Woman's Dress, by Mrs. M. Jones

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 12, 1865

Woman's Dress,

By Mrs. M. Jones

MAN’S dress is allowed to fit his body; woman’s body is compelled to fit her dress. His chest and waist need no compressing—they were created perfect, and so are allowed to develop naturally, as God designed them; but she—her Maker’s “last best gift to man”—in fashion’s eye, a sad mistake was made in her creation. The beautifully rounded waist, so full, so perfect, with room within for all the vital organs to play their part in the great drama of physical life, is so “very ungenteel, so vulgar!” And so the little girl, whose form up to the age of thirteen or fourteen years has been left to grow as free and as untrammeled as her brother’s, must now begin to pay attention to her figure. The short dress is lengthened down to sweep the floor; the childish waist, so comfortably loose, is laid aside forever; and, encased in whale-bones, if not in corsets, with a dress so tight that an attempt to take a free breath would endanger every hook and eye upon it, but which fashion says fits so neatly, the process of improving God’s handiwork begins. The muscles of the chest, denied development, become enfeebled by disease, and gradually shrink away, causing the waist to diminish in size; the heart labors ineffectually to properly circulate the blood through the arteries, capillaries, and veins; the ribs, forced downward, and inward, press upon the vital organs, often crowding the abdominal viscera out of position; while the poor lungs, crowded, stifled, unable to more than half expand, become the ready seat of fatal disease. And as she grows older, additional stayes are deemed essential, corset strings are drawn tighter, the dress fits still “more neatly,” and by the time she has arrived at womanhood, the goal is won! She has reached the genuine wasp-waist standard, and fashion decides her figure to be “elegant.” An “elegant figure!” Shade of Venus de Medicis, preserve us! Lamented Hiram Powers, what a sad mistake you made when you fashioned the Greek Slave! An “elegant figure;” and what else has she in addition? An aching head, weak back, disordered liver, and shattered lungs. And yet, with effects following as surely in the wake of their causes as the sunshine follows shade, she cannot see her dress has anything to do with her sickness. Not one woman in a thousand will acknowledge that her dress is right. “See how loose it is!” she tells you, as holding her breath, and taking up a fold in front, she deems you have convincing proof; when, if her dress were but unfastened, and she were to breathe naturally, it would barely reach together within three inches. From the crown of her head to the sole of her foot, there is hardly one article of woman’s dress that is really what it should be.—Mrs. M. Jones.