Introductions were everything in the Victorian Age
Of all the stereotypes we can pin on the Victorian middle and upper classes, being sexually liberated isn’t one of them. Their courtship rituals had none of the brashness or bravado of the dating scene today, where both men and women are free to approach each other ad lib and (within reason) be as open or direct as they choose. For Victorian men, introducing yourself was difficult; for Victorian women, it was nigh on impossible. If you saw someone you liked you had no option of going over and talking to him. You had to wait to be introduced.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that, among the still-socially stratified British, there was a strict social code dictating how people of different rank and social status could make acquaintance. Lesser-ranking individuals could not approach higher-ranking individuals unless express permission was granted. It was then the higher-ranking person’s prerogative to decide whether to continue seeing this person or to cut them from their friends.
While to us this seems incredibly backward, it would have made absolute sense to a Victorian mentality. One prerequisite of a satisfactory marriage was that it took place between two people of the same social standing. Marry someone poorer and it might be said that you were “marrying beneath you.” Marry someone richer and you might be accused of being an upstart.
One way in which the Victorians adhered to the courtship etiquette was that women were taught to be reverentially respectful towards men, just as men were taught to treat women as if they were ridiculously fragile. An offshoot of this was that it was seen as improper for a woman to use a man’s Christian name in everyday conversation. She was instead expected to address him as befitted a gentleman, using his surname.