Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mib@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: QUESTION FASHION Message-ID: Date: 7 Jun 91 03:12:20 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Free Software Foundation, Cambridge, MA Lines: 27 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article MNHCC@cunyvm.bitnet writes: Any general library should have books on the history of fashion. Ask a librarian if you can't find them by yourself. You are correct that people wore robes in Biblical times, not trousers. I think the basic Biblical teaching is that men should not dress like women and women should not dress like men. The garments that men or women should not wear will vary from one society to another and from one era to another. The interesting question is what the standards should be when styles are changing. A century ago, women never wore pants (with the exception of George Sand :-)). But the style has changed, and now women wear pants quite regularly. At what point did the style change, and it became acceptable for women to wear pants? Someone posted a couple days ago about a church where the women never wore pants. Have they not recognized the change in style? Suppose men were to start wearing skirts (I'm told they can be comfortable sometimes). At what point does it become fashion, and thus acceptable? When it's 10%? 20%? And, if it is wrong to dress outside the fashion's gender roles, when does the fashion ever change? Just appealing to "fashion" doesn't seem to answer the question very well. (Of course, the law in question is found in the book of Leviticus, so I'm not too inclined to take it as authoritative anyway.) -mib