n
mainly confined to the house, and her life has been less active than
that of man; consequently the adoption of the arctic dress has been in
her case less necessary. But it is noticeable that where women engage in
occupations of a more than usually strenuous nature, they frequently don
male costume while at their work; as, for instance, women who work in
mines (Belgium) and who tend cattle (Switzerland, Tirol). The retention
of the tropical pattern by the Highlanders is due directly to
environment, since the kilt is better suited than trousers for walking
over wet heather.

Another factor besides climate which has exerted a powerful influence on
dress--more perhaps on what is commonly regarded as "jewelry" as
distinct from "clothing"--is superstition. Doubtless many of the smaller
objects with which primitive man adorned himself, especially trophies
from the animal world, were supposed to exert some beneficial or
protective influence on the wearer, or to produce in him the
distinguishing characteristics attributed to the object, or to the whole
of which the object was a part. Such objects might be imitated in other
materials and by successive copying lose their identity, or their first
meaning might be otherwise forgotten, and they would ultimately exercise
a purely decorative function. Though this factor may be responsible for
much, or even the greater part, of primitive "jewelry," yet it does not
seem likely that it is the cause of all forms of ornament; much must be
attributed to the desire to satisfy an innate aesthetic sense, which is
seen in children and of which some glimmerings appear among the lower
animals also.

See Ed. Westermarck, _The History of Human Marriage_ (London, 1901);
Racinet, _Le Costume historique_ (Paris, 1888); C. H. Stratz,
_Frauenkleidung_ (Stuttgart). (T. A. J.)

I. ANCIENT COSTUME

i. _Ancient Oriental._--Although the numerous discoveries of monuments,
sculptures, wall-paintings, seals, gems, &c., combine with the evidence
from inscriptions and from biblical and classical writers to furnish a
considerable accumulation of material, the methodical study of costume
(in its widest sense) in the ancient oriental world (western Asia and
Egypt) has several difficulties of its own. It is often difficult to
obtain quite accurate or even adequate reproductions of scenes and
subjects, and, when this is done, it is obviously necessary to refrain
from treating the work of the old arti