When did men in the Western world stop walking arm in arm?

May 11, 2016 2:19 PM

Men linking arms is still a common sight in many parts of the world, but it is not in the Western world. It was, though, up until relatively recently. When, how and why did this custom fall out of fashion?

I was re-reading my way through all of the Margery Allinghams when I found this in The Beckoning Lady:

"Campion was still hesitant. He put his arm through Luke's and they strolled down the path together."

(Campion is hesitant about a theory put forth, not about linking arms with Luke.)

The novel was published in 1955, and I believe is set contemporaneously. It is quite common in books of the 1930s, much less common by the time this novel rolls around, and I can't think of any men outside of a monastery linking arms in a novel after this one.

What happened to this gracious custom? Was it mortally wounded in the war? Did it fall victim to the Kinsey Scale? Was there a general populist rise in homophobia? Were there specific laws enacted in the US and the UK that made this kind of close physical contact suspect?

posted by DarlingBri to Society & Culture (8 answers total)

Response by poster: (To clarify, I mean a platonic linking of arms, by men of any orientation(s), rather than a romantic linking of arms.)
posted by DarlingBri at 2:28 PM on May 11, 2016

Best answer: Not sure exactly how it happened in the Western world, but as someone who comes from a culture (Indian) where men linking arms is common, I would suggest that it's not a rise in homophobia, but rather the reverse. The reason two Indian men linking arms is not commented upon (though that's changing rapidly) is not because of a lack of homophobia, but because suggesting that the men might be gay is so beyond the pale that it's not even considered. I did not know of any openly gay men growing up in India - that changed really rapidly over the last ten years, and I think there's a growing awareness of homosexuality and thus a growing reluctance on the part of men to link arms. Whereas earlier I don't think homosexuality was even on the radar.
posted by peacheater at 2:33 PM on May 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

In an episode of QI, Stephen Fry opined that Oscar Wilde's prosecution for gross indecency had a chilling effect on the habit in England, as compared to continental Europe where it remained more common.
posted by wilko at 2:49 PM on May 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

BBC apparently thought this was appropriate behavior for the last decade of the 1890s, and not something that would weird out 1980s audiences. (Okay, mostly linked because I find it super-charming.)

I have some doubt that one prosecution, however high-profile, would be sufficient to kill this custom.
posted by praemunire at 3:03 PM on May 11, 2016

I remember reading somewhere that this custom went away as more women claimed public space i.e. in the workforce during and after WWII but I can't find the source. So not homophobia per se but a reaction to gender roles being much less divided than before.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:12 PM on May 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: At Eton, walking arm-in-arm was a special privilege permitted only to members of 'Pop' (the elite Eton society). Cyril Connolly has a nice description of it in Enemies of Promise:

Only boys in Pop were allowed to walk arm-in-arm. When I was not in Pop but was walking with Teddy Jessel or Robert Longden I would await the gesture, the arm first raised and then shot forward to bring the sleeve and cuff down within grip of the fingers and then the whole arm inserted, like a bishop laying on hands, with a sacred stealing motion through my own. It was a solemn moment when this public favour was conferred but when I was in Pop and enjoyed the same privilege I found that my arm seemed unwilling to experiment, and felt at ease only when another braided Pop sleeve reposed in mine.

In Brideshead Revisited, Charles and Sebastian famously link arms when they go to visit the Botanical Gardens. 'He took my arm as we walked under the walls of Merton.'

The Beckoning Lady is my favourite of all the Allinghams, I think, and now that you mention it, the possibility of Campion/Luke slash fiction doesn't seem so far-fetched ..
posted by verstegan at 4:19 PM on May 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

It must have been fairly unacceptable in New York by the 1950s, because when James Baldwin was living in Istanbul in the early 1960s he found the linking of arms and holding of hands between Turkish men on the street one of the most delightful things about it.

From that link:
"When he first got here," [Engin] Cezzar told me, "we were walking in front of the Marmara Hotel and in front of us were two soldiers, very ordinary soldiers, and they had linked pinkies - it's very famous. It's not like holding hands, it's more an Anatolian tradition. Jimmy saw this and said, 'My god, look at the way they are walking! They are holding hands! Oh, oh, what a beautiful country, and nobody says anything!'"
posted by trotzdem_kunst at 6:35 PM on May 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: This is all so interesting, and I particularly appreciate the links to other literary benchmarks. The previous FPP never reached a conclusion, although the Oscar Wilde theory was put forth there as well. That trial was in 1895 and the practice was still in fashion, at least in the UK, as late as the Allingham book in 1955.

I suppose there is no definitive answer but I suspect that it's a post-war societal loosening that raised awareness of homesexuality and made male intimacy suspect as a consequence, similar to the change peacheater describes in contemporary India.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:45 PM on May 12, 2016