in their blind zeal for faultless reputable attire,
transgress the theoretical line between man's and woman's dress, to the
extent of arraying themselves in apparel that is obviously designed to
vex the mortal frame; but everyone recognizes without hesitation that
such apparel for men is a departure from the normal. We are in the habit
of saying that such dress is "effeminate"; and one sometimes hears the
remark that such or such an exquisitely attired gentleman is as well
dressed as a footman.

Certain apparent discrepancies under this theory of dress merit a more
detailed examination, especially as they mark a more or less evident
trend in the later and maturer development of dress. The vogue of the
corset offers an apparent exception from the rule of which it has here
been cited as an illustration. A closer examination, however, will show
that this apparent exception is really a verification of the rule that
the vogue of any given element or feature in dress rests on its utility
as an evidence of pecuniary standing. It is well known that in the
industrially more advanced communities the corset is employed only
within certain fairly well defined social strata. The women of the
poorer classes, especially of the rural population, do not habitually
use it, except as a holiday luxury. Among these classes the women have
to work hard, and it avails them little in the way of a pretense of
leisure to so crucify the flesh in everyday life. The holiday use of
the contrivance is due to imitation of a higher-class canon of decency.
Upwards from this low level of indigence and manual labor, the corset
was until within a generation or two nearly indispensable to a socially
blameless standing for all women, including the wealthiest and most
reputable. This rule held so long as there still was no large class of
people wealthy enough to be above the imputation of any necessity
for manual labor and at the same time large enough to form a
self-sufficient, isolated social body whose mass would afford a
foundation for special rules of conduct within the class, enforced by
the current opinion of the class alone. But now there has grown up a
large enough leisure class possessed of such wealth that any aspersion
on the score of enforced manual employment would be idle and harmless
calumny; and the corset has therefore in large measure fallen into
disuse within this class. The exceptions under this rule of exemption
from the corset are more a