Chivalry on the Titanic? Not really...

[tropaka]

Since there are two threads on this I thought I'd post it alone (feel free to move it).

Researchers have found the "women and children first" policy on the Titanic to be an exception in most maritime disasters, and that it wasn't bravery/altruism on the Titanic that enforced it, but the Captain's orders that men trying to jump the queue be shot.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/artic ... chers?bn=1

ETA

The report also referred to the Titanic, which sank in the North Atlantic in the early morning of April 15, 1912. The researchers called the Titanic an exception to their findings, mainly because its captain, Edward Smith, threatened to shoot men unless they yielded to women for lifeboat seats. Capt. Smith went down with his ship.

shove it, Dougie

[Grace]

I heard on NPR this morning that it was also partly because it took 2 hours to sink instead of happening quickly so societal norms had time to kick in. There was one guy who was urged to get on a lifeboat because there happened to be one seat left and he tried to say no because "What would people say?" but in the end he relented....and was ridiculed and demonized for the rest of his life by the media and the people around him once he got home to Japan.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

I heard on NPR this morning that it was also partly because it took 2 hours to sink instead of happening quickly so societal norms had time to kick in.

I heard that on the radio too and I think it kind of missed the point. The ship sunk very quickly, and in the dead of night. Many people were sleeping, a lot of the people who were awake didn't take the problem seriously at first. Some of the first lifeboats were sent out half-empty.

[meow139]

ell, yes but at the time she was considered unsinkable. people, at first, didn't truly believe there was danger. the men there were brave, but towards the end, many panicked.

[Little Miss Alien]

I'm actually right in the middle of reading A Night To Remember, which was based on the actual testimony of survivors and from the investigations in the UK and NY, written in the 50s. According to what I'm reading, what the above posters have said is all true - most of the passengers considered the ship unsinkable, and were quite bemused by the whole thing. The reason they left belongings behind, was not because they were in a hurry, but because they thought they'd still reach New York and would be returning to their cabins shortly. This is why many women didn't get onto boats initially, and then had to rush when they realised the ship *was* going down, packing the last few lifeboats.

It's also true that Captain Smith's initial orders were Women and Children *first* - men were allowed to board lifeboats if all the women and children in the area had boarded. However, many men refused to board, precisely for those above mentioned societal reasons. One side of the ship followed these orders - on the other side, the officer who was briefed misunderstood it to be Women and Children *only* and subsequently wouldn't let men board. The theory in both cases was that the men could later swim out to the lifeboats if needs be, but they hadn't factored in that the boards would travel far out to avoid any potential suction (which in any event, never happened) and that the temperature of the water was cold enough to induce hypothermia and death within minutes. In both cases, it meant that the first boats were released less than half full because there were no more women or children nearby.