The Forgotten
Virtue: Modesty In Dress
(Nota Bene: This essay is adapted from a booklet by the author that
was published by Queenship Publishing Company, Post Office Box 220, Goleta,
California 93116-0220.)
Dress for both men and women has changed dramatically
during the last seventy years. Much of what is worn today is meant to expose
rather than to conceal the human body—a reason that has been, along with the
need for protection, the traditional motive for clothing.
For centuries, Christians have looked to the virtue of
modesty as it applies to vesture in order to judge what is appropriate.
The Catholic tradition has given us a valuable
definition of modesty, which is the virtue that regulates one’s actions and
exterior customs concerning sexual matters. It controls one’s behavior so to
avoid unlawful sexual arousal in oneself or others.
Modesty is one of the Twelve Fruits of the Holy
Spirit, which, according to the Catechism
of the Catholic Church, “are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us
as the first fruits of eternal glory. The tradition of the Church lists twelve
of them: ‘charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity,
gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity.’” (1832)
To dress modestly is to avoid deliberately causing
sexual excitement in oneself or one’s neighbor. One who dresses modestly shuns
clothes that are known or reasonably expected to effect sexual arousal in
oneself or others. Modesty in dress pertains to both genders.
In harmony with the Magisterium and orthodox spiritual
authors, Pope Venerable Pius XII, in the Allocution to the Girls of Catholic
Action of Italy on October 6, 1940, addressed the necessity of cultivating
modesty. He offered as a model of comportment Saint Perpetua, Martyr (?-circa 203): “When she was thrown into
the air by a savage bull in the amphitheatre at Carthage, her first thought of
action when she fell to the ground was to rearrange her dress to cover her
thigh, because she was more concerned for modesty than pain.”
Thre Pontiff continued. “Many women have forgotten
Christian modesty because of vanity and ambition: they rush wretchedly into
dangers that can spell death to their purity. They give into the tyranny of
fashion, be it even immodest, in such a way as to appear not even to suspect that
it is unbecoming . . . they have lost the very concept of danger; they have
lost the instinct of modesty.” (ibid.)
Over seven months later, on May 22, 1941, to members
of the same group, Pope Pius XII warned of an “indulgent attitude, or better said, the negative attitude of an ever
greater part of public opinion, which renders it blind to the
gravest moral disorders.” He was referring to the prevailing thought about
matters of the dress and the behavior of women. The Holy Father urged the girls
to adopt the the edifying pattern provided by Saint Agnes (circa 291-circa 304) and
Saint Cecilia (Second Century-176/180 or 222-235), both Virgins and Martyrs. “Will you, then, for the
love of Christ, in the esteem for virtue, not find at the bottom of your hearts
the courage and strength to sacrifice a little well-being—a physical advantage,
if you will—to conserve safe and pure the life of your souls?” (ibid.)
The same
Pontiff asserted:
As St. Thomas of Aquinas
teaches, the good of our soul must take precedence over that of our body, and
to the good of our body we must prefer the good of the soul of our neighbor . . . If a certain kind of dress constitutes a grave
and proximate occasion of sin, and endangers the salvation of your soul and
others, it is your duty to give it up . . . O Christian mothers, if you knew
what a future of anxieties and perils, of illguarded shame you prepare for your
sons and daughters, imprudently getting them accustomed to live scantily
dressed and making them lose their sense of modesty, you would be ashamed of
yourselves and you would dread the harm you are making for yourselves, the harm
which you are causing to these children, whom Heaven has entrusted to you to be
brought up as Christians. (ibid.)
On July 17, 1954, he stated before the attendees of
the Sodality Convention in Rome: “How many young girls there are who see
nothing wrong in following certain shameless styles like so many sheep. They
would certainly blush with shame if they could know the impression they make,
and the feelings they evoke, in those who see them.”
Several years later, on November 8, 1957, in an
address to the members of the Latin Union of High Fashion, Pope Pius XII,
eleven months before his death, presented the still-valid principles of modesty
in dress. The quotations that follow come from that discourse.
Clothing fulfills three necessary requirements:
hygiene, decency and adornment. These are “so deeply rooted in nature that they
cannot be disregarded or contradicted without provoking hostility and prejudice.”
Hygiene pertains mostly to “the climate, its
variations, and other external factors” (e.g. discomfort, illness). Decency
involves the “proper consideration for the sensitivity of others to objects
that are unsightly, or, above all, as a defense of moral honesty and a shield
against disordered sensuality.” Adornment is legitimate and “responds to the
innate need, more greatly felt by woman, to enhance the beauty and dignity of
the person with the same means that are suitable to satisfy the other two
purposes.”
Fashion “has achieved an indisputable importance in
public life, whether as an aesthetic expression of customs, or as an
interpretation of public demand and a focal point of substantial economic
interests.
“The rapidity of change (in styles) is further
stimulated by a kind of silent competition, not really new, between the ‘elite’
who wish to assert their own personality with original forms of clothing, and
the public who immediately convert them to their own use with more or less good
imitations.”
The Pontiff then isolated the difficulty with fashion.
“The problem of fashion consists in the harmonious reconciliation of a person’s
exterior ornamentation with the interior of a quiet and modest spirit.” Like
other material objects, fashion can become an undue attachment—even perhaps an
addiction—for some persons. The Church “does not censure or condemn styles when
they are meant for the proper decorum and ornamentation of the body, but she
never fails to warn the faithful against being easily led astray by them.”
The human body is “God’s masterpiece in the visible
world”; Jesus elevated the human body “to the rank of a temple and an
instrument of the Holy Spirit, and as such must be respected.”
Certain fashions and styles “create confusion in
well-ordered minds and can even be an incentive to evil.” It is possible to
declare when the “limits of normal decency” have been violated. This sense of
decency sounds an alarm when immodesty, seduction, lust, outrageous luxury or
“idolatry of matter” exists.
What the Holy Father said in 1957 is still pertinent:
“ . . . no matter how broad and changeable the relative morals of styles may
be, there is always an absolute norm to be kept after having heard the
admonition of conscience warning against approaching danger; style must never
be a proximate occasion of sin.”
Those who design, promote and sell fashions have
considerable responsibility. If, God forbid, anyone purposely inculcates
“unchaste ideas and sensations,” then “there is present a technique of
disguised malice.” For decency in dress to be restored, the intention of those
who design the fashions and those who wear them must be upright. “In both there
must be an awakening of the conscience as to their responsibility for the
tragic consequences that could result from clothing which is overly bold,
especially if it is worn in public.”
Clearly, “the immorality of styles depends in great
part on excesses either of immodesty or luxury.” How is immodesty to be judged?
“The garment must not be evaluated according to the estimation of a decadent or
already corrupt society, but according to the aspirations of a society which
prizes the dignity and seriousness of its public attire.”
Wanton luxury is also excessive. If the use of
riches—even those obtained morally—is not moderated, then “either frightful
barriers will be raised between classes, or the entire society will be set
adrift, exhausted by the race toward a utopia of material happiness.”
Let us contemplate well the
following three points concerning modesty in dress.
1. The Influence of Styles. There is a “language of clothing” that communicates
certain messages, even destructive ones. One who with knowledge and
deliberation routinely dresses provocatively so to entice another to impurity
commits a mortal sin. The souls of both are wounded.
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ demanded purity in
glances, thoughts, desires and actions, and He warned against giving scandal. The
Prophet Isaiah (3:16-24) foretold that the city of Sion would be dirtied by its
daughters’ impurity.
Pope Venerable Pius XII declared: “It might be said
that society speaks through the clothing it wears. Through its clothing it
reveals its secret aspirations and uses it, at least in part, to build or
destroy the future.”
2. The Importance of
Control. Fashion designers, critics
and consumers are to recall “that style should be directed and controlled
instead of being abandoned to caprice and reduced to abject service.” Those who
“make style,” cannot allow the “craze” to dictate when that particular trend
goes against right reason and established morality. Consumers must remember
that their “dignity demands of them that they should liberate themselves with
free and enlightened conscience from the imposition of predetermined tastes,
especially tastes debatable on moral grounds.”
3. Moderation is Necessary. The respect for a standard measure is “moderation.”
It provides “a pattern by which to regulate, at all costs, greed for luxury,
ambition, and capriciousness.” The Holy Father admonished: “Stylists, and
especially designers, must let themselves be guided by moderation in designing
the cut or line of a garment and in the selection of its ornaments, convinced
that sobriety is the finest quality of art.”
When Christian decency is present, then one’s dress is
“the worthy ornament of the person with whose beauty it blends as in a single
triumph of admirable dignity.”
One need not necessarily wear clothes popular decades
ago in order to be modest; however, there are standards that are so basic that
to transgress them—regardless of the era, one’s good intention or ignorance—is
to offend against decency.
Here are some practical
“helps.”
Clothing composed of a transparent (that is,
“see-through”) material is not modest because of its obvious intent to expose
various body parts needy of cover.
Shorts that are very short (i.e. exposing much of the
thigh), whether for a man or woman, cannot be regarded as decent. (Athletic
pursuits that use shorts and a “jersey” type of shirt may be tolerated provided
that both are moderate and no temptation is encouraged.) Boys and men shirtless
without sufficient reason (an allowance is made for swimming and vigorous work
and exercise, as long as temptation is avoided) is problematic, given that such
may well be an unnecessary occasion of sin for another.
Men and boys not only have a responsibility to dress
modestly but they also are to encourage to whatever extent they can the women
and girls of their acquaintance to dress modestly, even avoiding those who do
not when they themselves are tempted to sin precisely because of that immodest
clothing. But it must be admitted that the sight of unclothed (even partially)
bodies of women and girls has generally inspired lust and desire more than the
bodies of men and boys.
Clothing that reveals the front and back of women and
girls and highlights their torso is reprehensible. Skirts that rise much above
the knee, emphasizing the shape of the leg for that very purpose, are
inappropriate.
God has made the human body beautiful. Immodest attire
neither contributes to the promotion of the human person nor to the
establishing of the Kingdom. The modesty practiced by Jesus, Mary, Joseph and
the Saints, especially the Virgin-Martyrs, is obtainable and necessary for us.
