Note 93 — Chapter VI · RELIGION AND NON-RELIGION AMONG WOMEN.

Shame is usually regarded as constituting the essence of modesty, but shame can have been but one of the elements in its formation; such shame as actually exists is readily explicable as a sense of the uncleanness attaching, in especial in the case of the woman (of whom the Hebrews required a periodic purification), to certain animal functions. But modesty must have been developed also by the use of clothing and the growth of the habit of covering, first the loins and then more and more of the entire person; and indeed the development of modesty and of the habit of wearing clothes must each have been aided by the other. The habit of going covered gives rise very soon to shame at being seen uncovered. The little negresses whom Livingstone supplied with shifts became, in a few days, so accustomed to having the upper half of their bodies hidden that, when they were surprised in their chambers in the morning, they hastily covered their breasts.