Cowboy Etiquette: Women
The early West was a man’s country. Until it became more settled, range calico was scarce as sunflowers on a Christmas tree. This scarcity of women made her kind of awesome to the cowboy and he looked upon her as being something holy and plumb precious.
Raymond F. Adams
Cowboying was a lonely job. Though it was rich in male comradeship, it was poor in female companionship. In the old days, unless a trail outfit passed a homestead or happened upon wagon bound settlers, the average puncher wouldn’t see or talk with a woman for three or four months at a stretch. Which is why all they could think about was hurraying when close to a town.
Towns, especially cowtowns, were populated with two types of women: soiled doves (sometimes called “girls of the line,” “calico queens,” or “painted cats”) and pure doves. Regardless of the woman’s occupation or status within society, cowboys heaped upon them the utmost respect and reverence. It was a strict principle. Breaching it often brought strict punishments.
Within town, every cowhand was expected to either remove or tip his hat, with a slight nod of the head to every lady he passed on the boardwalk. He might wish her a good morning or a good day and address her as “ma’am.” If his greeting extended much beyond that on their first encounter he was apt to find trouble from the menfolk. And if his look lingered or he turned to watch her as she passed by then blows were sure to follow.
Trail etiquette forbade a cowboy who rode upon a homestead to show any romantic interest in any of the woman folk within the house. His only greeting to an unknown woman was the removal of his hat and a nod of his head and a respectful “ma’am.” His only appreciation of feminine virtues and hospitality was to eat heartily, followed with a sincere “thank you” or “much obliged” when he had had his fill.
Whether in town or on the range, cowboys never spat, cursed, scratched or adjusted their cajones in the presence of a lady. Nor did they tell coarse jokes. In the words of one writer, “Good women are not to be mentioned in levity.” Even if a cowboy paid a visit to one of the painted ladies it was ungentlemanly to boast of his exploits. When he went to courting he almost always wore his gun. Whether he was any good with it or not didn’t matter. According to cowboy historian Philip Rollins:
The gun not only was an integral part of full dress, but also was to the mind of the cowboy as effective on the female heart, and as compelling an accompaniment of love-making as to the belief of the young soldier has ever been the sword.
In a cowboy’s imagination, whether true or not, women were angels. As Raymond Adams noted, to cowpunchers women were “something holy and plumb precious. He was apt to be pretty touchy in protecting her character.”
He felt that a man was pretty low that would bring a woman in contact with dirt, or to allow her to touch it of her own accord. He placed her upon a high fence because he wanted to look up to her. He wanted her feminine with frills and fluffs all over. He had no use for those he-women who wore pants and tried to dress like men.
Rollins relates the story of a woman in pants who rode up to a group of cowboys and “made to one of them a remark which contained no impropriety beyond that the speaker placed herself and the men upon a common level. There lashed back to her the answer: ‘For God’s sake, woman, why can’t you let us look up to you?’”
You might think such sentiments are old fashioned or worse, misogynistic. In a morally confused world, such as the one we’re living through, cowboys of a certain era did demonstrate old-fashioned virtues, but they did not hate women nor did they seek to demean them. They sought to treat them as ladies. As Adams said, they placed women “upon a high fence.” As such, women during frontier days could live alone miles from a town or her nearest neighbor free of fear that a cowboy would take advantage of her. She was as safe in his presence in the middle of the wilds as she would be surrounded by her brothers in the middle of a prayer service. She could impress any man to escort her anywhere, and every man would jump at the opportunity to accompany her, without any semblance of tawdry behavior on his part. Would that we had such a culture today.
Frontier times were not idyllic. Though they were outnumbered by good men, there were bad men who did take advantage of women. If any man, at any time, under any circumstance, mistreated a woman, he was culled from the herd of polite society and branded a rogue and banished an outcast. Men refused to speak to him. Doors were shut to him. Work was denied him. If the insult was grave enough the man might be beaten or strung up or worse—he might be stripped and staked out, his arms and legs pegged to the ground over a large anthill, his eyelids slit and made to stare at the merciless sun while the ants ate dinner.
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Ramon F. Adams, The Cowman & His Code of Ethics (The Encino Press, 1969), 13–14.
Philip Ashton Rollings, The Cowboy (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936), 41, 72.
Mody C. Boatright, “The American Myth Rides the Range: Owen Wister’s Man on Horseback,” Southwest Review, vol. 36, no. 3 (Summer 1951), 159.
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