http://en.posztukiwania.pl/wp-content/themes/special-theme
Navigation Menu
  • Blog
  • News
  • About me
  • Media
  • Lectures
Home » Blog » Fight for the pants
Sun14

Fight for the pants

Magdalena Łanuszka :: in Feb 14, 2016 :: in Blog :: 2 comments

On the occasion of the Valentine’s Day I would like to focus on the relationships – this time it will be all about the prints. There are some popular subject matters in the European art that kept coming back through the centuries. One of them is so called “Fight for the Breeches” (also “Fight for the Pants” or “Fight for the Trousers”). Actually, there are two separate subjects that are described with this title, and as a result they are often confused, however their meaning is different.

First of all, there are the scenes depicting gender fight over the power in the relationship. It is a battle for dominance in a marriage, a quarrel about “who wears the pants”. Theoretically it should be a husband, a lord of the household, but some wives just refuse to accept that natural hierarchy. Of course if the wife manages to dominate her husband, he becomes an object of ridicule. A very good example is a print by Israhel van Meckenem, dating back to the end of the 15th century:

AN00052939_001_l

At first we may think that the depicted woman is taking her pants off (that would seem quite an erotic picture!), but that is not true! She is putting those pants on, as such pants were reserved for a male wardrobe – she just took them from her husband! And of course he is already holding a spindle, ready to perform his wife’s duties. The other print by the same author depicts a wife who beats her husband: the pants are lying on the ground and the devil enjoys the whole scene:

coi-6-42

However, sometimes the husband tried to fight for his position – such a situation is depicted in a print dating back to the end of the 16th century, created by Nicolaus Braeu (van Breen; composition by Karel van Mander). Of course there is only one pair of pants, but both parties try to wear them:

image

Meanwhile, actual “Fight for the Breeches” is a completely different subject matter. It is a depiction of a group of women fighting against each other over a pair of male pants, or actually rather underpants. One of the oldest surviving examples (or perhaps even the oldest one) is a Florentine print from the 15th century: the underpants are shown there hanging from the wreath with a heart in the middle. That obviously refers to love: the women fight for a man’s heart, or rather for his underwear (or whatever there is underneath it). The presence of the joker shows that these women are making fools of themselves.

173273418

In the 15th century print there are 12 women fighting, but most of the later early-modern versions narrow their number down to 7. It is related to the line from the Bible: That day, seven women will catch hold of one man and say, ‘We will eat our own food, and wear our own clothing, but just let us bear your name. Take our disgrace away.’ (Isaiah 4:1). It refers to a situation of war, when most of the men are killed and many lonely women look for a man that could be a sperm donor for them (the “disgrace” refers to the barrenness). It is quite well illustrated in a print by Frans Hogenberg (2nd half of the 16th century): seven women fight for the trousers, while in the backround to the left we can see the war and to the right the women impose themselves on a man who survived:

unnamed

Of course that serious meaning related tot the problems of wars was usually dropped and in most of the cases “Women Fighting for the Breeches” was simply a satirical depiction of a female struggle over a man.

AN00159204_001_l

Most of those prints (and there are quite a lot of them!) were created between the 15th and 18th centuries. However, the motif of the fight for the pants came back at the turn of thje 19th and 20th centuries, rather in the meaning of gender fight for power. That was the time when the suffragettes fought for women’s rights, e.g. the right to vote. Judging from the postcards and the posters from the early-twentieth century, it was apparently understood as a fight for the pants:

article-2236694-162714D0000005DC-259_634x954

Of course the anti-suffragettes propaganda depicted the idea of the social collapse: if women get the right to vote, they would like to wear the pants, and consequently men would be forced to wear the skirts.

8615bb1fd6e72a469f82f0bad54d94b7

As a result the worst possible situation would occur: the beaten men would have to run the household and take care of the children! That would be the end of the Western civilization!

suffrage5

Of course no one suspected by then that there is another solution: both husband and wife may actually wear the pants, each of their own.

suffrage4



2 Visitor Comments

  1. Peter says:
    January 11, 2018 at 11:47 pm

    Hello Magdalena and thanks for an interesting blog which I have just found. Good to read some detailed history not the usual “Headlines”. Your blog made me wonder why women did not have (under) pants in their wardrobes, was there a convention against it? I hoe the woman in the Israhel van Meckenem print is putting on a clean pair of her husbands pants! LoL! As you are sure to know there are many other types of prints showing dominant wives, I seem to remember one from France where the wife was birching her husband’s bare bum in front of their children which raises some interesting possibilities. Thanks for this.

    Reply
    1. Magdalena Łanuszka says:
      January 15, 2018 at 2:05 pm

      Hello Peter, thank you for the comment! I am happy you liked my post – and about the underpants I must say that it is not entirely clear what kind of lingerie women wore, however it is believed that women did not wear underpants or drawers until the late 18th century. It was not a question of conventions but rather customs and culture, I think. See more for example here: http://www.historyextra.com/lingerie

      Reply

Post a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • Merry children’s games from past centuries
  • Articles published in a book “DETEFON, RADION, VIS. Opowieści muzealne o II Rzeczypospolitej”
  • Medieval female self-portraits
  • Virgin Mary beats the devil!
  • International Conference online: “Annihilating Evil: Scenes of Fighting, Slaying, Trampling and Binding Bad Forces in Art”

Recent Comments

  • Magdalena Łanuszka on Merry children’s games from past centuries
  • David Brown on Merry children’s games from past centuries
  • Alan Scarfe on International Conference online: “Annihilating Evil: Scenes of Fighting, Slaying, Trampling and Binding Bad Forces in Art”
  • Magdalena Łanuszka on Pregnant Mary Magdalene?
  • Marie Agee on Pregnant Mary Magdalene?

Archives

  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014

Categories

  • Blog
  • Lectures
  • Media
  • News

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Tags

19th century 20th century animals Antiquity architecture art market Bible carnival Central Europe Christ customs death devil Early-modern fresco history Holy Spirit legend literature manuscripts Middle Ages mosaics Muse mythology Old Masters painting photography portrait prints relics Religious art Saints sculpture sex sexuality still life Virgin Mary wine

Designed by Fragrance Design © 2013 | Powered by WordPress

×

By using this website you allow us to place cookies on your computer for analytics.

However, if you would like to, you can change your cookie settings at any time.