Some of the things that I remember most distinctly from my elementary (aka Primary) school days were the little “so what?” lessons on how real life was impacted by the material we were studying. One lesson I remember was on the history of clothing. The teacher asked all the kids to examine the shirt that they were wearing and check if there were notches on the sides at the bottom. The teacher explained that all boys’ shirts had notches or cuts on each side and that girls’ shirts did not, and explained this as a vestigial feature of sartorial history. Specifically, in days of old when bandits bold roamed the seven seas, boys’ (and mens’) shirts were longer. During the day, one would stuff their shirt into their pants more or less in the way it is done today. At night, one would take their pants off but leave their shirt on as a nightgown. The shirt/nightgown was long enough that one could walk around the house decently without flashing private areas to others, but since guys shirts had such narrow hems (e.g. compared to girls’ dresses), it was necessary for slits or notches to be cut so that one didn’t trip. When guys started wearing pajamas in the late 1800’s that included a pair of pants, the practice of guys using shirts as nighties died a horrible death but the basic shirt design remained. The shirt was eventually shortened to its modern length, but the practice of cutting notches in the sides never ended, and that is why one sees this feature in shirts bought last week at Macy’s.
Is this story more or less accurate or did the teacher make it up out of whole cloth (pun intended)? Is it mostly accurate but not the whole story?