Ladyness

Miss MacGooden, humorless, prim, ugly, with a face like dried leather, prided herself on being a “lady” from one of the best families—an uncle had been a congressman in the period of the Reconstruction. She was therefore, Helga Crane reflected, perhaps unable to perceive that the inducement to act like a lady, her own acrimonious example, was slight, if not altogether negative. And thinking on Miss MacGooden’s “ladyness,” Helga grinned a little as she remembered that one’s expressed reason for never having married, or intending to marry.

Source: wiktionary

In those days, most girls in Guangdong and Fujian had bound feet to show their “ladyness”.

Source: wiktionary

It was precisely this labor of performing ladyhood that allowed the dictionary definition of lady to shift from primarily meaning “a woman of high social position” to a “woman who behaves in a polite way.” The shift from position to behavior did not completely unmoor “lady” from race and class hierarchies, but it did require a different set of behaviors and rituals of ladyness in order to maintain those hierarchies.

Source: wiktionary