Tipping ones hat. Holding the door open for a woman. Walking to her outside when accompanying her down the street. All these these actions fall within the bounds of the modern-day chivalry.

But practice these acts and be prepared for a response that varies from a flirtatious smile to a swift rebuke.

That’s a far cry from how medieval knights were treated when chivalry was as commonplace as swords, shields, and quests. Fifty-six years after Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, has the time come to lay chivalry to rest? I put that question to the closest thing this country has to a Knight of the Roundtable, a federal judge.

And not just any federal judge.

Judge Terry Hatter, Jr. is a product of the University of Chicago Law School, a judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California, and a member of the third generation of a five-generation family of lawyers.

But around the Federal Court House in Los Angeles, Judge Hatter is known as the epitome of the chivalrous gentleman described in the opening paragraph.

“Growing up during the second World War, I was the only male in my household. My grandmother, my mother, and my aunts were all there, and at eight I was the man of the house,” he told me during a conversation in his chambers, a spacious paneled room filled with pictures of his wife, children, and grandchildren. “I was always being told to be respectful and helpful, not just with women, but with anybody,” he said. “Just be protective. It’s something that was ingrained in me.”

Judge Hatter practices from the bench what he preaches in conversation. He is best known, perhaps, for enjoining the Navy from discharging Petty Officer V. Keith Meinhold after Meinhold openly proclaimed his homosexuality. Judge Hatter’s ruling eventually led to the government’s don’t ask, don’t tell compromise.

The notions of respect and protection are truer to chivalry’s original intent—of respecting all weakness and being the defender of them—than today’s interpretation that feminists find insulting and degrading. The equating of women and weakness is the result of hundreds of years of romantic literature in which that equation made for better plots.

Today it makes for culture clash.

Writing in The Atlantic magazine, Emily Esfahani Smith cited a 2012 study by two University of Florida researchers who both advocated the reduction of chivalry, and admitted its practice is “associated with greater life satisfaction and the sense that the world is fair, well-ordered, and a good place.”

Hold a door open and you’re sexist. Don’t hold it and you’re upsetting someone’s well-ordered world. What’s a red-blooded American male to do?

“I don’t know why politeness has to go, from males or females,” Judge Hatter said by way of adjudicating the question. “I expect my granddaughters to hold the doors for their grandmother, to help her do other kinds of things, too. It isn’t just that I expect something different from my sons than I do from my daughters. I don’t.”

Chivalry, in Judge Hatter’s opinion, isn’t all about rushing into burning buildings or rescuing drowning damsels in distress. At 83, either situation would give him pause. To Judge Hatter, chivalry manifests itself in little things that indicate people have an awareness of, and a respect for, others.

He’s confounded when he sees theatergoers with their feet up on the seats or pedestrians sending texts without any sense of what’s going on around them. He can only wonder what kind of upbringing they had.

And then there are the drivers who fail to use turn signals.

“There’s a lack of understanding that it’s in everyone’s best interests to let folks know what they’re doing. But too many people don’t seem to see that. And, that’s very sad.”

All it would take to restore chivalry to society, Judge Hatter believes, “is a little less me-ism.”

People wearing hats indoors are another sign of disrespect Judge Hatter does not tolerate. Even in himself.

“Magic Johnson, the former Laker star, has some movie theaters in Los Angeles and he does not allow people to wear hats in them. One day, my wife and I went to the movies and I had a Laker cap on and before I could remove it some guy told me to take it off. I said, ‘You don’t have to tell me that, but you sure need to tell other people.’”

How did the judge feel about his being called out? “One more step and I would have had my cap off,” he said.

It was a rare case of this jurist and gentleman having his hat handed to him.

Courtesy of Judge Terry Hatter, Jr.