Don't worry, ma'am. We don't curtsy, but we do bow and scrape

Another of this country's great traditions died last week, with a half-page obituary in The Daily Telegraph. Henceforth, by order of the Duke of Kent – an event of such moment requires this sort of language, I feel – players on Wimbledon's Centre Court will no longer have to bow or curtsy to the royal box. This means the end of a ritual which has baffled foreign players since it was introduced in 1922, as Martina Navratilova confirmed when she forgot to genuflect to the Duke early in her Wimbledon career. "I'd never been through something like that before," explained the shaken tennis star. "Usually at tournaments they give you a cheque, you thank everybody and leave."

Not here, Martina. This is England and we don't do things like that, as Tuesday's announcement unwittingly confirmed. Officials at the All England Club said the Duke felt the tradition was on its way out and "we respect his views on that", thus providing the delicious spectacle of a deferential response to a ducal acknowledgement of the decline of deference.

I suppose I should know better, but it always comes as news to me that anyone takes such rituals seriously – other than Madonna, of course, who was spotted nervously practising her curtsy before the royal premiere of the latest James Bond film, Die Another Day. There could hardly be a better opportunity

for the singer to demonstrate her metamorphosis from sexual rebel to lady of the manor than an encounter with the Queen, and naturally the poor woman wanted to get it right.

But it is hard to see what useful function, other than fuelling rich Americans' fantasies, these creaking ceremonies fulfil. For most of us, it is possible to spend many years untroubled by their existence, as I did until I attended a literary banquet in a smart London hotel some years ago. Royalty was not actually present, unless you count Joan Collins, who was holding court in a semi-regal manner, but that did not stop someone getting up and proposing the loyal toast. The guests rose as one, or rather minus one since I remained in my seat, prompting hisses of "get up" from every direction. "But I'm not loyal," I responded, admittedly in a rather carrying voice, only to have my chair yanked from under me by an outraged flunkey. The spectacle of an English author in a scarlet cocktail dress, unseated for expressing republican views in Mayfair, was sufficiently arresting to get a mention in The New York Times, and I still think of it as one of my finest moments.

The anecdote also underlines the fact that deference is a rather sinister phenomenon, requiring a "voluntary" collusion in all sorts of anachronistic beliefs about birth and social position. What has the Duke of Kent ever done, apart from being president of a rather snooty tennis club, to deserve having the world's finest athletes bow and scrape before him? It is not even as if the tradition has finally been laid to rest, for it turns out that the Duke's reforms will not apply if the Queen or the Prince of Wales turn up at the championship. That such gradations are still considered important enough for serious discussion is a joke in a 21st-century democracy, as well as demonstrating how ingrained snobbery is in some quarters.

If we lived in a truly egalitarian society, Cherie Blair would not have found herself on the receiving end of spiteful comments when she made it clear that she would not curtsy to the Queen; the monarch is said to have remarked that Mrs Blair's knees stiffen as soon as she walks into a room containing royalty, suggesting that the Queen enjoys her discomfiture.

This is a blow to the argument that members of the Royal Family are secretly rather amused by people's obsequiousness towards them, especially as it is clear from the Charles-and-Diana saga that they spend an inordinate amount of time competing among themselves for meaningless titles. I don't even like Miss or Ms but then I'm a girl from a council estate and, unlike the royals, I can't imagine why anyone would get worked up about having the letters HRH before their name.

Behind today's more informal manners, however, the old edifice of deference is still distressingly intact. If anything, there has been a resurgence of confidence among the ruling class in recent years, fuelled by an unhealthy media obsession with brainless girls with titles. The Hons and Ladies may have been joined by a new aristocracy based on money and celebrity, but MPs still have to swear an oath to the monarch and most of them willingly troop off for a two-minute audience at Buckingham Palace, demonstrating that while the old system of privilege continues to exist, plenty of people are eager to get a piece of it. And while it is tempting to see the demise of the curtsy on ceremonial occasions as progress, I can't help wondering if it's a revolution when a royal duke gives you permission not to do it.