It is the maternal function, in sacred and
profane figures alike, which marks the whole type--indeed, the
whole conception--of woman." For a brief period this fashion
reappeared in the eighteenth century, and women wore pads and
other devices to increase the size of the abdomen.
With the Renaissance this ideal of beauty disappeared from art. But in
real life we still seem to trace its survival in the fashion for that
class of garments which involved an immense amount of expansion below the
waist and secured such expansion by the use of whalebone hoops and similar
devices. The Elizabethan farthingale was such a garment. This was
originally a Spanish invention, as indicated by the name (from
_verdugardo_, provided with hoops), and reached England through France. We
find the fashion at its most extreme point in the fashionable dress of
Spain in the seventeenth century, such as it has been immortalized by
Velasquez. In England hoops died out during the reign of George III but
were revived for a time, half a century later, in the Victorian
crinoline.[147]
Only second to the pelvis and its integuments as a secondary sexual
character in woman we must place the breasts.
Pages:
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341