Proscription or Requirement of Native Dress
Sumptuary laws have also been used to control populations by prohibiting the wearing of native dress and hairstyles, along with the proscription of other cultural customs. Sir John Perrot, Lord Deputy of Ireland under Elizabeth I, banned the wearing of traditional woollen mantles, "open smocks" with "great sleeves", and native headdresses, requiring the people to dress in "civil garments" in the English style.
In a similar manner, the Dress Act of 1746, part of the Act of Proscription issued under George II of the United Kingdom following the Jacobite Risings, made wearing Scottish Highland Dress including tartans and kilts illegal in Scotland for anyone not in the British military. The Act was repealed in 1782, having been largely successful, and a few decades later, "romantic" Highland Dress was enthusiastically adopted by George IV on a Walter Scott-inspired visit to Scotland in 1822.
In Bhutan, the wearing of traditional dress (which also has an ethnic connotation) in certain places, such as when visiting government offices, was made compulsory in 1989 under the driglam namzha laws. Part of the traditional dress includes the kabney, a long scarf whose coloring is regulated. Only the King of Bhutan and Chief Abbot may don the saffron scarf, with various other colors reserved for government and religious officers, and white available for common people.
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Famous quotes containing the words requirement, native and/or dress:
“Reporters for tabloid newspapers beat a path to the park entrance each summer when the national convention of nudists is held, but the cult’s requirement that visitors disrobe is an obstacle to complete coverage of nudist news. Local residents interested in the nudist movement but as yet unwilling to affiliate make observations from rowboats in Great Egg Harbor River.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“It seems as if the more youthful and impressible streams can hardly resist the numerous invitations and temptations to leave their native beds and run down their neighbors’ channels.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I know you not, this room never,
the swollen dress I wear,
nor the anonymous spoons that free me,
nor this calendar nor the pulse we pare and cover.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)