Your Most Humble & Obedient Servant
» Miscellany
I’d hoped to chat with Alexandra tonight but she was away when I IM’d her.
Later I wrote her an email.
Originally I signed it “Your Richard.”
Thinking for a second I lower cased “Your,” moved it up to the closing and left my signature as “Richard.”
Why? I felt that I needed to make sure this email was from the man who just plain loves her. There’s no contradiction between that and D/s but it isn’t uncommon for me to try to insure clarity or at least any inadvertent ambiguity.
I am her Richard. However she wishes to take it.
Then I thought back to 18th century epistolary habits.
It was very common for one man in writing to another to close his letters with something like:
Your most humble and obedient servant,
It was a norm. It took very rare, exceptional cases of intimacy for anyone to come close to signing a letter “your friend.”
Can you imagine anyone nowadays closing a letter that way outside of D/s?
Comments
i usually sign my closings to “Women” like this:
“in respect and reverence, michael g.b.”
to Women Who truly impress me, i close like this:
to most everyone else, i simply sign, either: “sincerely” or “with respect”
i DO see how custom has changed over the decades and even centuries … and i guess we MUST conform somewhat to custom or risk being written off completely as to our “rational credibility” … yet, there are those personal communications where we well present ourselves “as we are”.
Posted by: michael g.b. | November 9, 2005 3:06 AM