The attitude
of children is testimony to the primitive attitude toward
clothing.
It cannot, however, be said that the use of clothing for the sake
of showing the natural forms of the body has everywhere been
developed. In Japan, where nakedness is accepted without shame,
clothes are worn to cover and conceal, and not to reveal, the
body. It is so, also, in China. A distinguished Chinese
gentleman, who had long resided in Europe, once told Baelz that
he had gradually learnt to grasp the European point of view, but
that it would be impossible to persuade his fellow-countrymen
that a woman who used her clothes to show off her figure could
possibly possess the least trace of modesty. (Baelz, _Zeitschrift
fuer Ethnologie_, 1901, Heft 2, p. 179.)
The great artistic elaboration often displayed by articles of ornament or
clothing, even when very small, and the fact--as shown by Karl von den
Steinen regarding the Brazilian _uluri_--that they may serve as common
motives in general decoration, sufficiently prove that such objects
attract rather than avoid attention. And while there is an invincible
repugnance among some peoples to remove these articles, such repugnance
being often strongest when the adornment is most minute, others have no
such repugnance or are quite indifferent whether or not their aprons are
accurately adjusted. The mere presence or possession of the article gives
the required sense of self-respect, of human dignity, of sexual
desirability.
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