dream can't she? We just have to be willing to set high standards, make the guys work to earn our affection! Don't worry, it’ll be good for ‘em! However, with raising your standards comes the responsibility to yourself to walk away from those who don’t respect those standards. Trust me, it’s difficult, but so so worth it. My last piece of advice is to pray, pray without ceasing. Pray for yourself, for strength, for your future boyfriend/husband, pray that God will show you how much you're worth to Him.

Believe me, once you begin to grasp how much God, your Creator, values you, there is no way you’ll let anyone treat you with less respect.