Montesquieu, manners, and the omnipotence of women

“Though Montesquieu is best known for his theory of the separation of powers, which inspired our tripartite governmental structure, he endorsed other separations as well, like that between laws and manners. Fashions are part of manners, and for that reason, according to Montesquieu, not an appropriate area for legislation.

[…] Montesquieu writes that fashion is established by “the desire to please more than oneself.” When you follow a fashion, you indicate your malleability; you signal that you care about the assessment of others; you seek approval. Whose approval, though, are these young men seeking? Apparently not that of women. We hear often that the street style of dress emerged as an imitation of prison garb, but very few women could find this either sexually appealing or economically promising. Why aren’t young women telling these young men that they look like clowns? Young women seem to have lost the sense of their nature-given power to shape men’s behavior. Instead, they mirror the young men’s hopelessness.

Resorting to legal remedies, though, is an admission of moral collapse. It’s also unlikely to succeed. (Predictably enough, the ACLU has already denounced the anti-saggin’ campaign as “racial profiling.”) Montesquieu writes that “when one wants to change the mores and manners, one must not change them by the laws, as this would appear to be too tyrannical; it would be better to change them by other mores and other manners.” In part, we can trust in the ever-shifting nature of fashion itself. There are already signs that a sleeker look is in the offing.

[…] Perhaps this would be the moment for women to take a more active role as well. Were women to insist on courtship from suitors, the transformation would be even more dramatic, for it would reach to morals, as well as manners.” Diana Schaub, “What Montesquieu would say about ‘Saggin’.”