Clothes: Moral or Immoral ?

By MARTIN WYLIE

"And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."

FROM the above, it is easy to be seen what an early influence clothes have had upon mankind. The quotation is from the Old Testament, the twenty-fifth chapter of Genesis, so even at that period, we learn that Nudism was practiced in the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve, man and woman, were together in the Garden of Eden, "naked and unashamed!" Can anyone say that they were immoral? It was only because of their attempt to hide their bodies, that misfortune befell them. They were sent forth and banished from their home by God, because they wore clothes!

Just why the wearing of fig leaves, was thought to be a necessity, is a moot question. Perhaps in Eve's mind there was the coquetry complex— the desire to further attract the man: and perhaps on Adam's part, there was a desire for semi-secrecy, in order to exercise a more dominant influence and power over "the female of the species."

This is not a far-fetched deduction, as the same biological urge, which has become a cosmic scheme, is not only apparent in the lower forms of animal life, but also in the more highly civilized and accentuated types of what we are pleased to term "superior" beings.

Birds, beasts, and snakes, may be taken as examples. Birds moult, change their plumage, beasts change their outer covering, snakes shed their skin. even the cock's comb is more vivid at certain times.

And so with the higher animals, the male, and more frequently the female, change not only their clothes, but sad to relate, their bodies!

The majority of manly men, as a rule, do not attempt to attract the female species by the same token. They appeal rather by their ability to make money: intellectual attainments; ability to entertain: cleanliness; or apparent virility as evinced by their physical appearance of health and strength.

We find the styles in women's clothes change not only from year to year. but from season to season, and perhaps more frequently than that. Women wear different hats, change their dresses more frequently than the average man changes his clothes; make up their faces, their nails, have their eyebrows plucked, smear their lips full of varihued cosmetics, changing the shade from time to time, when one tint fails to attract any l onger, titivate, and spend perhaps more time and money on their hair, than upon any other part of their body. There is a particular reason for this hair obsession, which is a sort of fetish.

In a few words, women constantly change their clothes; raise their skirts in order to display more of their legs: lower the neck-line to expose more of their breasts; narrow their skirts to accentuate the rear aspect; and employ one hundred and one other little tricks, to focus the male's attention upon the various parts of their body, which at another time, they try to hide. So we have from the hoop skirt of the mid-Victorian era, through the peek-a-boo waist, and sheath-skirt periods, up to the present-day abbreviated, next-to-nothing bathing suits; the nudity of the burlesque show; the fan-dance type; an ever-changing kaleidoscopic succession of especially directed attempts by the female, to attract, to intrigue, and subjugate, by reason of their bodies, and their sex, the male. This may be, and in most cases is, a direct and conscious effort on the part of the female, to sexually attract the male.

The matter of morality or immorality, as shown by a geographic difference of opinion, is rather amusing in its inconsistency. For instance, in one part of the country, it is considered immoral to show one's legs, let us say, above the knee; while perhaps "Forty-five minutes from Broadway." it is quite au fait, to show them as high, as the bathing suit will stretch. In certain foreign countries, it is considered immoral to display the uncovered breasts, while no attention is paid whatsoever to what we, the "civilized," consider more intimate portions of the anatomy. Relative to this, an incident is on record of a traveler who was journeying on horseback, and approached a field in which quite a number of women were working. It was mid-day, and the sun was at its zenith. The blistering rays were so severe upon the workers. who had been covered from the waist up only. that they had decided to lower their waists, thinking they were safe and free from intrusion. Startled by the approaching sounds of the horses, they immediately raised their lowered waists, and held them before their breasts. leaving the remainder of their bodies below the waist-line uncovered until the traveler passed.

Indians, pigmies, and other cannibalistic tribes torture and deform their bodies, with many pounds of heavy chains, rings, anklets, and bracelets, file their teeth, mutilate themselves, tattoo pictures, and go through a variety of other almost unbelievable performances, in an attempt to make themselves more attractive, after the male and female stimulus has been worn to a frazzle by reason of the monotony of propinquity and "Time's toll."

This may seem archaic, but is it not true in our own country? Is it not a fact that for the last decade, women have done more to injure their looks, their health, their ability to bring strong, sound, perfect children into the world, by reason of their insistence upon interfering with God's handiwork? About the only good they may be said to have done, is to have furnished the doctor and the undertaker with a little more coin of the realm.

Is it not a fact that "our" women have bobbed their hair, baked it in cell-destroying heats; changed the waist-line: pierced their ears; cramped their feet; contorted theft toes into all manners of strange shapes until, in some, the little toes are scarcely rudimentary; raised their arches by reason of stilt-like appurtenances attached to the rear of their so-called slippers: c hanged the shape and flex of their calves, throwing forward their abdomen, internally changing the position of their more important organs, the uterus, the bladder, ovaries, and other organs which should have the greatest care; interfered with their digestion, alimentation, menstrual periods, and other functions?

Is it not also true that, from the corset-wearing days, when waists were squeezed into spaces for which they were never intended, and the internal organs were forced both upward and especially downward, interfering with the breathing, digestion, and other bodily functions, to the detriment of the unborn embryo, and the about to be delivered foetus—to the present-day wearing of appendages to confine, to squash, to make pendulous women's breasts—to acquire the "boyish form", to become thin—to diet—to starve, many women, have so interfered with themselves, they have brought into the world unhappy. unhealthy, mis-shapen, and mentally-deficient offspring, as a result of their own particular desire and attempt to interfere with nature? Is it not true that countless women, previously in very good health, have simply "passed out of the picture" by reason of taking a great many nostrums, and little or no food. So are we far in advance of what is decried as "civilization"?

It may be easily deduced, therefore, without a great deal of complicated analysis. that the wearing of clothes has, is, and always will be, more immoral than moral; and by the same process of deduction. it is evident that the lack of clothes, of all clothes is decidedly more moral, than otherwise.

Bromidic utterances, oft quoted, create. and leave false impressions. For instance: "Clothes Make The Man." Never was there a more trite, more untrue aphorism—clothes never make the man, nor the woman either for that matter. Really clothes UNMAKE the man.

Contrast the above: "Never Judge A Book By Its Cover"; and how are we to reconcile the two.

Of course, perhaps, we are not suppose to take these sayings literally. and yet they leave a literal impression as to their meaning, without any possible verification as to their actuality.

Relative to apparel, it was Thompson who wrote: Her polish'd limbs Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire: Beyond the pomp of dress; for Loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament. But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most"

As clothes are unnatural, so also are those who wear them, in a sense, unnatural. Unnatural in their movements to meet the limitations of their attire. They neither breathe naturally, move naturally, nor act naturally, but as clothes and custom have dictated they should act according to the popular public taste or seem obscene.

The point has been raised that clothes were originally intended as a protective measure against the elements: and as such, are now, a necessity. This, of course, in some localities, is a verity: and yet, it has become a necessity only because of wrong methods of procedure practiced by the misguided, for centuries. Records of early human existence show no such necessity; and furthermore a full quota of diseases now prevalent since the wearing of clothes was inaugurated, were absolutely unknown to the clotheless generations. There seems to be no room for disagreement, that tight corsets of the hour-glass waist era, wrought untold harms, together with all the other silly, inane contraptions affected by women to this day. One recalls, no doubt, the old-fashioned muffler, tightly bound about the throat which, in keeping away the air and sunshine, caused countless sore throats, diptheria. tonsilitis, and other diseases of the respiratory tract. Has it been so many years since we bundled ourselves with countless wrap-pings before we braved the elements, until we resembled a babe in its swaddling clothes? Other follies might be disclosed, but these will suffice to illustrate the point.

Ask any doctor, scientist, or fair-minded person of intelligence, whether clothes have not been a contributory factor toward moral and physical disintegration, and the answer, almost without dissent, will be ''Yes."

Paris, for many years, has been the dictator of style in women's clothes, and yet in Paris, women wear, each year, less and less to cover their bodies. More recently both Vienna and Berlin have become stylists, in an attempt to vie with the famous French city as dictators of what women should wear, and yet, Germany has gone in for wearing less clothing than any other civilized country. Despite the fact that Hitlerism has pronounced an edict against the rights of those who see fit to live as they wish, nudism is just as freely practised as before. and even more so, though not so openly. So it is a case of not doing what I do, but what I say.

It is more than safe to assume that neither Hitlerism. nor any other "ism," will suffice to offset a popular public opinion, once it has gained such an impetus as nudism has effected. It is also safe to say that persons who have made up their minds not to wear clothes at certain times, will not; as well as to prophesy that with the dawn of a new era, perchance together with the birth of a new generation, the clothes of today will repose in the museums, together with the armor of a by-gone existence, to be ridiculed by an enlightened populace, and wondered at.