CHAPTER XI: FASHION.

§ 423. To say nothing about Fashion under the general head of Ceremonial Institution would be to leave a gap; and yet Fashion is difficult to deal with in a systematic manner. Throughout the several forms of social control thus far treated, we have found certain pervading characters traceable to common origins; and the conclusions reached have hence been definite. But those miscellaneous and ever-changing regulations of conduct which the name Fashion covers, are not similarly interpretable; nor does any single interpretation suffice for them all.

In the Mutilations, the Presents, the Visits, the Obeisances, the Forms of Address, the Titles, the Badges and Costumes, &c. we see enforced, not likeness between the acts of higher and lower, but unlikeness: that which the ruler does the ruled must not do; and that which the ruled is commanded to do is that which is avoided by the ruler. But in those modifications of behaviour, dress, mode of life, &c., which constitute Fashion, likeness instead of unlikeness is insisted upon. Respect must be shown by following the example of those in authority, not by differing from them. How does there arise this contrariety?

The explanation appears to be this. Fashion is intrinsically imitative. Imitation may result from two widely divergent motives. It may be prompted by reverence for one imitated, or it may be prompted by the desire to assert Edition: current; Page: [211] equality with him. Between the imitations prompted by these unlike motives, no clear distinction can be drawn; and hence results the possibility of a transition from those reverential imitations going along with much subordination, to those competitive imitations characterizing a state of comparative independence.

Setting out with this idea as our clue, let us observe how the reverential imitations are initiated, and how there begins the transition from them to the competitive imitations.

§ 424. Given a society characterized by servile submission, and in what cases will a superior be propitiated by the imitations of an inferior? In respect of what traits will assumption of equality with him be complimentary? Only in respect of his defects.

From the usages of those tyrannically-ceremonious savages the Fijians, may be given an instance well illustrating the motive and the result.

“A chief was one day going over a mountain-path, followed by a long string of his people, when he happened to stumble and fall; all the rest of the people immediately did the same, except one man, who was instantly set upon by the rest, to know whether he considered himself better than his chief.”

And Williams, describing his attempt to cross a slippery bridge formed of a single cocoa-nut stem, writes:—

“Just as I commenced the experiment, a heathen said, with much animation, ‘To-day, I shall have a musket!’ . . . When I asked him why he spoke of a musket, the man replied, ‘I felt certain that you would fall in attempting to go over, and I should have fallen after you;’ [that is, it appeared to be equally clumsy;] ‘and as the bridge is high, the water rapid, and you a gentleman, you would not have thought of giving me less than a musket.’ ”

Even more startling is a kindred practice in Africa, among the people of Darfur. “If the Sultan, being on horseback, happens to fall off, all his followers must fall off likewise; and should anyone omit this formality, however great he may be, he is laid down and beaten.”

Such examples of endeavours to please a ruler by avoiding any appearance of superiority to him, seem less incredible than they would else seem, on finding that among European peoples there have occurred, if not like examples, still, analogous examples. In 1461 Duke Philip of Burgundy having had his hair cut during an illness, “issued an edict that all the nobles of his state should be shorn also. More than five hundred persons . . . sacrificed their hair.” From this instance, in which the ruler insisted on having his defect imitated by the ruled against their wills (for many disobeyed), we may pass to a later instance in which a kindred imitation was voluntary. In France, in 1665, after the operation on Lewis XIV for fistula, the royal infirmity became the fashion among the courtiers.

“Some who had previously taken care to conceal it were now not ashamed to let it be known. There were even courtiers who chose to be operated on in Versailles, because the king was then informed of all the circumstances of the malady. . . . I have seen more than thirty wishing to be operated on, and whose folly was so great that they were annoyed when told that there was no occasion to do so.”

And now if with cases like these we join cases in which a modification of dress which a king adopts to hide a defect (such as a deep neckcloth where a scrofulous neck has to be concealed) is imitated by courtiers, and spreads downwards; we see how from that desire to propitiate which prompts the pretence of having a like defect, there may result fashion in dress; and how from approval of imitations of this kind may insensibly come tolerance of other imitations.

§ 425. Not that such a cause would produce such an effect by itself. There is a co-operating cause which takes advantage of the openings thus made. Competitive imitation, ever going as far as authority allows, turns to its own advantage every opportunity which reverential imitation makes.

This competitive imitation begins quite as early as the reverential. Members of savage tribes are not unfrequently led by the desire for applause into expenditure relatively more lavish than are the civilized. There are barbarous peoples among whom the expected hospitalities on the occasion of a daughter’s marriage, are so costly as to excuse female infanticide, on the ground that the ruinous expense which rearing the daughter would eventually entail is thus avoided. Thomson and Angas unite in describing the extravagance into which the New Zealand chiefs are impelled by fashion in giving great feasts, as often causing famines—feasts for which chiefs begin to provide a year before: each being expected to out-do his neighbours in prodigality. And the motive thus coming into play early in social evolution, and making equals vie with one another in display, similarly all along prompts the lower to vie, so far as they are allowed, with the higher. Everywhere and always the tendency of the inferior to assert himself has been in antagonism with the restraints imposed on him; and a prevalent way of asserting himself has been to adopt costumes and appliances and customs like those of his superior. Habitually there have been a few of subordinate rank who, for one reason or other, have been allowed to encroach by imitating the ranks above; and habitually the tendency has been to multiply the precedents for imitation, and so to establish for wider classes the freedom to live and dress in ways like those of the narrower classes.

Especially has this happened as fast as rank and wealth have ceased to be coincident—as fast, that is, as industrialism has produced men rich enough to compete in style of living with those above them in rank. Partly from the greater means, and partly from the consequent greater power, acquired by the upper grades of producers and distributors; and partly from the increasing importance of the financial aid they can give to the governing classes in public and private affairs; there has been an ever-decreasing resistance Edition: current; Page: [214] to the adoption by them of usages originally forbidden to all but the high born. The restraints in earlier times enacted and re-enacted by sumptuary laws, have been gradually relaxed; until the imitation of superiors by inferiors, spreading continually downwards, has ceased to be checked by anything more than sarcasm and ridicule.

§ 426. Entangled and confused with one another as Ceremonial and Fashion are, they have thus different origins and meanings: the first being proper to the régime of compulsory co-operation, and the last being proper to the régime of voluntary co-operation. Clearly there is an essential distinction, and, indeed, an opposition in nature, between behaviour required by subordination to the great and behaviour resulting from imitation of the great.

It is true that the regulations of conduct here distinguished, are ordinarily fused into one aggregate of social regulations. It is true that certain ceremonial forms come to be fulfilled as parts of the prevailing fashion; and that certain elements of fashion, as for instance the order of courses at a dinner, come to be thought of as elements of ceremonial. And it is true that both are now enforced by an unembodied opinion which appears to be the same for each. But, as we have seen above, this is an illusion. Though when, in our day, a wealthy quaker, refusing to wear the dress worn by those of like means, refuses also to take off his hat to a superior, we commonly regard these nonconformities as the same in nature; we are shown that they are not, if we go back to the days when the salute to the superior was insisted on under penalty, while the imitation of the superior’s dress, so far from being insisted on, was forbidden. Two different authorities are defied by his acts—the authority of class-rule, which once dictated such obeisances; and the authority of social opinion, which thinks nonconformities in dress imply inferior status.

So that, strange to say, Fashion, as distinguished from Edition: current; Page: [215] Ceremony, is an accompaniment of the industrial type as distinguished from the militant type. It needs but to observe that by using silver forks at his table, the tradesman in so far asserts his equality with the squire; or still better to observe how the servant-maid out for her holiday competes with her mistress in displaying the last style of bonnet; to see how the regulations of conduct grouped under the name Fashion, imply that increasing liberty which goes along with the substitution of peaceful activities for warlike activities.

As now existing, Fashion is a form of social regulation analogous to constitutional government as a form of political regulation: displaying, as it does, a compromise between governmental coercion and individual freedom. Just as, along with the transition from compulsory co-operation to voluntary co-operation in public action, there has been a growth of the representative agency serving to express the average volition; so has there been a growth of this indefinite aggregate of wealthy and cultured people, whose consensus of habits rules the private life of society at large. And it is observable in the one case as in the other, that this ever-changing compromise between restraint and freedom, tends towards increase of freedom. For while, on the average, governmental control of individual action decreases, there is a decrease in the rigidity of Fashion; as is shown by the greater latitude of private judgment exercised within certain vaguely marked limits.

Imitative, then, from the beginning, first of a superior’s defects, and then, little by little, of other traits peculiar to him, Fashion has ever tended towards equalization. Serving to obscure, and eventually to obliterate, the marks of class-distinction, it has favoured the growth of individuality; and by so doing has aided in weakening Ceremonial, which implies subordination of the individual.