# Historical reality of French Maid & Slavegirl Costumes **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2003, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996 "2003-08-04T22:54:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2003, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/21 "2003-08-05T23:59:55Z")
Aren’t many of the slaves you see in movies “house slaves”? In that case, it would make sense to dress them decently. When you’re entertaining guests, neither you nor your guests wants to see grubby slaves in rags. Spoils the decor and the atmosphere. ---
**Author:** ![Melandry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Melandry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melandry)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/22 "2003-08-06T00:40:38Z")
While it is certainly true that your run-of-the-mill Roman _agricultural_ slave would have been chained, the kinds of slaves you’d see more in movies- house slaves, servants, etc- would not have been chained. There are very, very rare survivals of some objects that look like dog collars (they are all metal and could have been effectively welded on to someone’s neck) with inscriptions that say “I am a runaway slave. If you find me, return me to my master \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_.” The presumption, based on their rarity, is that such collars were only put on slaves who had a history of running away. In general slaves were distinguished by what they couldn’t wear- the toga, the official dress of a Roman citizen. But this would not apply to slave women, since the only women who wore togas were prostitutes, who wore distinctive flame-colored togas. In general, we must be careful not to conflate ancient and ancient Roman slavery with slavery as practiced in the American South. It was not race based, manumission was far more common, and slaves were used for a lot more than agricultural labor (although the majority of slaves were laborers). ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/23 "2003-08-06T01:24:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Krokodil \* > \*\*_An Underground Education_ by Richard Zacks shows a big contrast between the clothes actually worn in Ottoman harems and the “I Dream if Jeannie” costumes of western imagination. Apparently, real-life slave girls didn’t dress all that provocatively. > > In fact, virtually all images of cleavage-y belly dancing slave girls originated in England and France. People actually living in the Near East in the 19th Century weren’t having anywhere near as much fun as Europeans thought, even at the Sultan/Harem level. \*\* Even worse is all the Arabian Nights movies that show **the Sultan’s _daughter_** dressed like a palace concubine! Even assuming she was allowed out of the harem, you’d expect a princess to be more modestly attired. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/24 "2003-08-06T11:40:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eve \* > _I’d say the current-day “French Maid Outfit” is based almost 100% on late 19th-century burlesque and music-hall costumes. Certainly actual French maids (up till WWII) wore ankle-length dresses, buttoned-up collars, long sleeves and little caps. Think “Miss Gulch” from The Wizard of Oz_. \*\* OK, that makes sense. A takeoff that got frozen in time by visual media, as Bryan Elkers suggests. This was so much easier than wading through 5,000 fetish websites … not that there’s anything wrong with that … ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/25 "2003-08-06T11:43:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Krokodil \* > \*\*_An Underground Education_ by Richard Zacks shows a big contrast between the clothes actually worn in Ottoman harems and the “I Dream if Jeannie” costumes of western imagination. Apparently, real-life slave girls didn’t dress all that provocatively. > > In fact, virtually all images of cleavage-y belly dancing slave girls originated in England and France. People actually living in the Near East in the 19th Century weren’t having anywhere near as much fun as Europeans thought, even at the Sultan/Harem level. \*\* Yeah, I was aware of that. I think the French painter Ingres was responsible for a lot of that … he painted some smokin’ hot (for the times) sexually supercharged visions of harem life that still show up in a lot of art history books. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/26 "2003-08-06T11:52:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Captain Amazing \* > \*\*It was also a lot easier to tell the difference by sight between a slave and non-slave in the American South than in Ancient Rome. \*\* Good point, actually. Although a few dark-skinned white people did get enslaved in the American South by “accident.” (That is, some slavers didn’t look to close at their merchandise so long as they thought they had a chance to make money from them. Another reason not to conflate U.S. and Roman slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/27 "2003-08-06T11:54:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Slithy Tove \* > \*\*Regarding the “French Maid,” volume 4 of “History of Private Life” by Philippe Aries and Georges Duby cover this topic, with pictures of 19th C. French household staff > > (including my fave: two servants peeping through a keyhole and stifling their laughter, titled “Madame is Receiving”). \*\* Thanks for the specific cite. I will assume they are dressed as Eve suggests. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/28 "2003-08-06T11:59:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Phase42 \* > \*\*Aren’t many of the slaves you see in movies “house slaves”? In that case, it would make sense to dress them decently. When you’re entertaining guests, neither you nor your guests wants to see grubby slaves in rags. Spoils the decor and the atmosphere. \*\* Yeah, and in the really rich houses there might have been some sort of “Our slaves are dressed better than your daughters” thing going on." ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/29 "2003-08-06T12:03:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Melandry \* > **While it is certainly true that your run-of-the-mill Roman _agricultural_ slave would have been chained, the kinds of slaves you’d see more in movies- house slaves, servants, etc- would not have been chained. There are very, very rare survivals of some objects that look like dog collars (they are all metal and could have been effectively welded on to someone’s neck) with inscriptions that say “I am a runaway slave. If you find me, return me to my master \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_.” The presumption, based on their rarity, is that such collars were only put on slaves who had a history of running away.** I would assume that generally it would be hard to find out details of how slaves lived because it wouldn’t have been considered worthy of recording by the ancient Romans. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/30 "2003-08-06T12:05:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lumpy \* > \*\*Even worse is all the Arabian Nights movies that show **the Sultan’s _daughter_** dressed like a palace concubine! Even assuming she was allowed out of the harem, you’d expect a princess to be more modestly attired. \*\* I think that’s OK, really, for some Arabian Nights epics … if we’re dealing with an Ingres-type fantasy of the harem as a sex slave pool, it makes sense to have all the women dress sexy, because that makes everything … sexier. ---
**Author:** ![Achilles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dc4da7/32.png) [@Achilles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achilles)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/31 "2003-08-06T12:19:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > \*\*I would assume that generally it would be hard to find out details of how slaves lived because it wouldn’t have been considered worthy of recording by the ancient Romans. \*\* ::Barging cite-less into the fray:: There actually was quite an amount written about slaves, slavery and how to keep and treat slaves. This was (for the most part) not out of any philanthropic love of the slaves themselves, but rather from a sort of “Men & Motors” point of view : These “farm tools with voices” cost an ass-load of money (the good ones anyway). It was of great interest to the Romans, how they should treat them in order for them to live longer and to be most productive. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2003, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996/32 "2003-08-06T12:33:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > \*\*Neglecting to get your actresses nekkid does represent a NEW kind of incompetence, but it’s in keeping with the general level of what’s out there. \*\* But one expects better of Roger Corman. I have difficulty believing he’d’ve missed this detail. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-reality-of-french-maid-slavegirl-costumes/192996.md?page=1)