Dinner was delicious, the ambience was enjoyable, and the company of friends and family was heartwarming. Now it’s time to pay the bill. The waiter or waitress takes your card and soon returns with a receipt that requires a signature. Wait. There’s also a couple of blank lines under the total of the meal. One of them is for a tip, which you determine and add to the receipt. How much should you pay? Fifteen percent? Twenty? Should you even add a tip? It can be a little perplexing to decide, but most people do it anyway.

Adding a tip (aka gratuity) when paying for a meal or service is commonplace, but it’s not a product of modern society. In fact, the practice of tipping started in Tudor England during medieval times. Tipping was a master-serf custom in which masters paid serfs extra money for doing their jobs exceptionally well. In other words, the serfs got tips  for going above and beyond expectations and requirements.

By the 17th century, tipping became common in England’s hospitality business and carried over into London’s coffeehouse industry. By this time, the practice of tipping had become a way for those paying the gratuity to give off an air of aristocracy, which they may not have actually had.

As many of the United States’ early customs did, tipping found its way from England across the Atlantic, arriving as early as the 1850s. While Americans practiced tipping in the 19th century, it wasn’t until the early 1900s that it caught on and became common. In the early days of its arrival in the U.S., Americans found tipping to be inconsistent with a democratic society, a way to place oneself above another in the social structure.

Employers viewed tipping as a way for customers to bribe employees into get something that was otherwise not allowed, like a larger portion of food. So staunch was the resistance to tipping in the U.S., that six states enacted laws making the practice illegal.

Prohibition in the 1920s helped turn the tide in the war against tipping as restaurants and hotels lost a lot of money from not being able to sell alcohol. These business owners soon embraced tipping as a form to supplement employees’ wages, which is pretty much what it does today.

Why do you tip? The answer to that question varies from person to person, but according to research, there are five main reasons people tip:

1. Showing off
2. To supplement the server’s income and make him/her happy
3. To improve future service
4. To avoid the server’s disapproval
5. A sense of duty

It’s likely that several of these reasons influence the practice of tipping for most people. Which of them apply to you?

How much to tip is a topic for another article, but suffice it to say, tipping has become more of an expectation than anything else. Tipping is now expected for service that requires very little service, like at drive-thru windows and when picking up takeout.

Whatever your reason for tipping, is it a practice you agree with completely, or one you give into because you want to go with the flow?

Food for thought for the next time you think about paying for food (or other services).