Locke: Clothes

Some Thoughts Concerning Education - by John Locke, 1693

§ 11 Clothes. One thing the mention of the girls brings into my mind, which must not be forgot; and that is, that your son's clothes be never made strait, especially about the breast. Let Nature have scope to fashion the body as she thinks best. She works of herself a great deal better and exacter than we can direct her. And if women were themselves to frame the bodies of their children in their wombs, as they often endeavour to mend their shapes, when they are out, we should as certainly have no perfect children born, as we have few well-shaped that are straitlaced, or much tampered with. This consideration should methinks keep busy people (I will not say ignorant nurses and bodice-makers) from meddling in a matter they understand not,and they should be afraid to put Nature out of her way in fashioning the parts, when they know not how the least and meanest is made. And yet I have seen so many instances of children receiving great harm from strait-lacing, that I cannot but conclude there are other creatures as well as monkeys, who, little wiser than they, destroy their young ones by senseless fondness, and too much embracing.

§ 12 Narrow breasts, short and stinking breath, ill lungs, and crookedness, are the natural and almost constant effects of hard bodice, and clothes that pinch. That way of making slender wastes, and fine shapes, serves but the more effectually to spoil them. Nor can there indeed but be disproportion in the parts, when the nourishment prepared in the several offices of the body cannot be distributed as Nature designs. And therefore what wonder is it, if, being laid where it can, on some part not so braced, it often makes a shoulder or hip higher or bigger than its just proportion ? 'Tis generally known, that the women of China, (imagining I know not what kind of beauty in it) by bracing and binding them hard from their infancy; have very little feet. I saw lately a pair of China shoes, which I was told were for a grown woman: they were so exceedingly disproportioned to the feet of one of the same age among us, that they would scarce have been big enough for one of our little girls. Besides this, 'tis observed that their women are also very little, and short-lived; whereas the men are of the ordinary stature of other men, and live to a proportionable age. These defects in the female sex of that country, are by some imputed to the unreasonable binding of their feet, whereby the free circulation of the blood is hindered, and the growth and health of the whole body suffers. And how often do we see, that some small part of the foot being injured by a wrench or a blow, the whole leg or thigh thereby lost their strength and nourishment, and dwindle away? How much greater inconveniencies may we expect, when the thorax, wherein is placed the heart and seat of life, is unnaturally compressed, and hindered from its due expansion?