CORSETS, COLLARS AND CHAINSEuropean Practices of YesteryearBy John Francis TrelawnyPART ONEIn practically every century, other than our present one, women have been subjected to bondage ranging from the mildest to the most severe of restraints, all under the guise of training and discipline.
The common denominator of it all was the practice of tight-lacing. It was customary, regarded as vitally necessary, for girls to be indoctrinated to the most severe and restrictive of corsets, which they referred to as stays. As a corollary to complete figure-training, the girls were forced to accept and undergo virtually all types of personal restraints, bound arms, shoulder-braces, stocks for sleeping, masks that muted them, deafened them, and even blinded them. Backboards to hold them rigidly erect, and collars to hold their heads up high and to anchor the backboards, also tether them.
The system was self-perpetuating because the women came to accept all the restraints as necessary to achieve status, consequently to be imposed on their own daughters. Moreover, there was the prevalent notion that the more restraint, the more ladylike status resulted, and the girls were subjected to a systematic and progressive bondage that, in some cases, reached extremes that today are hard to believe.
TIGHTLACING STANDARDS
Since almost the earliest times, whenever there was leisure and wealth to be enjoyed, the women displayed their leisured status by rendering themselves obviously incapable of physical work. In Europe, this took the form of mutilating the body by means of corsets or stays. The common women, who had to work for a living, couldn’t possibly lace tightly enough to be confused with the ladies. They were laced so tightly that their bodies were actually distorted to the point where they couldn’t work. A lady wore tight stays. Common women did not. It was as simple as that, and the result was that every woman sought to lace her body to a greater extreme, thus demonstrating her status.
Stays were made far differently than today’s corsets and girdles. We hear of whalebone in old novels, but before that, there were bars of iron and steel, hardened leather known as bend, which was one-fourth of an inch thick and hard as wood.
Periodically, there would be a revolutionary edict, against stays or short-term fashion for loose waists, but these never lasted long. Probably, because the corsets were so restrictive that once worn tightly, they served to weaken the muscles to such a point that the wearer virtually had to continue lacing tightly purely for comfort. With each loose-waisted period thus doomed, the corset-enthusiasts managed to influence fashion so that after a few years, the styles once more called for tiny waists; frequently to a new standard waist measurement.
Acceptable waistlines, thus varied from era to era—occasionally going to such extremes as thirteen inches during Elizabeth I’s reign relaxing to eighteen to twenty inches, then returning to fourteen inches.
Catherine de Medici of France established a standard at her court of fourteen inches. Ladies with waists larger than that size were not welcome. Even during the Empire and the Regency periods, the staymakers urged mothers to lace their daughters properly, which meant with full rigor, and have their stays filled with bone and equipped with shoulderstraps. Most certainly, the girls should all be made to sleep in their stays, without having the laces loosened. Why let the body swell during the eight or nine hours of sleep and then have to regain all the lost ground? They reminded all the mothers, that the traditional waist-standard was this span—a girl should be able to clasp her hands about her own waist.
FIGURE TRAINING
The ladies might have suffered horribly from stays while they were girls but once they were grown up, they had it made and from then one was easier. They forgot how hard it was when it came time to lace their daughters. In many cases, they magnified the rigor of their own upbringing and minimized the discomfort they remembered, so that it was easy for them to make even more severe demands on their daughters.
The girls were put into stays around the age of nine—sometimes before—and existing fashions were not regarded as important in training the girls, for the more rigorous styles were bound to follow. Consequently, the corset were fantastic instruments of torture for the girls—forty-pound panoplies of steel and leather and wood that squeezed them from armpits to hips, to such a degree that a full breath was impossible and any physical exertion confined to only a few moments.
Wearing such corsets, the girls had to act like ladies—move slowly and sedately, stand stiffly erect like a soldier at attention, and eat like a bird. It was impossible to east much, just as it was impossible to run and jump or to slump in a chair.
Corsets made then were termed "full-boned" if the boning was placed a as closely together as possible. If the width of a bone was allowed between adjacent bones, the corset was called "half-bones." It was unthinkable for a girl to be permitted to have anything other than full-boned corsets and many mothers insisted on "double-boned" stays for their girls.
Shoulderstraps were attached at the top of the back, went over the tops of the shoulders, down, and were pulled back under the arms to buckle together tightly in back, holding the shoulders back and down in an extreme braced position. Staymakers advocated them for all growing girls to avoid slumping and slouched.
There was another purpose too, these shoulderstraps would be unfastened when the girl’s laces were tightened. With the girl holding a bedpost, or with her wrists strapped to the bedpost as many staymakers recommended, the mother would brace a knee against the girl’s back and tighten her laces as much as she was able. She would work the slack lace to the top, knot it tightly and then trim off the excess lace right at the knot. Some mothers would seal the knot with wax and their ring. Then they would fasten the shoulderstraps once more—and the girl would nearly die.
While being laced, with the shoulderstraps undone, the girl would be able to life her shoulders in a shrug, giving extra lung space for each breath. However this extra breath was denied her when her shoulderstraps were fastened because now she was unable to lift her shoulders at all. Thus, she was unable to breath enough to stay alive unless she deliberately forced her ribs out against the confining corset with all her strength. This bent her ribs to a tighter radius, of course, and hurt. The pain has been likened to a red-hot knife in the ribs on each side. A stabbing pain with each breath. But the alternative was not to breath and that was impossible. Many girls fainted and some mothers loosened the stays but staymakers recommended that the stays be left tight and the ribs be pushed in further by hand—artificial respiration—with smelling salts at the girl’s nostrils helped to bring her around.
Thus, shoulderstraps helped form the waist more, quickly and so staymakers recommended them even where there was no real posture problem.
The girl would seek to stay alive with the shallowest of breathing and thus, she would conform to the accepted standard of behavior. Any physical exertion would call for more breath and cause that red-hot stabbing knife with each intake.
Of course the girl would take off her corset or loosen it if she could, but she was unable to. In nearly all cases, stays for girls had no front clasps—or any other front opening. The only way to remover them was by the lacing in the back, and with the shoulders buckled so firmly down and back, it was impossible to reach the hard knot—sealed or unsealed—at the top of the back, let alone undo it.
The recommended practice was to leave the lace knotted tightly until the next time the lace was tightened. In most cases, this meant the girl had to sleep in her tight stays and when her mother tightened her lace the next day she would simply cut off yesterday’s knot and re-knot and re-trim the lace to its new position. Thus the corset was never loosened or removed, but tightened more and more. As the body accommodated itself more and more to the shape of the corset, easing the girl’s distress, the mother would tighten it still more.
Staymakers advised tightening a girl’s laces every morning and, if possible to get enough slack, in the late afternoon before dinner. It is certainly understandable why ladies displayed birdlike appetites.
PREVENTATIVE DISCIPLINE
It is quite understandable for the girls to use every possible means of reliving their distress. Staymakers warned the mothers to take steps to prevent them from loosening or removing their stays.
There was relatively little likelihood of it during the day because girls then wore many clothes over their corsets—summer or winter—and most of these fastened tightly up the back. The shoulder straps themselves prevented them, in most cases from even reaching their hooks and buttons on the back. For the most determined and ingenious ones who might use scissors or a knife to cut themselves loose, mothers, governesses, and schoolmistresses would restrain the girl’s arms, sometimes sewing the end of her sleeves together in the front and others merely strapping her wrists together behind her back.
This was termed "preventative discipline" and the term was popularly used for anything from mild to the most severe personal restraint.
NIGHT RESTRAINT
Of course the girl’s best opportunity to ease her stays was at night in bed, unless she was restrained at night as in most cases she was. Many and varied were the ways in which the girls were fastened when they went to bed.
On the continent, it was quite common to make the girls sleep with both legs in a single stocking which bound their legs together tightly. In England and Spain it was commoner to make the girls sleep in stock, their ankles locked securely under the covers or by a notched board fastened down over her bedclothes.
Of course it was more important to restrain her hands at night and make it impossible for her to loosen her stays. Girls had their wrists bound down to the sides of the bed at night. Other girls wore special long-sleeved gowns without openings for the hands, the sleeves being sewed together each hand on the other sleeve. These were put on the girls to hold their arms across their front, the gowns fastening in the back. In other cases, long tapes would be sewen to each sleeve so that the arms could be folded across the back and the tapes tied together at the front. The simplest was to strap the girl’s wrists together behind her back and have her sleep like that.
Lady Ardmore’s memoirs, A SLAVE TO FASHION, tell how she was made to sleep with her arms bound behind her back and her legs bound at knee and ankle from the age of nine, when she began to wear stays. Her cousin and her elder sister were all made to sleep completely bound in this manner, and her stepmother punished all complaints by making the girls having their arms bound behind their back for all the next day. Lady Ardmore’s arms were bound every day for over a year because of the great number of complaints and then she was fitted with a discipline mask.
MASKS
Many girls were made to wear masks during their figure-training. These were made usually of soft leather, fitted over the whole head as well as the face, lacing down the back and fitting snugly under the chin and around the neck so that it was impossible for the girl to remove it.
There were a variety of masks used in figure-training. Many girls’ schools on the continent required each girl to wear a mask when leaving the school, grounds for any reason. These mask had eye and mouth holes and were more to preserve the girl’s anonymity in the town rather than to punish them at all. A few schools required the girls to wear masks like these all the time to limit grimaces, exaggerated expressions, and communication by non-verbal means.
Far commoner were the muting masks that had no mouth openings and were used for punishment when a girl had too many complaints. Lady Ardmore was made to wear one of these masks for years, having it removed only when in her room for meals.
Still harsher were blind-mute masks having neither eye or mouth holes. Some of these had padding at the ears also to deafen the wearer to some degree and these would be put on girls who were truly rebellious. Spending hours blinds, muted, and bound served quite well to subdue the rebels. Some schools had masks of this type made for all the girls and insisted on them sleeping in them so that they could not communicate with each other at night in bed. Generally, these schools also required the girls to sleep bound and also chained down.
PART TWOBACKBOARDS
Originally, these were wooden boards strapped flat against the back of their waists and extending up their back where a steel ring covered with leather projected to the front and encircled the throat.
These were popular around the close of the eighteenth century and many girls were held rigidly upright in them. Generally they were removed at night, they normally were worn above their clothing, and the leather-covered rings were left on their necks to fasten the backboard to the next day.
It was a very step from this point to using the neckring as a convenience in tethering the girl to her bench for her needlework or to her desk for schoolwork. The next step was the use the neckring as a leashing point while taking the girl here or there. Within a predictably short time it was found convenient to heave a short chain attached to the neckring for tethering her to a spot or for leading her.
The backboard became popular in a number of schools in England and on the continent and with it came the collar. In Scotland, the collar was referred to as the jougs, and the backboard itself went underground, so to speak. Instead of a wooden board strapped to the waist after the young lady was dressed, the Scots began using a stiff flat bar of metal that went on the spine under the stays and extended up the back to above the collar—far enough above that the young lady couldn’t slip it off. Thus, she was held permanently erect, night as well as day. More to the point, the jougs became a permanent metal neckband, wide enough to avoid hurting the neck when the young lady forgot it was there and tried to look down at her own shoes.
The collars were made of silver and gold and—for the less wealthy families—bronze, pinchbeck, and even copper which had to be worn over a neckpiece so it would not darken the skin. Many were elegantly filigreed and engraved as decorations although they were clearly restraints. Some were linked collars, wide chain mesh that were locked at the back with small padlocks but others were one-piece metal bands that were riveted in the back.
The schools on the continent, were quick to pick up the restraint and they established patterns of collars (with) which their students were fitted—unless they came with substantial collars already on their necks. Many of these were brass and Sheffield plate—silver over copper—and part of the girls’ duties included keeping their collars brightly polished.
Later, some German schools fitted the girls with collars that looked like silver but tarnished much less and cost much less, this was called "German silver."
All the schools took full advantage of the convenience of the collars and neckchains, restraining the girls for virtually 24 hours a day. The girls were tethered during classes, during meals, during "free time" and even during trips through the town to museums, libraries, cathedrals, or plays. It was not uncommon for caffles of girls to be paraded through the town, inked neck to neck and often masked and bound, escorted only by a schoolmistress at the head, who could be quite confident that none of the girls could wander off.
Lady Ardmore told of being in a girls’ school near Munich, where her waist was laced down to fourteen inches—the size stipulated by her stepmother. She was fitted on her arrival with a heavy German silver collar, as well as a heavy neckchain which slid along a wire with the other girls. The girls had to reserve their order on the wire and could move along the wire only in that order.
She continued to wear the collar and chain after leaving the school—first because her stepmother insisted and later, because her husband took such great pleasure in tethering her and even set up a similar slide-wire system at the manor house confining her to her own wing. He also continued to keep her arms bound a large part of the time.
BOUND ARMS
Quite aside from binding the girls’ arms to prevent them from loosening their stays, many figure-training authorities advocated binding the arms rigorously as an aid to good posture.
Even with shoulderstraps and backboards, many felt that additional steps were desirable and they bound the girls’ arms together behind their backs so that their elbows were pressed tightly against each other. This pulled their shoulders back most firmly and expanded their chests. Their posture was clearly improved by this practice but the girls found it distressing—particularly after several hours.
A letter from La Monceau school of Cassis (near Toulon) to Mrs. Claudia Gibbs of Devonshire advocates such binding for her daughter Sybil who evidently had a severe posture problem.
"….and she somehow manages still to appear awkward in spite of the shoulderstraps and the backboard. I have made the experiment of binding her arms behind her back so hat her elbows touch and immediately there is a pronounced improvement. We have encountered this problem before and find that the longer the bad posture is allowed to continue the more trouble is there (re)medial measure required. Dear Mme. Gibbs, believe me, it is not pleasant to be bound for long periods but I fear that unless we bind Sybil’s arms in this manner now, she will retain this most unfortunate awkwardness. I urge your consent to our binding Sybil’s arms in this manner for at least six hours each day. For understand, Mme, Gibbs, it is the last hours that do the good. The third hour does more good than the first and second taken together. The fourth hour does more for the habits than all three earlier ones. The fifth hour provides a more persuasive remedy than all four previous ones, and the sixth hour is the most curative of all those which have gone before. I believe and I (re)commend that we should bind Miss Sybil’s arms in this manner for at leas six hours each day during the subsequent few months. Her schedule of study can be rearranged to avoid interference with her education and even should some mild interruption of her study result from this practice, it is my considered opinion that such a delay would be to her ultimate advantage, since the study could very well be made up in the future after she is cured of her distressing posture fault.
Of course, the procedure is not to our student’s preference; like all young women, her immediate physical comfort looms more largely in her mind than the formation of posture habits which will remain with her throughout her life. Consequently, I solicit your approval of this step for the period of six months, at the end of which time we can re-assess the situation and determine the course to be followed.
I look for your early reply to this letter…"
We have no record of Mrs. Gibb’s reply to the letter but there are numerous records of girls being bound in this manner for lengthy periods.
Lady Ardmore’s daughter-in-law, who was restrained closely with her over a two-year period, had been bound rigorously in this manner during her school days and her husband, the Honourable Charles Trelawny, greatly enjoyed having her arms confined behind her back in a single glove.
SINGLE GLOVE FOR RESTRAINING ARMS
This glove was a long one, covering both hands after they were placed palm-to-palm, and lacing snugly up both forearms to the elbows—which were held tightly pressed together. To keep the glove from slipping down, a loop was passed completely around both shoulders and the glove itself came up several inches above the elbows—still laced snugly.
The young lady had a number of these single gloves in different colors and types of leather and it was quite common for her to be restrained in one or another every day, whether her husband was to be home or not. Her had left orders to that effect with her maid.
When the bride came to stay with Lady Ardmore, she brought her own maid along, who had been ordered to fasten her lady’s arms each day in on of the single gloves. The maid interpreted her order, rightly or wrongly, as applying to all day rather than to a few hours as the bride insisted had been her husband’s intent. Over the bride’s protests, the maid insisted on lacing her mistress’ arms in a single glove each morning and she refused to undo her arms until bedtime. Thus her arms were rigorously restrained all day long, every day.
On her behalf, Lady Ardmore wrote to her husband, who was with the Honourable Charles in India, and asked him to enquire as to his son’s intentions regarding his young wife. Lord Ardmore replied, in part:
"I have enq’d Chas., as you requested, & must tell you that he did truly with (sic) Yelinda’s arms rest’ned for only suff’c’nt dura’ion as to preserve her habit and not lose her tole’nce of such c’nf’nm’nt. Howsoever, since her maid seems to have est’blished a practise of more prot-cted restr’ct’n already (judging by the date of your l’tt’r and today’s true date), it w’uld seem that any remedial order w’uld be f’rth’r delayed by the time for passage of this missive. Acc’rding’ly, Chas.beseeches h’s beloved wife toward patience against his return. It is his devout wish, she be acc’st’m’d to such rest’nt and even able to sleep with her arms so constrained. He send her his heart’s dearest affec’n and beseeches her prayers f’r his safe return."
So the bride was not only made to continue wearing the single glove to bind her arms behind her, but to learn to sleep bound in such a manner. Lady Ardmore said, her heart ached for the poor girl who tossed and turned during the night, being in considerable discomfort. However, she did become able to sleep while her arms were thus bound and, to stay in practice, slept that way every other night.
Lady Ardmore herself wrote:
"I must confess to a great curiosity as to what it must feel like to be bound in a single glove, so that I requested the maid to bind my own arms in a glove Yelinda was not wearing at the time.
I found it a curious sensation and not at all uncomfortable, at the start. My arms were drawn back so extremely that my chest had perforce to remain expanded. I can quite easily see that it must be a healthy measure. I quite soon decided that I would have a similar single glove made for myself, learn to wear it and even to sleep in it as Yelinda was doing in order to surprise my husband when he came home from India. However, after I had worn the glove for an hour, I decided I would have one made for me and learn to wear it during the day but sleeping in it would be too distressful. At the end of two hours, I was most uncomfortable and wanted only to have it off so that my shoulders would no longer feel the considerable discomfort. However, I was not able to take it off myself and of course Yelinda was not able to remove it for her own arms were laced in another just like it. I was forced to wait for another two hours for my release because I had given my maid an errand, she was even then in the village ordering a single glove for me from the local glovemaker. When she left, she had locked the door to my apartment, as she had been ordered to do and none other of the household staff was able to enter and release my arms.
By the time she returned with the news that my own single glove would be ready in a fortnight, I was exceedingly distressed and begged her to release my arms immediately, which of course she did.
Since having my own glove, I have worn it for periods not exceeding tow hours, except for one occasion while awaiting the Duchess of Kent who was late. Then I wore the glove for nearly six hours before it was announced that the Duchess would not arrive, and it was nearly seven hours before we could get to our own rooms where my husband would release my arms. That was true agony and I should not enjoy such an experience again.
I must say that I had far greater respect for Yelinda, who wore a single glove for between thirteen and fifteen hours each day and, moreover, wore it during weight or nine hours of sleep on alternate night. I did not wonder, at her exclamations of discomfort.
FIGURE-TRAINING AT HOME
Although many families sent their daughters to girls’ schools for figure-training, especially for the last several years, there were still many families where the girls were educated and trained at home. In some cases, governesses or tutoresses, were called in to give instruction in French or mathematics, but girls were not generally required to have the same kind of education as boys. It was more common for the girls to be trained to sew, to sing—but not too well—to speak French and sometimes German, and for the rest to conduct herself (sic) as a lady in every way. This last included figure-training and whatever means of assuring good posture as the girl’s mother, stepmother, governess, aunt, or grandmother thought proper.
Generally the task was taken over by some woman without too absorbing an interest in socializing, and it was not at all unusual for the aunt or grandmother or elder cousin to spend considerable effort reading the ladies’ journals and writing voluminously to staymakers, their former schoolmistresses, and friends to seek the best advice for training their charges. More often than not, the training was on the severe side, often approaching such rigorous conditions that the subject’s life was sheer hell. The poor girl would be laced savagely, braced, collared, chained, bound in a most uncomfortable manner,. And kept muted in a mask so she could not complain. There was no choice of the poor girl, however. All she could do was improve her posture and figure or suffer and undoubtedly she did both.
Of course, there were many cases of true sadism, an aging (sic) gentlewoman who felt that life was passing by after she had undergone considerable physical distress to achieve happiness, could very easily slip from sincere severity to deliberate cruelty in dealing with her helpless charges.
PART THREETHE CASE OF DR. S
In 1964, I read the personal memoirs of an 85-year-old lady, who had been subjected to an outstanding program of sadistic figure-training as a child.
She was orphaned I 1888 when she was nine, her father had been a British officer and she was taken in by a wealthy widow of a Scottish merchant who lived in a small city called Stirling. She was immediately fitted with the most rigorous of heavily boned corsets and laced as tightly as possible twice a day. She wore a rigid metal backboard under the back lacing, this was held close to her neck by a wide German silver collar, that had a chain permanently attached. Her corset, was double boned and equipped with shoulderstraps, that kept her gasping in agony for hours after the morning and late afternoon lacing. Along with this, her arms were bound behind her back with the elbows touching during the day, and she was put to bed at night with her arms bound behind her back and her ankles locked in stocks.
Because she cried and complained, a leather mask was made for her, without and mouth opening and her hair was clipped short, to permit this mask to fit more snugly over her head. The mask was cleverly painted with realistic colours so that she did not appear to be masked, and it extended further down her neck than some so the bottom was concealed by her wide metal collar. She wore a wig over the mask and dark glasses, smoked spectacles was the term used in the manuscript, so that nobody realized the girl could not speak. The mask was removed only at meals which were served in her room and it was put on her again immediately afterward.
A slide-wire system was set up to confine the girl to her room and she was kept a close prisoner for years, never permitted out of the room without the mask paced on securely and her arms bound behind her back. Whenever she was taken out, her ankles were chained together to permit only small steps and her benefactress held the end of her chain. She had not possible way of getting away.
In 1898 she was nineteen years old and her waist measured only sixteen inches around but she had a new mask, a new wig and spent her days bound and chained to her wire. She had no schooling beyond third grade and she saw nobody except her mistress and a servant.
She realized then, that this was no question of training—this was her life. Her mistress, was her owner and she had no intention of letting her go. The extent of her conversation was asking "Pleased" for each bite of food fed to her by her mistress.
Her life might very well have run out in this manner except for a bomb from a German Zeppelin in 1916. Her mistress, was away at the time of the raid which was the first in that area and she was dreadfully frightened when a bomb exploded close by. The windows broke while part of the far wall came down.
She realized that the far end of her slide wire had been broken or torn from where it was anchored in the wall and she was able to pull her chain free. The doors were all locked but part of the wall was open and she managed to sit and half-walk out to the tennis court at the side. It was a moonlit night and she began waling toward town, the end of her neckchain dragging behind her.
After a few miles, she was found by a policeman, who couldn’t realize at first that she was muted and bound. She was 37 years old, had a 16-inch waist, and her vocabulary was that of a 10-year-old child.
There was a huge spread in the papers and they showed pictures of her in the mask and with her chain dragging.
The "benefactress," lapsed into early senility and was placed in an institution, while her charge was rehabilitated, as best as possible as a ward of the Crown. Her hair was allowed to grow and her collar and chains were removed. She was unable to do without her corset, however; the severe constriction of 28 years had virtually destroyed her body muscles.
L’AFFAIRE PARAT
On the 18th of February, 1910, a scandal broke in LE PARISIEN and other papers over the manner in which one Jean Parat, a 43-year-old apothecary, treated his wife in their home and shop in Rue de Vaugirard,. Paris.
Neighbourhood gossip, was rife as early as 1908 concerning the manner in which Parat treated his young and pretty wife which involved keeping her in severe personal restraint and chained up all the time. Various people saw her chained to the wall in their apothecary and forced to wrap purchases while her wrists were locked in handcuffs. On Sundays when they went to church, Mme. Parat wore a cape that hid her arms which were always behind her back—and the neighbours said they were chained together behind her. Several attested, that she took only tiny steps and clanked when she walked because her ankles were chained under her skirts. Rumours spread that M. Parat chained his wife to the bed, whenever he left the house.
Finally, the Paris police investigated and found the charges true. The wife was not only chained to bed but under her clothes she had a fantastic amount of chains and bounds. She was tightly laced into unfashionably severe stays which she was unable to remove because she wore a metal corset over them and this corset was padlocked.
The wife, did not have any complaint but the neighbours did and so did the police. Parat, was indicted for cruel and inhumane treatment. At his trial he attempted to minimize the offence by pointing out that his wife’s chains were long enough to let her play the piano.
In LE RIRE of March 5th, 1910, a cartoon by the well known artist Metivet showed Parat dragging his chained wife after him and beneath it was the caption:
"V’la le moyen d’avoir une pouse bien ficile et qui vous soit solidement attache."
COMMENTARY
It puzzles many people, how Lady Ardmore and Madames Parat and others permit such extreme personal restraints. There appear to have been fully as many willing victims as rebels who fight against bondage.
To me, it seems reasonable, that only some of us are rebellious fighters and that there are fully as many with the innate tendency to submit to authority, even harsh authority. With the upbringing tat girls were subjected to in those former days, it seems that the submissive tendencies would be encouraged and the rebellious spirits quelled.
Thus a girl who is reared by a dominant mother or possibly, a harsh stepmother, would be completely indoctrinated to the principal of submission. If, then this girl marries a dominant and possessive man, the authority is simply transferred from parent to husband. To such a person, rebelling against a husband is unthinkable. In those days, women were not educated to earn livings except in very rare circumstances. There was no way, they could run away and support themselves in the great majority of cases. Consequently, the only possible course was to cajole the husband into easing the restraints but to follow his orders and try to like it.
There must have been many who liked it. Lady Ardmore, clearly enjoys telling of her severe personal restraint. She dwells lovingly on the details of her chains, single glove, and the fact that she was to be bound twenty-two hours or more out of each twenty-four. It is reasonable to assume that she enjoyed the bondage, although probably not much at the time as she did afterward in telling about it.
Many other wives, meekly submissive to the harsh bondage imposed by cruel husbands, actually enjoyed the restraint. Although, they probably did not verbalize such enjoyment, even to themselves. There is no great difference in people, throughout the generations. Certainly, it was just as common for people to play games with themselves, in the early days, as in our modern times.
STATEMENT OF MRS. SYBIL G.
This statement is to be entirely candid and, anonymous. I shall not identify either my husband or myself by our surnames.
I have always been fascinated by corsets and my husband, Duncan, is frightfully keen on restraint. That is to say, he loves to restrain others, but doesn’t care to be restrained himself.
I began wearing girdles at a very young age and Mum was always after me about it. My granny, however, loved corsets and was always on my side. Urging me to greater lengths. To her, any female who didn’t go about tightly laced in rigidly boned stays was but a short hop from moral turpitude. She really had quite a convincing patter about correlating the incidence of crime with the waist measurements of women.
When the New Look came in just after the war, I charged a corset to Mum’s account and took in the waists of all my frocks to fit my figure when tightly laced. I wore a rubber panty girdle underneath, which kept it cleaner and told the girls at school that my Mum made me wear all this to keep me chaste. It was a lie, of course. Mum railed at me and literally begged me to leave them off, but I was stubborn and liked the feel of them, and besides, I was fearfully set up with the girls. I mean, being so utterly bohemian that one’s mum had to do one up in such a wealth of undies. Well, it rather made one seem like a super-sophisticate.
I’m sure you recall that the New Look got old quite soon, and when my corset was virtually falling apart, I simply couldn’t replace it. Corsets were no longer available.
Well, I’d graduated with a first class pass by then, which rather surprised mum and I talked my Gran out of the fees for a theatre school. Thought I’d have a go at acting, you see. Right about that time I ran into Duncan on the street. I had known him for ages and it turned out he was directing a group that was about to put on a play—a small playhouse actually, but where one could be seen. Duncan was quite taken with my small waist and invited me to come and read for a part—a lovely Confederate spy in a drama about the American Civil War.
Well, I was American, of course, and here I had such a lovely small waist and all. Aso, Duncan winked and said we could have a smashing time.
Now I must go back and explain. I had a habit of biting my nails and Mum was just most awfully desperate about making me stop, so she finally took the stern measures of binding my arms behind my back. This was a few years before. We had gone up to Gran's big place in Scotland and there my arms were kept bound for virtually all the time I wasn’t actually required to be doing something with them. I even slept with them bound, although bound so loosely that I didn’t have to lie on them, but just one cord so that my arms were actually bound down to my sides.
However, I had met Duncan than and learned he was so frightfully keen on people being bound and particularly on girls being bound. It was very exciting to him. So in spite of the fact that he was in his last year at the university and I was only a child, he paid loads of attention to me and took me all over the place. He was most particular about binding my arms and he even kissed me, which thrilled me to death, of course.
(I heard Gran ask Mum is she was worried about us, me being tied like that, and Mum said not with all the rubber panty girdles I was wearing at the time. I liked to wear two and sometimes three of them because they squeezed me tighter.)
So when Duncan winked I asked him if the part called for my arms to be bound and he said it didn’t now, but it would.
I read well at an audition but the trouble was that the wife of the man putting up the money also wanted to play the part. Even though I was better at it, it seemed that Duncan would have to put her into the role. As a sort of compromise and an impersonal selection, he finally decided to award the role to the one with the smallest waist. He warned me about it so I might have a chance to get a pair of stays an lace down.
Mum had no objections to corsets for this—she always wanted to be an actress—And Granna was most enthusiastic about my wearing tightly laced stays for any reason whatever. She had a kind of thing about corsets, just as Duncan did about arms being bound. All three of us went to London, but couldn’t find anything suitable, so we went to Granna’s own staymaker, who took my measurements for custom stays to Granna’s own fairly rigid specifications.
There was a lively discussion about my sleeping in my corset. Mum frowned, both Gran and the staymaker regarded it as virtually essential if I wanted to develop a small waist. Much of the same sort of discussion followed about shoulder-straps, with my Mum being outvoted. I was most definitely intrigued by the whole proposition and voted for full rigor, full boning, shoulder-straps, no front opening, and a 17-inch waist.
Privately, I was somewhat dismayed when I saw the final product. I was appalled when I picked it up—it weighed four stone and it clanked when I dropped it. It was made of a heavy rubber fabric like a Mackintosh, so I could bathe without having it off.
Gran and Mum laced me dreadfully tight—more than I liked—but they wouldn’t slacken my lace. They took in the waists of my frocks and let out the bosoms. I went about most uncomfortable and couldn’t sleep at night for weeks, but I had no choice about it by then.
The worst was that Mrs. Littlejohn was a most slim thing who had no trouble at all lacing to a smaller size than I could manage, even with all mum’s efforts. Duncan came over every night—we had no rehearsals—and he began lacing me; he was frightfully strong and I thought I’d die.
He had put in the business of Dixie belle being bound early in the first act when she is caught by the Yankees and she is bound for the whole of the play. I would be bound each night for rehearsal and go through the action at least once. (Each time I read it Mrs. Littlebut copied a bit more of my southern accent until she really became quite good.)
She got the part and I was her understudy. I was there every night I costume and makeup in case she didn’t show up. Duncan bound me each night and I waited in the green room or the wings. One night, I got to do it and everybody said I did real well. We ran for 12 weeks and we had spent 5 weeks rehearsing before that. I had been wearing my corset for at least three weeks before the rehearsals really started. And all the time, I was being laced tighter and tighter and taking in more waist of my costume (as well as my frocks) more and more. By the time the play closed, my waist was smaller than Mrs. Littlebut’s—quite a bit smaller.
Duncan said not to take off the corset because he was getting another backer, to put the play on in another house. He came by every night and laced me and we ran through the play. The backer drifted away. Then there was another but he died although his nephew thought he might help. Well, what with one thing an another, we were hanging in mid-air, so to speak but every night Duncan would tie my arms and we’d go through the part. Also, I was being laced tighter each day and getting ever slimmer. Finally, the man promised to back us if we’d be patient another three months.
Meanwhile, my mum had met a wool merchant who was a widower and they were ga-ga about each other. I mean, mum was acting positively like a teen-ager. They decided to get married and go off to Italy for a combined honeymoon and business trip and I was shipped off top Granna’s place up in Scotland. They would be back before our play went on.
Well Duncan, always bound my arms as soon as he came and so he did this the day they left, and he left me bound when he drove me up to Granna’s. Only we detoured to a little-traveled road and he stopped and kissed me...
Suddenly the world was blocked out. I could see only some white flashing lights, changing to very color. I could hear a rushing sound and nothing else. All I could feel, was the rigid corset about me.
Everything swelled up like a great balloon that burst gloriously, marvelously, wonderfully. I was somehow floating and soaring like a gull.
And even when I came down slowly, delightfully, I didn’t get all the way down. I never have got all the way down since that moment. It seems that the tightness of my corset and the binding on my arms keeps me higher than in my former duller life. My real life began at that time.
We drove on the Granna’s and he told Mary, Granna’s retainer, that I was to be kept bound as much as possible and laced as tightly as possible. Mary asked if he’d like me to wear a jougs too, which is a kin of iron collar. (He did but that was later).
Then he left me, bound and in a heavenly daze, I’ve never recovered from.
He came up weekends and fitted an iron collar about my neck. Mary was careful to keep me tethered by my jougs as well as bound. I lived in a dreamworld.
Actually, the play never was put on for the police arrested the man for something. Duncan had a teaching post to keep body and soul together and Mum settled in Manchester with her merchant. (She said they hadn’t room for me just then and she was quite satisfied that Mary was looking after me, she hadn’t the slightest objection to her daughter being laced, bound, and chained up then.)
Duncan got a wonderful offer at the university of California and he’s now a U.S. citizen.
Our life has been a dream for me—as I say, I’ve never really come down. Possibly because I have a constant reminder, my corset, my collar, my bound arms, of the sex I have had and of course of the sex I am to have again—tonight.
FIGURE-TRAINING IN THE U.S.A.
Wealthy families in this country made every effort to follow the lead of Europe in the matter of elegance an fashion, including the matter of figure-training.
Tight lacing became prevalent in the wealthy families, along with the attendant restraints—shoulderstraps, backboards, collars, and bound arms—much as in Europe.
There were girls’ schools in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Conn., and other places where the girls were tightly laced day and night, bound, collared, braced, tethered, and masked in the European manner. Preventative discipline was much in vogue in small select circles and many young women were subjected to distressing restraints.
An additional restraint was used in a school in Germantown, which is a suburb of Philadelphia. There the young ladies would be tightly laced, braced, dressed, and bound each morning with their elbows touching, all before their hair was combed. Then, a maid would braid their hair in a single long pigtail, in the back and braid a cloth tape in with the hair. This clothe tape would then be tied tightly to the strap that bound their elbows together behind their backs, thus pulling their heads back firmly. They were left bound like this during their instruction. With there heads drawn back in this manner, they were forced to bend forward at the hips in order to see where they were going; thus, their body was forced into an extreme S-curve that was considered stylish.
The general idea of the training was to force the girls into an exaggerated state of desired attitude so that they would grow accustomed to it and fall easily and comfortably into the fashionable posture.
Some schools had another feature that is worth mentioning: each girl had to have her own wrist-retraining ribbon on her shoulder. Each girl, had to have wide grosgrain ribbons with hooks and eyes spaced just right to fasten around both wrists. Matched eyes were sewed to the shoulders of their uniforms and each girl had to have her ribbon at all times, either hooked on her shoulder or binding her writs at the back of her waist. If a girl had no ribbon on her shoulder and was not bound, then her wrists would be bound behind her back with sticking plaster and left bound, until her lost ribbon was found or until new one could be made. The girls used to steal each other’s ribbons, to get even for past offenses.
DE MILO CORSET
The De Milo corset is virtually for bondage society people. It is called that corset because it encloses the arms, so that the wearer appears to be armless like a Venus. There aren't many of them. Another kind of Venus corset is underwear and I have seen only one of these, although I know more that exist; I once attended a dance in Palo Alto (CA) where there were four women in a Venus corsets of this type. The one I saw was a long boned garment, very heavy, that laced the waist tightly, molded the hips and bust, and supported the long stockings just like an ordinary corset. The difference was in the upper body: It covered the shoulders with no armholes. The wearer, a slim pretty blonde, had her arms folded tightly behind her back, her forearms pressed together up and down over her spine. Her hands, palms outward, were up, so that her extended fingers almost touched the back of her neck. The backs of her hands were held tightly against the skin of her back up between her shoulders and her elbows were almost touching behind her back, just a little above her waist. Her whole body was laced very tightly, so that her arms were crushed against her back: She appeared to have no arms at all. Her upper body was thicker than normal in profile, but not noticeable so unless you knew the lady and knew how slim she was ordinarily. Her waist was tiny, seemingly more tiny with the bulk of her arms folded up so. Her hips swelled out widely, and she had a most delightful figure. I saw her after she was laced tightly in this corset and she was wearing only that, stockings, high-heeled boots, and a heavy solid-gold collar that had cost her husband five thousand, seven hundred dollars. The lady was breathing shallowly, because of the tight lacing, but yet not quite tightly enough for her gold lame evening dress to be fastened. After we chatted for perhaps an hour, she and her husband, my wife and myself, her husband tightened her laces still more. It was painful to her to be tightened, but she urged him toward greater effort. She is fully as masochistic as he is sadistic, and he braced his knee against her back as he tugged at the laces. He knotted it tightly at the top, cut off the ends, and found that the gold lame gown could now be hooked and zipped up the back. I it covered her corset completely and she seemed to have no arms at all. He then finished dressing while my wife touched up the lady's lipstick and powder. That was around 7 pm. She stayed laced and dressed during a dinner party; her husband fed her by hand and a number of men danced with her, holding the end of her neckchain in their left hands. My wife helped her in the ladies' room once and I believe some other women helped her, another time. A little after 2:a.m.,we all went to another place to listen to some old-fashioned Dixieland jazz and dance. Later, we went up to a friend's house on Mulholland Drive to watch the sun come up over the city. She actually fell asleep in the car coming back to her home in Pacific Palisades. That was after 7 am; her husband carried her in at their place and she was half awake. My wife offered to help undress her, thinking of her uncomfortable corset, but her husband said, "No", he'd take care of her. We later found that he had removed only her dress before tumbling her into bed, still in corset and high-heeled boots, and she had slept until after 1 pm. She admitted that her arms were numb."
