Translation Hide
On the Apparel of Women

Chapter VIII.--Men Not Excluded from These Remarks on Personal Adornment.

Of course, now, I, a man, as being envious ¹ of women, am banishing them quite from their own (domains). Are there, in our case too, some things which, in respect of the sobriety ² we are to maintain on account of the fear ³ due to God, are disallowed? ⁴ If it is true, (as it is,) that in men, for the sake of women (just as in women for the sake of men), there is implanted, by a defect of nature, the will to please; and if this sex of ours acknowledges to itself deceptive trickeries of form peculiarly its own,--(such as) to cut the beard too sharply; to pluck it out here and there; to shave round about (the mouth); to arrange the hair, and disguise its hoariness by dyes; to remove all the incipient down all over the body; to fix (each particular hair) in its place with (some) womanly pigment; to smooth all the rest of the body by the aid of some rough powder or other: then, further, to take every opportunity for consulting the mirror; to gaze anxiously into it:--while yet, when (once) the knowledge of God has put an end to all wish to please by means of voluptuous attraction, all these things are rejected as frivolous, as hostile to modesty. For where God is, there modesty is; there is sobriety ⁵ her assistant and ally. How, then, shall we practise modesty without her instrumental mean, ⁶ that is, without sobriety? ⁷ How, moreover, shall we bring sobriety ⁸ to bear on the discharge of (the functions of) modesty, unless seriousness in appearance and in countenance, and in the general aspect ⁹ of the entire man, mark our carriage?

Edition Hide
De Cultu Feminarum

VIII.

[1] Videlicet nunc ut uir et sexu aemulus feminas a suis depello. An et nobis quaedam respectu obediendae grauitatis propter metum debitum Deo detrahuntur? [2] Siquidem et uiris propter feminas et feminis propter uiros uitio naturae ingenita est placendi uoluntas, propriasque praestigias formae et hic sexus sibi agnoscit: barbam acrius caedere, interuellere, circumradere, capillum disponere etiam colorare, canitiem primam quamque subducere, totius corporis lanuginem pigmento quoque muliebri distringere, cetera pulueris cuiusdam aspritudine leuigare, tum speculum omni occasione consulere, anxie inspicere, cum tamen, cognito Deo, adempta placendi uoluntate, per luxuriae uacationem omnia illa ut otiosa ut hostilia pudicitiae recusantur. [3] Nam ubi Deus, ibi pudicitia, ibi grauitas, adiutrix et socia eius. Quo ergo pacto pudicitiam sine instrumento suo, id est sine grauitate, tractabimus? Quomodo autem grauitatem administrandae pudicitiae adhibebimus, nisi et in facie et in cultu et in totius hominis contemplatione seueritas circumferatur?