Odysseus feared to anger
Nausikaa if he exposed himself to her (although it is not certain that
this was on account of his nakedness), and when she walked through the
town with him she knew well what would shame her.[1557] Odysseus also
asked the women to withdraw while he bathed.[1558] The mores were in
flux and were contradictory. The interpretation of the text is not
beyond question. It may not have been nakedness which caused shame, but
the dirt and disorder of person produced by shipwreck. Various
philosophies claim to have brought in the greater care and refinement of
more recent times, but not one of them can show the documentary proof
that the men of a time, at that time, showed revolt against the mores of
that time in regard to this matter. What has happened is that, in modern
times, steam and machinery, with the increase of capital and of power
over nature which they have produced, have given social power to the
lower middle class, as the representatives of the masses. This has
brought into control the mores of those classes, which were simple,
unluxurious, philistine, and comparatively pure, because those classes
were forced to be frugal, domestic, careful of their children,
self-denying, and relatively virtuous, on account of their limited
means. The arts of life never can be the same for the poor and the rich.
Wealth is often charged with introducing luxury and vice, but that
tendency is offset by its giving command over the conditions of life,
which makes refined usages possible.

+479. Propriety.+ The rules of propriety apply to all the acts of life,
but especially to those which take place in the presence or neighborhood
of others; still more especially to those which affect others. A large
section of such rules deals with the ordinary intercourse of persons of
the two sexes, and regulates details of the sex taboo which are less
important. Crawley gives a list of cases[1559] in which brother and
sister, father and daughter, are separated by the sex taboo. A woman of
the Omaha tribe, whether married or not, if she walked or rode alone
would ruin her reputation as a virtuous woman. She may ride or walk only
with her husband or near kinsman. In other cases she gets another woman
to go with her. Young men are forbidden to speak to girls, if they meet
two or more on the road, unless they are akin.[1560] A chief never ate
with his guests amongst the tribes on the upper Missouri. He sat by and
served them, mea