Why are some cultures historically more modest than others?

Upvote:-1

This is completely hypothetical and quite a bit of guesswork, but around the world you can find examples how fashion or beauty ideals are derived from the lifestyles of the elites. E.g. sun tanning in pre- or post-industrialization Europe or in China, foot binding in China, changing ideals re. body figures etc.

In most cultures, nakedness (esp. partial male nakedness) will be associated with hard work, which automatically counts against it (e.g. Ancient Rome, European middle ages, 19th century Japan, socialist propaganda). Greece was somewhat special insofar as athletics were important enough to even be considered sacred. In athletics it is often better to wear less, and so nakedness may have come to appear less plebeian and more elitist. This article makes a similar point, but also adds some other aspects.

One common feature of elite lifestyles around the world is that women are not expected to work. For the Middle East, this means they can spend most of their time at home, protected from the sun and dust of the streets. If women did venture out of their houses, they would be expected to protect themselves from sun and dust by wearing veils and head scarfs etc. Clothes that are somewhat impractical when you are supposed to do real work in hot weather.

This covering up is not restricted to Islamic countries - farmers working in the fields in Europe used to wear head scarfs until a few decades ago. Female street sweepers in China definitely also tend to cover their hair and faces a lot. The difference to the Middle East is that farming and street sweeping are really lower-class occupations and that upper-class women would not need to protect their hair from getting dusty because they could quite easily avoid dusty conditions altogether.

But also see this wikipedia article which describes the veil's function in pre-Islamic societies much more in terms of social status rather than in terms of any practical usefulness.

That said, a few examples for not-so-modest Islamic art are the Arabian Nights, a statue from Hisham's palace in Jericho, or certain frescoes at the Chehel Sotun palace in Esfahan.

More post

Search Posts

Related post