Women dressing as men - was this illegal?

I read once that in Elizabethan times there were strict laws on dressing in higher status clothes, ie- a peasant dressing in Lord's clothing. Clothes played a significant part in dividing the classes.

Not really cross-dressing of course- more up-dressing- but a lady doing both would be a socio-cultural powder keg.
 
Toby, I've checked a few of my books to see if I could find anything else definite, but nothing so far. In particular I have a very good book on Restoration London (called, er, Restoration London...) which although a bit past your era does make a few references back. The author goes into great detail about women's and men's clothes -- 17 pages in all -- and for example notes that "Mourning had inflexible rules" (from societal pressure rather than legal proscription, though) but nowhere does she mention the possibility of women wearing men's clothes. She does say in reference to the men's fashion of wearing petticoat breeches, garments whcih were open "with no sewing up between the legs", that they could have produced "a frisson of cross-dressing" but that's it. She has a wonderful eye for quirkiness, though, so I'm sure that if there had been specific laws on the issue she would have mentioned them. Mind you, although she has a chapter on sex, she doesn't mention any instances of cross-dressing for sexual pleasure (perhaps the petticoat breeches were sufficient...)

I've also been thinking about the issue of Shakespeare's plays. In none of the commentary I've read about the cross-dressing boy actors has there been any note that these actions outside the theatre would have been prohibited. I think as others have said, that there would have been moral disapproval and worse if women were thought to be moving out of the sphere allotted to them, but I don't think there were laws as such. And again, in my forays into legal history I've never come across any court judgements or notes of conviction concerning such activities.

Good luck with the book - and I trust our doughty heroine is successful in her strategems.
 
After an intensive search on Google (a few seconds typing "cross dressing" elizabethan england ) I found this (on the first page of results):
Hic Mulier and Haec-Vir echo the debate surrounding the fad of female cross-dressing, adopted not just by lower-class women such as Long Meg of Westminster and Moll Cutpurse, but also noblewomen and citizens' wives. King James himself denounced the fad, which resulted in comment in the pulpits.

"Yesterday the Bishop of London called together all his Clergy about this town, and told them he had express commandment from the King to will them to inveigh vehemently and bitterly in their sermons against the insolency of our women, and their wearing of broad-brimmed hats, pointed doublets, their hair cut short or shorn, and some of them stilletos or poinards. (Swords) The truth is the world is very far out of order." John Chamberlain, reported to his friend Dudley Carleton on January 25, 1620
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there are Wiki entries on both pamphlets:
Both of those wiki pages have links to the text of both pamphlets.
 
In several Shakespeare plays, women dress up as men. Clearly this is something that could be mentioned on stage, if usually for comedy, but would it be illegal for a woman to wear men's clothing in real life? I gather that the 16th century authorities regarded playhouses as pretty rowdy and immoral, and (albeit a long time earlier) I think cross-dressing was one of the charges levelled at Joan of Arc.
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You have to be careful when talking about 16th Century authorities, as things changed on a daily basis back then! During that century England ceded from Rome, established the Church of England, became Proddy, became Papist again, became Proddy again, fought with Scotland and France, then allied with Scotland, fell out with them again, got friendly with France, fell out with France again, decided that France wasn't so bad after all even though we had finally lost Calais, fell out with the Dutch, decided that the Dutch were alright, fell out with Spain big time, then fell out with the Irish and then finally allowed the Stuarts to take the Crown on the strict understanding that they forgot they had ever been Scottish. This was only fair, as previous monarchs had been obliged to forget that they were French, following the away defeat that was the Hundred Years War, or Welsh/notherners following Bosworth Field.

Laws were passed and went unheeded, various religious nutters grandstanded against depravity (in others), the poor remained dirt poor and the rich pranced around in tights, eating marchpane and listening to woeful madrigals played by proto-Stings.

So: would the average Renaissance citizen (in, say, London in 1580) regard this as either an offence against creation, a crime or both? Any pointers on this would be greatly appreciated.
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I suspect not. There had been earlier laws about who wore what, but they had been primarily class based rather than gender based and were a throwback to feudalism. The jolly and frequent cross-dressing in the plays of Shakespeare, Congreve, Jonson et al suggests that cross dressing was regarded as a bit of a laugh rather than an offence against law or god - although the Puritans, Jesuits and the rest would have thought otherwise.

Joan of Arc was a good bit earlier - feudal habits were still dying hard. She was sold to the English after being captured by the Duke of Burgundy (I think - wiki fans may wish to correct me) and we did her in primarily out of revenge.

Regards,

Peter
 
"Yesterday the Bishop of London called together all his Clergy about this town, and told them he had express commandment from the King to will them to inveigh vehemently and bitterly in their sermons against the insolency of our women, and their wearing of broad-brimmed hats, pointed doublets, their hair cut short or shorn, and some of them stilletos or poinards. (Swords)
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Nothing said here about women wearing breeches instead of skirts, though. I've seen pictures of women wearing all these fashions -- but quite modestly attired in skirts, hoops, bum rolls etc.

It is interesting to note that it may have been enough for females to include a few items of "masculine" clothing while still dressed as women to earn the ire of the clergy.
 
Toby;

I suggest you get a copy of Medieval Women A social history of Women in England from 450-1500 by Henrietta Leyser. I know the period is a bit before the one you are looking at, but there are some wonderful tit-bits about attitudes to women, way of life, law etc.
 
Nope. Two articles about the book available through amazon.com, but not the book itself.

I see that it's not horribly expensive at amazon.co.uk (except for the shipping which would be difficult right now), but right next to it I see, which could be of use to Toby:

Women In England 1500-1760: A Social History (Women In History) by Anne Laurence

Not that I've read or could vouch for the book, but the period is right.
 
dustinzgirl said:
Yeah they did not allow women to act, so everyone on stage was a male in Shakespearean times.

Also, laws against women dressing as men exist today. In some countries, like Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan women were/are whipped and even killed for dressing like men. In Malaysia women can not wear the same clothes as men.

And in some countries, like France and Turkey, woman's traditional clothing, specifically the hijab, is outlawed.

But no where do we outlaw how men dress.

Interesting, no?
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I'm pretty sure Iraq has more pressing concerns than clothing to spend their time on. Even in Iran and Afghanistan, it's only certain areas that are under the control of hard-liners like Hezbollah and Taliban, respectively, where women might be whipped for wearing 'manly clothes'. (And most definitely not killed. It's generally not a good idea to drop such controversial statements so casually.)

As for Malaysia, that's just not true at all. They have no such law.

France's ban on hijab is more to do with bigotry than sexism, and Turkey's ban is virtually lifted, now. (Not that it was widely followed, anyway.)

And as for no laws regarding men - sorry, but you're wrong there, too. Pretty much all Muslim countries forbid men from wearing women's clothing (i.e. cross-dressing). Restrictions on cross-dressing isn't nearly the sexist issue that you're making it out to be.


P.S. I apologise for 'hijacking' the thread, but I feel very strongly that dissemination of information should be treated with care. It's very easy to unwittingly perpetuate false stereotypes about people and cultures we don't understand.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
It is interesting to note that it may have been enough for females to include a few items of "masculine" clothing while still dressed as women to earn the ire of the clergy.
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Certainly still the case as late as the Nineteeth century with the 'Pit girls' and their trousers. And unfair too, given that skirts would get caught in the conveyor belt machinery. Maybe someone should have let the clergy have a go at the job in their cassocks.
 
Even later than that, J-WO. Women wearing trousers in the 1920s and 30s were seen as morally dubious and I have no doubt there were fulminations against them. And it's only in the last 25-30 years that female lawyers were allowed to wear trousers in court.
 
To be fair, the courts haven't been in the vanguard of clothing fashion in recent years (centuries) in the UK.








(Please tell me there's been a case - perhaps '25-30 years' ago - where some grumpy old judge has seen a female barrister wearing trousers and demanded: "Take those off at once!")
 
Not in the courtroom, as far as I recall.
 
When I was a young woman going to our community college, they made a change to the dress code so that women would be allowed to wear slacks -- but it was not to be a permanent change until they saw how it all worked out, and we were not allowed to wear jeans.

What it was they feared would happen if it didn't work out, I have never known. I also wondered then, and still wonder now, why the young men were allowed the informality of jeans and we were not.

This was in 1968 -- about a year after the High School I had attended outlawed culottes, and a couple of years after "granny dresses" were ruled improper (supposedly high-necked, full-length, long-sleeved calico dresses were too much like nightgowns and were therefore deeply suggestive). This was amusing, considering how many girls were being sent home to change their clothes or given detention because their skirts were too short.

It is less than half a century, in the great land of freedom that is the USA, since females of all ages were given permission to dress like men -- or even like their own great-grandmothers.
 
DA said:
France's ban on hijab is more to do with bigotry than sexism
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France's ban on the hijab is because it's not French...remember this is the only country in the world to have an official state department charged with maintaining the purity of the language, with the power to ban words that aren't French enough.



TE said:
I also wondered then, and still wonder now, why the young men were allowed the informality of jeans and we were not.
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Probably because generally speaking, what men wear is not regarded as a clue to their sexual mores, and what women wear is?...
 
pyan said:
Probably because generally speaking, what men wear is not regarded as a clue to their sexual mores, and what women wear is?...
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Except that I don't remember that jeans had all of those sexual associations back then. No Calvin Klein, no sexually suggestive billboards featuring half-naked young people in tight jeans ...

But maybe it was an unspoken belief (and this leads back to the original discussion, where the idea was more openly expressed) that women who dressed like men must be suspected of practicing the same sexual freedoms as men.

Which would set up all sorts of naughty thoughts in the male students and distract them from their studies.
 
pyan said:
France's ban on the hijab is because it's not French...remember this is the only country in the world to have an official state department charged with maintaining the purity of the language, with the power to ban words that aren't French enough.
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I don't believe that for more than 2.3 seconds. Give me 11 other examples of France banning items of clothing because they weren't French.
 
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