DEAR MISS MANNERS: If I, as a female, walk out the door first, am I supposed to hold it for the male following me?

GENTLE READER: Yes. We have revoked the custom by which a lady could let it slam in a gentleman’s face.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My late mother rescued a lot of family things as elderly relatives died off. I have inherited her hodgepodge collection of family silver, stretching from the mid-1800s to the 1940s.

There’s quite a bit -- mostly sterling -- but to make complete place settings, I have to pull from the sets of different (but related) households, each of which had its own pattern. Most of it is monogrammed, so I’m able to tell that the dinner forks came from my great-great-grandparents, while the spoons came from a great-aunt.

Luckily, some of the younger generation would like to have it, and actually prefer a mixture of patterns. As I sort through it all, it makes me wonder what the thought process was: What was supposed to happen to the previous generation’s silver and china, especially if it’s monogrammed, if each child acquired their own sets and patterns when their household was established?

For instance, I have pieces from my great-great-grandparents and three of their six children -- all different. Planned obsolescence doesn’t seem right, considering how much it cost. Truly, if I had inherited the complete silver service for each household, I’m pretty sure I could host a state dinner and still have forks left over to replace the ones that dropped on the floor.

When this tradition began, did they not foresee a tsunami of silver a few generations down the road, or was it planned to be sold when the original owners died? And who would buy it, if it’s not their initials? If my small-town, modestly wealthy family had this much silver, I can only imagine how much must be sloshing around the attics of the really well-to-do.

GENTLE READER: You are fortunate to have not only ancestors, but also descendants who appreciate table silver. The latter are especially rare these days.

As British snobs would say, “You are not the sort of people who (sneer) buy their silver.” Mixed monograms were valued as evidence of that.

Some in the family obviously did buy, because one set of parents could produce more than one child, and every household needs to eat. The problem then would not have been a surplus, but supplying the new couples: If three of your great-great-grandparents’ children inherited silver (and grandchildren were more likely to inherit than children, whose parents might still be using theirs), new sets were needed for the other three.

Miss Manners suspects that your accumulation of orphaned silver may have less to do with a shortage of heirs than with a shortage of people to polish silver. It is probably not a coincidence that your silver was not increased after 1940, under wartime austerity and subsequent informality.

In any case, she is delighted to hear that you and your younger relatives appreciate the charm of that hodgepodge.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter was engaged to a young man who wanted a big wedding. They both saved to pay for it, but in practice, the burden of organizing and paying deposits fell on my daughter, with the expectation that later they would either join their finances or he would reimburse her.

Well, two months before the wedding, he ran off with a pregnant girlfriend. My daughter is overwhelmed by the emotional fallout and the financial obligations. I volunteered to notify the guests about the cancellation.

Some guests, especially on our side of the family, complained about their nonrefundable plane tickets and demanded that we reimburse them. What is our obligation to these people? We are not in dire financial straits, but neither are they, and I feel that all financial support I can muster should be going to my daughter.

Emotionally, I am appalled that so many relatives and friends saw fit to complain and demand more from us instead of offering any words of support to my daughter. The only words that were offered were along the lines of, “I am sorry about your wedding, but can I have a few hundred dollars to cover my canceled plane ticket and my new dress?”

I cannot see this situation as anything other than them showing their true colors, and I don’t want to have any relationship with them anymore.

GENTLE READER: It never ceases to amaze Miss Manners how, even under the best circumstances, weddings -- a time for joy and warm family feelings -- consistently bring out the worst in people.

While your relatives have behaved abhorrently, they may well be rebelling against the circuslike atmosphere and financial outpouring that weddings typically incur. And now they feel that it was all for naught.

That does not condone their callous behavior; it just produces in Miss Manners a shred of sympathy for most modern wedding guests.

You have no financial obligation to these people other than returning any presents your daughter may have received. If you wanted to address your family and friends’ travel concerns, you could have hosted a gathering in the wedding’s stead -- presumably excusing your hapless daughter from attendance. But there is no reason to do so for such unfeeling people.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work in a large store, and this happens fairly often:

A customer’s child will misbehave: running around, grabbing and throwing items, knocking items from shelves. The customer will then point to me and tell the child that they need to stop, because “the employee will get mad at you!”

Instead of teaching the child to respect items and other shoppers at all times, the message is that a child should just be careful not to get caught. The parent also expects me to be the one who scolds the child and teaches a lesson, instead of them. What should I do or say in this situation?

GENTLE READER: “Oh I won’t get mad at you, but I’m afraid your mommy might be sad if she has to pay for broken merchandise or hospital bills.”

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have noticed that you are big on thank-you notes for everything.

You stay the night, you send a thank-you note.

You have dinner with somebody, you send a note.

You receive a gift, you send a note.

If I was expecting a thank-you note from everybody who ever spent the night at my house, I would have to get a mailbox the size of a mid-sized car. My teenager had company all the time, and I was always thanked and hugged. I never expected a written thank-you note. That would just be overkill, because the same people were present 80 percent of the time.

Same with gifts. Same with dinner. I never sent thank-you notes and my friends never did, either. We were always just happy with a verbal “thank you.”

Why is it so important to send a thank-you note? Isn’t that just a little too much thanking? This just seems like an unnecessary process if you are sincerely saying “thank you” at the time of services rendered.

My house and all my friends’ houses are open doors. We never have formal dinners; we have great fellowship at our get-togethers with lots of laughing and warm feelings.

I do send a thank-you email to my family when they host a big holiday party, and let them know that they did a great job and all was appreciated. Can you help me understand why I differ in my responses to my friends for their hospitality?

GENTLE READER: Yes, if you give Miss Manners one moment to ponder a world in which there is “too much thanking.” She is having trouble imagining such a sublime thing.

If you did not understand the pleasure of receiving written thanks, you would not be sending them to your family.

The rule for thanking people for presents is to respond in kind. If someone sends one through the mail and is not there to see you open it, you send a letter. For ones handed out in person, verbal thanks are generally enough (unless it is a significant piece of jewelry or an otherwise extraordinary -- or costly -- present).

For meals and overnight stays, it is dependent on the ceremony of the occasion. A formal dinner party requires a formal, written thank-you note. Pizza back at the house does not.

An open house situation, such as you described, is middle ground. Since there is ample reciprocation with you and your friends, verbal thanks are generally enough. However, if that situation were to become one-sided and a guest stayed for a longer period of time, a letter of thanks -- and even a present, for which the receiver would then have to thank the sender -- would again be required.

Whew. Got all that? Complicated as it may sound, it really is not. And Miss Manners still maintains that it is far better than a world without gratitude.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)