Class 9 History Extra Question Answers - Clothing: A Social History (Deducted from CBSE 2021-22 examination)

1) What were the 'Sumptuary Laws' in France?

Answer: (i) These laws were imposed on members of different layers of society to control the behaviour of those considered inferior.                    
(ii) These laws prevented them from wearing certain clothes, consuming certain foods and beverages.
(iii) They were also prevented to practise hunting in certain areas.

2) How was the purchasing of clothes regulated in France?

Answer: (i) In medieval France, the items of clothing a person could purchase per year was regulated not only by income but also by social rank. (ii) The material to be used for clothing was also legally prescribed. (iii) Only royalty could wear expensive materials like fur, silk, velvet and brocade. 

3)   How did different classes develop their own culture of dress?

Answer:(i) Clearly, the poor could not dress like the rich, nor eat the same food. (ii) Laws no longer barred people's right to dress in the way they wished. (iii) Different classes developed their own culture of dress. The notion of what was beautiful or ugly, proper or improper, decent or vulgar, differed. 

4) How did the styles of clothing emphasize differences between men and women?

Answer: (i) Women in Victorian England were groomed from childhood to be docile and dutiful, submissive and obedient.
(ii) The ideal woman was one who could bear pain and suffering.
(iii) While men were expected to be serious, strong, independent and aggressive, women were seen as frivolous, delicate, passive and docile. Norms of clothing reflected these ideals. 

5) How did norms of clothing reflect the status of women?

Answer: (i) From childhood, girls were tightly laced up and dressed in stays.
(ii) The effort was to restrict the growth of their bodies and contain them within small moulds.
(iii) When slightly older, girls had to wear tight-fitting corsets.
(iv) Tightly laced, small-waisted women were admired as attractive, elegant and graceful.

6) Why did women wear corsets?

Answer: (i) From childhood, they grew up to believe that having a small waist was a womanly duty.
(ii) Bearing pain was essential to being a woman.
(iii) To be seen as attractive, to be womanly, they had to wear corsets. The torture and pains inflicted on the body was to be accepted as normal. 

7) How did women suffer by wearing tight dresses and corsets?

Answer:(i) Women's magazines described how tight dresses and corsets caused deformities and illness among young girls.
(ii) Such clothing restricted body growth and hampered blood circulation.

(iii) Muscles remained underdeveloped and the spines got bent.
(iv) Doctors reported that many women were regularly complaining of acute weakness and fainted frequently. Corsets then became necessary to hold up the Weakend spine. 

8) Why were the traditional clothes of women criticised in America?

Answer:(i) Long skirts swept the ground and collected filth and dirt. This caused illness. (ii) The skirts were voluminous and difficult to handle.
(iii) They hampered movement and prevented women from working and earning. Reform of the dress, it was said, would change the position of women. 

9) What reforms were introduced in women's clothing?

Answer: (i) In the 1870s, the National Woman Suffrage Association was headed by Mrs Stanton and the American Woman Suffrage Association campaigned for dress reform.
(ii) The argument was to simplify dress, shorten skirts and abandon corsets.
(iii) On both sides of the Atlantic, there was a movement for rational dress reform. They felt that if clothes were comfortable and convenient then women could work, earn their living and become independent.

10) How were the conservatives successful in making the women adopt their old clothing?

Answer:(i) Conservatives everywhere opposed the change.
(ii) They felt that women who gave up traditional norms of dressing no longer looked beautiful and lost their feminity and grace.
(iii) Faced with persistent attacks, many women began to wear their traditional clothes to conform to conventions. 

11) What were the reasons that made women opt for comfortable and simple dresses?

Answer: (i) New schools for children emphasised the importance of plain dressing and discouraged ornamentation.
(ii) Gymnastics and games entered the school curriculum for women. As women took to sports, they had to wear clothes that did not hinder movement.
(iii) When they went out to work, they needed clothes that were comfortable and convenient. 

12) In what ways did the Indians react to the Western style of clothing?

Answer: (i) Many Indian men started wearing Western style of clothes. The wealthy Parsis were the first to adopt Western style of clothing. Baggy trousers and hat were added to long collarless coats with boots and a stick to walk with.
(ii) There were others who felt that western style clothes would lead to loss of cultural identity.
(iii) Some men resolved to wear Western clothes without giving up their Indian ones. Many of them wore Western style clothing for working outside and changed to more comfortable Indian clothes at home. 

13) What was India's social dress code?

Answer: (i) India had its own strict social codes for food and dress.
(ii) The caste system clearly denned what subordinate and dominant caste Hindus should wear, eat, etc.
(iii) Changes in clothing styles that threatened these norms therefore, often created violent social reactions.

14) Who were the Shanars?

Answer:(i) The Shanars were a community of toddy tappers who migrated to southern Travancore to work under Nair landlords.
(ii) As they were considered a subordinate caste, they were prohibited from using umbrellas and wearing shoes or gold ornaments.
(iii) Men and women were also expected to follow the local custom of never covering their upper bodies before the upper caste. 

15) How did the Indians react to the western style of clothing?

Answer: The Indians reacted to the western style of clothing:
(i) Many Indians started wearing western style of clothes. Baggy trousers and a hat was added to the long collarless coats with boots and a stick to walk with.
(ii) Others felt that western style clothes would have to a loss of cultural identity.
(iii) Some men wore western clothes without giving up their Indian dress. Some wore western clothes while working outside and changed to more comfortable Indian clothes at home. 

16) What explanation did the Indians give for taking off their shoes at home and at sacred places?

Answer:(i) There was the problem of dirt and filth. Shoes collected the dirt from the road. This dirt could not be allowed into spaces that were clean, particularly when people in Indian homes sat on the ground.
(ii) Leather shoes and the filth that stuck under it were seen as polluting. But public buildings like the courtroom were different from home. 

17) What kinds of dresses were devised for men and women by Tagore?

Answer: (i) The Tagore family of Bengal experimented with designs for a national dress, for both men and women in India.
(ii) Rabindranath Tagore suggested that instead of combining Indian and European dress, India's national dress should combine elements of Hindu and Muslim dress. (iii) Thus, the chapkan (a long buttoned coat) was considered the most suitable dress for men. 

18) How was the Brahmika sari designed?

Answer:(i) In the late 1870s, Jnanadanandini Devi, wife of Satyendranath Tagore, the first Indian member of the ICS returned from Bombay to Calcutta. (ii) She adopted the Parsi style of wearing the sari pinned to the left shoulder with a brooch and worn with a blouse and shoes. (iii) This was quickly adopted by the Brahmo Samaji women and came to be known as the Brahmika sari. 

19) How did Mahatma Gandhi use khadi as a national symbol?

Answer:(i) The most familiar image of Mahatma Gandhi is of him seated bare chested and in a short dhoti, by the spinning wheel.
(ii) He made spinning on the charkha and the daily use of khadi or coarse cloth made from homespun yarn, very powerful symbols.
(iii) They were not only symbols of self-reliance but also of resistance towards the use of British mill-made cloth. 

20) What is the famous case of defiance of the 'shoe respect' rule in a Surat courtroom?

Answer: (i) Manockjee Cowasjee Entee, an assessor in Surat Fouzdaree Adalat, refused to take off his shoes in the court of the Sessions Judge.
(ii) The Judge insisted that he took off his shoes as that was the Indian way of showing respect to superiors. But Manockjee remained adamant.
(iii) His entry was barred into the courtroom and he sent a letter of protest to the governor of Bombay.

21) Why was national dress needed to define the cultural identity?

Answer: (i) A nationalist feeling swept across India by the late 19th century. Indians began devising cultural symbols that would express the unity of the nation. (ii) Artists looked for a national style of art. Poets wrote national songs. Then a debate began over the design of the national flag. (iii) The search for a national dress was part of this move to define the cultural identity of the nation in symbolic ways. The Tagore family of Bengal experimented in the 1870s with designs for a national dress for both men and women in India. 

22) How did British change India's status in world's economy?

Answer: (i) British first came to trade in Indian textiles that were in great demand all over the world. (ii) India accounted for one-fourth of the world's manufactured goods in the 17th century. (iii) There were a million weavers in Bengal alone in the middle of the 18th century. However, the Industrial Revolution in Britain, which mechanized spinning and weaving and greatly increased the demand for raw materials such as cotton and Indigo, changed India's status in the world economy. 

23)   In which two ways did the political control of India help British?

Answer:Political control of India helped British in the following two ways: (i) Indian peasants could be forced to grow crops such as indigo, and cheap British manufacture easily replaced coarser Indian cloth. (ii) Large number of Indian weavers and spinners were left without work, and important textile centres such as Murshidabad, Machilipatnam and Surat declined as demand fell. 

24) Why did Mahatma Gandhi's dream of clothing the nation in Khadi become an appeal only to some sections of Indians? 

Answer:(i) The British machine-made clothes were cheaper than Khadi so most of the poor started using foreign clothes. (ii) The wealthy Parsis adopted western style clothing as they were sign of progress and modernity. (iii) Even leaders like Motilal Nehru used fine Indian cloth material; but not the coarse Khadi material. (iv) As western dress style was for all most adopted as a mark of equality.   

25) Analyse the sense of clothing of the French after the French Revolution.

Answer:  (i) Members of the Jacobin clubs called themselves the 'sans culottes' to distinguish themselves from the aristocracy who wore the fashionable 'knee breeches'. (ii) Sans culottes literally meant those 'without knee breeches'. (iii) From now on, both men and women began wearing clothing that were loose and comfortable. (iv) The colours used in their clothes were?blue, white and red?the colours of patriotism. (v) Other political symbols also became a part of their dress: the red cap of liberty, long trousers and the revolutionary cap, cockade. (vi) The simplicity of clothing was meant to express the idea of equality.

26) When were new clothing materials introduced in Britain?

Answer:(i) Before the 17th century, most ordinary women in Britain possessed very few clothes made of flax, linen or wool, which were difficult to clean.
(ii) After 1600, trade with India brought cheap, beautiful and easy-to- maintain Indian chintzes (cotton cloth printed with designs and flowers).
(iii) During the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, Britain began the mass manufacture of cotton textiles which it exported to many parts of  the world.    
(iv) Cotton clothes, now became more accessible to a wider section of people in Europe.
(v) By the early 20th century, artificial fibres made clothes cheaper and easier to wash and maintain.   

27) Why did the clothes get shorter during World War I?

Answer: (i) Clothes got shorter during World War I out of practical necessity.              
(ii) By 1917, over 7 lakh women in Britain were employed in ammunition factories. They wore a working uniform that consisted of a blouse and trousers with accessories such as scarves.                                    
(iii) Bright colours faded from sight and only sober colours were worn as the war dragged on.                                                        
(iv) Thus, clothes became more plain and simple and skirts became shorter.      
(v) Women took to keeping their hair short for convenience. 

28) Why were objections raised on Shanar women's tailored blouses?

Answer:(i) Shanar women started wearing tailored blouses and clothes to cover themselves like the upper caste. (ii) Soon Nairs, one of the upper castes of the region, attacked these women in public places and tore off their upper clothes. (iii) Complaints were also filed in court against this dress change, since it was a dress style of upper caste women. (iv) The government of Travancore issued a proclamation in 1829 ordering Shanar women not to cover the upper parts of the body. But this did not prevent the Shanar Christian women, and even the Shanar Hindus from adopting the blouse and the upper cloth. 

29) What was the conflict related to the wearing of shoes between Indians and the British officials?

Answer:(i) At the beginning of the 19th century, it was customary for the British officials to follow Indian etiquettes and remove their shoes in  courts of ruling kings.  
(ii) Some British officials also wore Indian clothes,                                
(iii) In 1830, Europeans were forbidden from wearing Indian clothes at official functions, so that the Whites looked different as masters.
(iv) Governor-General Amherst insisted that Indians take their shoes off as a sign of respect when they appeared before him, but this was not strictly followed.
(v) Lord Dalhousie, later on made 'shoe-respect' strict and Indians were made to take off their shoes when entering any government institution; only those who wore European clothes were exempted from this rule. 

30) Why did the Indians boycott mill-made cloth and adopt khadi?

Answer: (i) In 1905, Lord Curzon decided to divide Bengal to control the growing opposition to British rule.
(ii) The Swadeshi movement developed and people were made to boycott British goods of all kinds and started their own industries for the manufacture of goods such as matchboxes and cigarettes.
(iii) Mass protests followed with people vowing to cleanse themselves of colonial rule.
(iv) The use of khadi was made a patriotic duty.
(v) Women were urged to throw away their silk clothes and glass bangles and wear simple shell bangles.