How did the nobility in the past show off their wealth?
Nowadays, the ultra-rich people express their wealthy life through properties or supercars. However, do you know how our aristocratic ancients showed that they were a noble birth? Sophisticatedly dressed in massive outfits and gaudy hats? These may be true but not enough. Hereunder some “signs” to help you recognize the aristocracy class in the past at a glance!
Japan
The Japanese nobility assumed that the difference between them and the commoners was that they never…farted! That’s how a career called heoibikuni was born. Only daughters of noble lineage or landlord at that time could own a heoibikuni.
Heoibikuni were female servants who took care of their masters’ daily routines like sleeping, eating, etc from dusk till dawn. However, these servants had another important task. It was “pleading guilty” in…farting. When their masters farted, whether accidentally or intentionally, quietly or loudly, smell or no smell, heoibikuni had to immediately stand up and declared to everyone that it was they who had done it.
Of course, no one would believe that confession but, as we are doing nowadays, those people in the past didn’t want to have a serious debate about that issue. Hence, the duty of the heoibikuni was completed that prevent their master from being embarrassed in front of the crowd.
Besides, these servants were indispensable in a blind date, the first step in all arranged marriage (actually, most of the marriages in the past were arranged). It is because ladies didn’t want to leave a bad first impression on who could become her husband in the future.
However, only girls had a demand to hire a heoibikuni. There is no heoibikuni for men recorded in the same period.
Vietnam
The concept of nobility and wealthy in old Vietnam was that those people were not “workers”. They had numerous servants to do the housework and manual labor for them because to them, that manual stuff was “inferior”. In addition to the Vietnamese aristocratic concept, the Confucians believed that one’s body belonged to his parents and nature, so he must preserve it as much as possible. Hence, most of the time, they protected themselves from the housework or manual labor in order not to harm the body.
As a result, to prove that they just sat and did nothing, the noblemen decided to raise their nails long. The nails were so long that they curl up and made it hard for them to handle things by hand or do heavy work. Obviously, living as if they had had no hands was impossible while they did have hands, so those wealthy men who were addicted to the manicure used to raise long nails on the left hand only.
Egypt
The ancient Egyptians seem to be the trendsetters. In 3000 BC, when people start to melt gold and re-shape it, golden jewelry was born. From then on, gold has become the most favorite metal of the jewelers and the lords and ladies. To show off how rich they were, they often wore big golden earrings with exquisite carvings and giant pearls. They believed that golden jewelry contained a mysterious power that could bring good luck to the owners.
The UK
Unlike the trend now that tanned skin is popular, in the 16th — 17th century, the nobility class in the UK assumed that only rich people could have white skin. Meanwhile, those in the lower classes got the “dirty skin” because of the outdoor manual labor. Therefore, anyone who had white clear skin was thought to be healthy and noble. The British Queen Elizabeth I was famous for her pale skin which was considered as the standard beauty at that time.
However, do you know how they did to have that pure white skin? Whitening cream? No, they didn’t. They used a kind of carbonate lead powder (usually used in painting) mixing with vinegar, sulfur, alum or tin ash to apply on their faces. This formula gave them the white skin at first but gradually turned into yellowish after a while. Moreover, with all these toxic chemicals, the English noblewomen would be poisoned and die quite soon.
What’s more, aristocratic women in the 14th — 16th century also tried their best to “widen” their foreheads as much as possible. It is because they believed that a wide and high forehead could make them look more luxurious, noble and erudite. And as a result, the ancient aristocracy had found many interesting ways to get that beauty. They waxed the eyebrows then pulled all the hair backward to how the hairline to increase the sexiness!
Italian
Though being invented during the Renaissance, it was until the 15th — 17th century that the chopines shoes became famous among Italian nobility class. To raise one’s height, chopines shoes were designed with an average height of 18 centimeters. Especially, some pairs of were 50-centimeter high. The reason for this unbelievable height was that they would prevent the elegant dresses of noblewomen from dirt on the street.
Chopines were mostly made of wood, covered with velvet or silk. At a higher price, they were decorated more elaborately with silver lace and glittering embroidery. Actually, that sophisticated decoration was unfortunately hidden behind the dresses. Besides, some scholars assumed that chopine made ladies feel uncomfortable and unbalanced. Moreover, wearing this kind of shoes for a long while could cause bone and joint disease. However, aristocracy class in Italian still loved chopines shoes just because it proved their high social status.
China
Also related to the gait, the ancient Chinese thought that women who were noble birth had to have a swinging gait like a lotus in the lake and tiny feet. Small feet meant that they didn’t have to work on fields and the swinging gait showed the elegance. Furthermore, aristocratic daughters without bounded feet only had the opportunity to get married to men in lower social class, and daughters of poor families with big feet were more likely to be sold as slaves.
Daughters of noble families had to go through a painful and dangerous process, called “bounding feet” since they were small in order to get required “lotus feet”. This process started when girls were three to five years old — the period when the metatarsal bone wasn’t fully developed. Firstly, they washed feet with warm water and animal blood to make them softer. Then the horror part began with cutting toes to make it stop growing. Then they bent and pressed toes towards the sole of the feet. They also broke the arch and double-folded it to make it look like a lotus. The last step was that they tightly bounded painful feet in bandages.
Besides, the ancient nobilities believed bounding feet was a method to stick woman with her family because they couldn’t go too far with hurtful feet. Plus, the thighs and hips would become bigger to make them move comfortably. Hence, the muscles around the female genitalia also became toned which brought more pleasure to the husband. This is why women with bounded feet could easily marry noblemen than those living with ordinary feet.
Experts say that bounding feet leads to a lot of health problems especially the infection. Tight bandage cause blood flow to the toes completely clogged, wounds on feet were never healed leading to caseation and rotting flesh.
