Whenever one sex is dominant there is a tendency to differentiate male and female costume. The more completely one sex dominates the greater will be the differences in clothes, and as the sexes become equal the differences disappear. When the two sexes are really equal they will wear the same clothing.
The clothing of the dominant sex usually tends to be uniform and tasteless, that of the subordinate to be varied and richly ornamented. To-day man is still dominant, and his clothes are monotonous, dull, and less subject to shifts of fashion. Especially in formal dress he wears a sort of uniform. All men, of whatever age or position, wear dress clothes of the same cut and color. A grandfather wears a dinner coat exactly like that of his eighteen-year-old grandson. This seems natural, but the situation is reversed with the subordinate sex, most completely when the subordination is most complete. Only twenty or thirty years ago it was a crime in Germany for a mother to dress as “youthfully” as her unmarried daughter. A grandmother who dared to dress like her eighteen-year-old granddaughter would have been laughed to scorn. As woman’s power has grown, this has changed. Custom no longer requires a grandmother to emphasize her age by her clothes.
Where woman dominates she tends to wear darker and plainer clothing and the man dresses himself more richly and variously. Erman writes of the old Egyptians:
While according to our conceptions it befits the woman to love finery and ornament, the Egyptians of the old Empire seem to have had an opposite opinion. Beside the elaborate costumes of the men the women’s clothing seems very monotonous, for, from the fourth to the eighteenth dynasty, all, from the king’s daughter to the peasant woman, wore the same garb—a simple garment without folds.
Herodotus, indeed, reported that Egyptian men had two suits, women only one. Erman naturally cannot explain the simplicity of the women’s clothes and the eagerness of the men for color and ornament, because it contradicted current theories of the character of the two sexes. To-day the view is current which Runge expressed when he said that “Women’s desire to please and love of ornament is dependent upon her sex life.” This view, though still common, is fundamentally false. The inclination to bright and ornamental clothing is dependent not upon sex but upon the power-relation of the sexes. The subordinate sex, whether male or female, seeks ornament. Strabo tells of the love of finery and cult of the body among Lybian men. They curled their hair, even their beards, wore gold ornaments, diligently brushed their teeth and polished their finger-nails. “They arrange their hair so tenderly,” he writes, “that when walking they never touch one another, in order not to disturb it.” It is usual in states where women are dominant for the men to wear long hair and pay particular attention to their barbering. The men of Tana, in the Hebrides, wore their hair 18 to 20 inches long, divided into six or seven hundred tiny locks, in the days when women ruled. Among the Latuka the men wore their hair so elaborately that it took ten years to arrange it. The Konds also wore very long hair, elaborately arranged.
The stronger tendency of the subordinate sex to ornamentation apparently is closely related to the division of labor. The subordinate sex, working at home, has more leisure and opportunity for ornament than the dominant. Furthermore, leisure stimulates the erotic feelings. Since the partner does not share the leisure the lonely erotic often seeks a way out in self-ornamentation. At the same time the ornament is intended for the partner, for the stimulated eroticism increases the desire to please the other sex.
When the sexes are equal the clothes of the two sexes tend to be alike. We have noted that the Cingalese were physically similar; their clothes were exactly the same. The only difference was that the men wore a mother-of-pearl comb in the hair, the women none. Among the Lepka the sexes can be distinguished only by the fact that the men wear their hair in two braids, the women in one. Tacitus reports that the old Germans wore the same clothes and wore their hair alike.
We can observe the tendency to similarity of costume in this transition period. Many such attempts fail the first time, but finally succeed. More than a decade ago Paris attempted to establish a fashion of knickerbockers and bobbed hair. The attempt failed, but to-day the bobbed head has invaded every civilized country, almost in direct proportion to the degree in which women have acquired equal rights. It is reported from England that English women can already go to their work in trousers, heavy shoes, and short hair without exciting attention. The reader may judge of the accuracy of these reports. In Germany the police forbid one sex to wear the clothes of the other, but during the war when German women had to enter male trades they usually wore men’s clothing.
Among men too the tendency to similarity is evident. Thirty years ago the beard was a generally accepted sign of manhood; it has fallen out of fashion. In the Youth Movement there is a tendency to leave the shirt open at the neck and to adopt a hair-cut like a bobbed girl’s. A note in Jean Paul’s “Levana,” which appeared in 1806, is interesting. He writes: “A few years ago it was fashionable in Russia for the men to fill out their clothing with high false bosoms.” That was in the days following the French Revolution, when a short wave of freedom, even for women, swept across the earth. It showed also in the women’s fashion which Jean Paul mentions:
A fortunate accident for daughters is the Grecian costume of the present Gymnosophists (naked female runners), which, it is true, injures the mothers but hardens the daughters; for as age and custom should avoid every fresh cold so youth exercises itself on it as on every hardship until it can bear greater.... So, likewise, the present naked manner of dressing is a cold bath into which the daughters are dipped, who are exhilarated by it.