Sumptuary Laws

Recently I came across this article about sumptuary laws during America's colonial period. Part of the motivation for seamen to turn pirate was the opportunity it afforded them to flaunt these laws through dress and manners. What you could wear and what after-work activities you could participate in were highly regulated. I've included an excerpt of the article here:

The Puritan Experiment with Sumptuary Legislation

JUNE 01, 1974 by GARY NORTH

In 1651, both the magistrates and deputies of Massachusetts agreed on the following piece of legislation, one that is unrivaled in American history for its sheer medievalism — comprehensive, authoritarian, and thoroughly hierarchical:

Although several declarations and orders have been made by this Court against excess in apparel, both of men and of women, which have not yet taken that effect which were to be desired, but on the contrary we cannot but to our grief take notice that intolerable excesses and bravery have crept in upon us, and especially amongst the people of mean condition, to the dishonor of God, the scandal of our profession [i.e., profession of faith], the consumption of estates, and altogether we acknowledge it to be a matter of great difficulty, in regard to the blindness of men’s minds and the stubbornness of their wills, to set down exact rules to confine all sorts of persons, yet we cannot but account it our duty to commend unto all sorts of persons a sober and moderate use of those blessings which, beyond our expectation, the Lord has been pleased to afford unto us in this wilderness, and also declare our utter detestation and dislike that men or women of mean condition, educations, and callings should take upon them the garb of gentlemen, by the wearing of gold or silver lace, or buttons, or points at their knees, to walk in great boots; or women of the same rank to wear tiffany hoods or scarves, which though allowable to persons of greater estates, or more liberal education, yet we cannot but judge it intollerable in persons of such like condition….⁴

Unless a citizen was of a good education, or a military officer, or a civil officer, he could not wear such clothing unless his estate could be valued at £200 or more, according to a "true and indifferent value." For a violation of this statute, a ten shilling fine was imposed.

A similar, though shorter, statute had been passed by the Connecticut authorities a decade earlier.

The wearing of lace by social inferiors had been the subject of at least two pieces of Massachusetts legislation in the 1630′s. It was only to be used as a small edging (presumably only by the upper classes), and lace in general was prohibited from being worn extensively on any garment⁶ Special import taxes were placed on luxury items, "for preventing the immoderate expense of provisions brought from beyond the seas." Such goods as sugar, spice, wine, and tobacco were included. The tariff was 16% for direct purchasers, and 33% of the import price for retailers (thus making it more difficult for local retailers to compete in sales with the more distant, and presumably less compelling, London merchants).⁷

Tobacco

Tobacco consumption, which was regarded by Puritan leaders as another unnecessary excess, had been under fire [I couldn't resist] from some of the directors of the Massachusetts Bay Company right from its inception.⁸ All four of the Puritan commonwealths — Massachusetts, New Haven, Connecticut, and Plymouth — passed numerous provisions placing restrictions on the sale and consumption of the "noxious weed." These prohibitions were not really status oriented; they were motivated by a number of fears. One, understandably, was fire. Boston was forever burning down in the seventeenth century, as Carl Bridenbaugh’s Cities in the Wilderness reports in some detail. At one stage, Massachusetts prohibited the buying and selling of tobacco entirely, although it was legal to import it for re-export later.¹° They apparently thought it was all right to burn down other cities, if local merchants were to gain some profit in the transaction. Plymouth tried to ban its importation in 1641, but repealed the law six months later." Connecticut‘s ban is the most amusing in retrospect. It was directly tied to the issue of personal health, but in the exact opposite of today’s concern: no one under the age of twenty who had not already addicted himself to tobacco was allowed to buy it, unless he had a physician’s certificate "that it is useful to him," and he had to present the certificate to the Court in order to obtain a license to purchase the weed.¹¹

Time-Wasting

Taverns, brewers, and liquor retailers were under restrictions throughout the century. Indeed, some of these controls are as common today as they were in the New England colonies. Men were not to waste precious time in taverns, the magistrates believed, so they went to considerable lengths to protect men from their own weaknesses. Then, as now, licensing was the primary means of control, and it was equally a source of public revenue. The annual licensing of taverns, said the Massachusetts magistrates, is inescapable, "Seeing it is difficult to order and keep the houses of public entertainment in such conformity to the wholesome laws established by this Court as is necessary for the prevention of drunkenness, excessive drinking, vain expense of money, time, and the abuse of the creatures of God…"¹²

Although it seems incredible today, shuffleboard was regarded as a prime danger. There were not to be scenes of elderly men spending a leisurely afternoon in the park playing this Devil’s game. Such games were a sign of idling — a waste of God’s most precious resource, time — and they were especially prohibited in taverns and when practiced by servants and youths. The magistrates were willing to go to real extremes to stamp out games of chance and shuffleboard.¹^³ These regulations extended throughout the century, unlike virtually all other sumptuary laws, indicating a continuity of opinion against "vain pursuits." (It might be said that at least in New England, shuffleboard was not to be an old man’s pastime because old men were always regarded as fully productive until they grew feeble; if a man could work, he was expected to. If shuffleboard drew the wrath of Puritan magistrates, Leisure World or Sun City or retirement centers in Florida would have been regarded by them as nothing short of Satanic — the worst sort of wastefulness of men’s productive capacities.)

As in so many other cases, one colony did not participate in the sumptuary mania: Rhode Island.¹⁴ But Rhode Island was not a Puritan commonwealth. Its founder, Roger Williams, had argued for the separation of church and state — not primarily to protect the state, but to protect the church!

You can read the entire article here:

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-puritan-experiment-with-sumptuary-legislation