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Modesty, sometimes known as demureness, is a mode of dress and deportment which intends to avoid the encouraging of sexual attraction in others. The word modesty comes from the Latin word which means 'keeping within measure'.Jennett, Sheila. The Oxford companion to the body. Eds. Colin Blakemore, and Sheila Jennett. Vol. 7. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001.
In this use, revealing certain body parts is considered inappropriate, thus immodest. In conservative Middle Eastern societies, modesty may involve women completely covering their bodies with a burqa and not talking to men who are not immediate family members. In Christian Anabaptism and similar sects, it may involve women wearing only ankle-length skirts, blouses up to the collar, and often a small head covering or shawl. Among both and others, a one-piece swimsuit may be considered modest while wearing a bikini is not. In most countries, exposure of the body in breach of community standards of modesty, as well as public nudity, is considered indecent exposure and is usually punished by law.
Nudity may be acceptable in public single-sex at , for example, or for mass medical examinations of military personnel. A person who would never disrobe in the presence of the opposite sex in a social context might unquestioningly do so for a medical examination, while others might allow such examination but only by a person of the same sex.
Overall, standards of modesty vary widely around the world because of sociocultural and contextual differences and particular situations.
In 2023, global spending on modest fashion reached $254 billion, with projections estimating growth to $473 billion by 2025.
Standards of modesty vary by culture or generation and vary depending on who is exposed, which parts of the body are exposed, the duration of the exposure, the context, and other variables. The categories of persons who could see another's body could include:
The context would include matters such as whether it is in one's own home, at another family member's home, at a friend's home, at a semi-public place, at a beach, swimming pool (including whether such venues are considered dress code), or other public places. For instance, wearing a bathing suit at the beach would not be considered immodest, while it likely would be in a street or an office. The context may change during specific events or rituals such as Mardi Gras in New Orleans or during neopagan Skyclad work.
Excessive modesty is called prude. As a medical condition, it is also called gymnophobia. Excessive immodesty is called exhibitionism.
In Western and some other societies, there are differences of opinion as to how much body exposure is acceptable in public.Salmansohn, Karen. " The Power of Cleavage". The Huffington Post, October 29, 2007. In contemporary Western society, the extent to which a woman may expose cleavage depends on social, cultural and regional context. Women's and commonly may reveal the tops and sides of the breasts, or they may be topless as is common on the beaches of the French Riviera. Displaying cleavage is considered permissible in many settings, and is even a sign of elegance and sophistication on many formal social occasions, but it may be considered inappropriate in settings such as workplaces, churches and schools. Showing the or areolae is almost always considered toplessness or partial nudity. However, in 2014 newly elected Pope Francis drew world-wide commentary when he encouraged mothers to breastfeed in church if their babies were hungry.
In private homes, the standards of modesty apply selectively. For instance, nudity among close family members in the home can take place, especially in the bedroom and bathroom, and wearing of only undergarments in the home is common.
In many cultures it is not acceptable to bare the buttocks in public; Mooning is sometimes intended as an insult. In public, Western standards of decency expect people to cover their genitalia, and women to cover their .
Since the 1980s it has become more common for young women in Western societies to wear clothing that bared the midriff, "short shorts", backless tops, sheer and other styles considered to be immodest.
In the United States in the early twenty-first century, public breastfeeding has become increasingly acceptable, sometimes protected by law. President Barack Obama's health care bill from 2010 provides additional support to nursing mothers, requiring employers to provide a private and shielded space for employees to use in order to nurse.
In 1992 New York State's highest court accepted Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution arguments and struck down the provision in New York's Exposure of the Person statute that made it illegal for women to bare their chests where men were permitted to do so.
Modesty in dress is important in Buddhism. The Sekhiya rules of Buddhist Monastic code, for example, provide guidelines on proper clothing as well as recommended ways of dressing for monks. The 75 sekhiyas Buddhism Dhamma Dana (2009)
The 'robes hitched up' phrase above refers to lifting one's 1 or 2 piece cloth robe, thereby exposing either side or both sides of one's body to other human beings in an inhabited area. Such exhibitionism is not recommended to monks. Beyond monks, the Buddhist belief is that modesty has a purifying quality for everyone.Edward Thomas (2002), The History of Buddhist Thought, Dover Publications, , pp 163, 207-208
Historically, female communicants of traditional Christian denominations (including Anglican, Baptist, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian Church, Oriental Orthodox, Reformed, and Roman Catholic) wore a headcovering while praying at home and worshipping in the church, or all the time as with Anabaptists such as the Mennonites and the Bruderhof, in keeping with their interpretation of , which has been practiced since the time of the early Church. (1992). 9780924722066, Scroll Publishing Co.. ISBN 9780924722066 Apostolic Tradition commands: "let all the women have their heads covered with an opaque cloth, not with a veil of thin linen, for this is not a true covering." John Chrysostom (407) delineated Saint Paul's teaching on the wearing of headcoverings by Christian women, continually:
These ancient Christian practices regarding modesty continue to be normative among Christians in regions such as in Eastern Europe and in South Asia, though they have waned in the Western world starting in the 1960s. Many Trinitarian Christians consider modesty extremely important,See, e.g., Modesty: The Undressing of Our Youth , by Lenora Hammond. though considerable differences of opinion exist about its requirements and purposes. The Modesty Survey : An anonymous discussion among Christians concerning various aspects of modesty. The early Church stressed the importance of modesty in the practice of Christianity, with early Church Father Clement of Alexandria teaching:
The early Christian manual Paedagogus (198 Anno Domini) teaches that clothing worn by faithful Christians should extend beyond the knees and warns against the wearing of expensive clothing, in addition to forbidding the excesses of jewelry: (2020). 9781789693225, Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781789693225
Early ecclesiastical writer Tertullian echoed the same teachings regarding modesty in his On the Apparel of Women, also including a prohibition on Christian men and women dyeing their hair. Rather than to ostentatiously display the hair, Tertullian said that Christian women are to wear a headcovering in public. He taught that Christians should be able to be easily distinguished from non-Christians by their wearing of modest clothing.
Requirements vary across churches and denominations; however, all conservative Anabaptist women wear Christian headcoverings and a skirt or dress, and all men wear long trousers. From there, considerable variation exists in men's, women's, and children's styles. Anabaptist adherents read a church group's relative strictness, distance from popular culture, and even religious ideas by their appearance and the speed of dress changes. Accordingly, the extent to which popular fashion elements show up in an Anabaptist person's dress often depends on the social distance of that church from popular culture. For example, women's headcoverings have numerous subtle design elements that distinguish church association, age, and attitude toward modest dress. Women in more fashion-conscious groups, especially among some Conservative Mennonites as well as young adults among some Old Order Amish, may wear a lacy doily that fits a stylized appearance, whereas groups and individuals holding to a distinctive form of modesty wear a fixed-style kapp with a back part that covers the hair bun and is pleated to a front part that vertically encircles the head.
Churches vary in how much members may experiment with modesty and fashion in dress. Some groups, for example, may be less inclined to censure tight dresses so long as the church's distinctive style is maintained or to censure popular swimwear worn while swimming in groups or in public; others carefully observe and embrace their church's pattern for modest, distinct dress on all non-private occasions.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church points out that "Modesty is decency. It inspires one's choice of clothing" (CCC, 2522)."
The wearing of a veil (headcovering) for women while praying at home and while worshipping at Mass has been practiced by Christian women since the time of the early Church. The wearing of headcoverings during the celebration of the liturgy was mandated as a universal rule for the Latin Church by the Code of Canon Law of 1917, (Latin) abrogated by the Code of Canon Law of 1983.
The standards issued by Pope Pius XI declared that "women who wear immodest dress shall be denied Holy Communion, and shall not be admitted as a godmother at Baptism or as a sponsor at Confirmation". (2025). 9781466869844, Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9781466869844 They further stated "Nuns, in accordance with the Letter of 23 August 1928, of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, shall not admit to their colleges, schools, oratories, or amusement centers, nor allow to remain there any girls who do not observe Christian modesty in dress; and in the education of their charges they shall take special care to sow deeply in their hearts a love of chastity and Christian modesty.
Pope Pius XI also issued the standard of decent dress, declaring that "A dress cannot be called decent which is cut deeper than two fingers breadth under the pit of the throat; which does not cover the arms at least to the elbows; and scarcely reaches a bit beyond the knees. Furthermore, dresses of transparent materials are improper."
Between 1933 and 1980, the Catholic Legion of Decency was active in monitoring morally objectionable content in films. It condemned a number of films, including several on account of the clothing worn. For example, the Legion has condemned the display of cleavage in The Outlaw (1941) and in The French Line (1954).
In 1944 on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the so-called "Marylike Crusade" (formally known as the "Purity Crusade of Mary Immaculate") was initiated by Rev. Bernard Kunkel to codify Pope Pius' XII directives on the Catholic standards of dress, known as "Marylike modesty". (2025). 9781595553676, Thomas Nelson. ISBN 9781595553676 It seeks for Christians to emulate the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title "Mother Most Chaste" as the model for modesty. Mary-like Modesty includes for women, wearing sleeves "extending at least to the elbows" and "skirts reaching below the knees", as well as having a neckline no more than two inches with the rest of the bodice fully covered.Kunkel, Rev. Bernard. My Life in Prayer Book, Book Two, Chapter III: The Marylike Standards for Modesty in Dress The Marylike Crusade promotes a vow for Catholics to take: "While I am determined always to dress with Marylike modesty, both at home and in public, I intend to be specially careful to do so when visiting any place dedicated to God." (2018). 9781501726668, Cornell University Press. ISBN 9781501726668 The Marylike Crusade received an Apostolic Blessing from Pope Pius XII on 14 July 1954 and on 11 May 1955, Pope Pius XII extended this "to the members, to their Directors and Moderators, to their families and loved ones, and to all who further their laudable movement for modesty in dress and behaviour." The standards of Mary-like Modesty established by the Purity Crusade of Mary Immaculate continue to be promoted by Traditionalist Catholics as normative.
In 2004 Cardinal Anthony Okogie sent letters to the priests in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos and asked them to prohibit "fashions promoting lust and immorality" within churches. Under this rubric, people wearing "clothes which reveal sensitive parts of the body such as the bust, chest, belly, or upper arms, transparent clothing or dresses with slits above the knees" are forbidden to attend Mass inside the church. The faithful Catholics in the Archdiocese have been wholly supportive of the dictum concerning modesty, with many women practicing Christian headcovering with the Virgin Mary as their model.
Some Catholics have attempted to form cohesive theories of modesty. Sometimes this is from a sociological perspective, Modesty and beauty - the lost connection by Regina Schmiedicke while at other times it takes a more systematic, Thomism approach, combined with the writings of the Church Fathers. The Modesty Handbook (describing the nature of modesty from a Catholic perspective, based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Church Fathers). Approaches arguing primarily from traditional practices and traditional authorities, such as the saints, can also be found.See, e.g., Those Who Serve God Should Not Follow the Fashions by Robert T. Hart (2004). In various localities, from time to time the church hierarchy have given opinions on various matters regarding dressing and modesty of the faithful.See all the following citations, which all expound at least partly upon such guidelines. While Nicholas the Great wrote to the first Christian ruler of Bulgaria, Boris I, in the 9th century, that it was acceptable for the Bulgarian women to continue to wear trousers, Giuseppe Siri stated in 1960 that trousers were unacceptable dress for women. Notification Concerning Men's Dress Worn by Women by Giuseppe Cardinal Siri (1960) Many traditional Catholics have attempted to further expand on this latter standard.See G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World, Part III, Chap. V, for an early attempt (1910); see also In Praise of the Skirt , for a more contemporary one (2006) Around 1913, it became fashionable for dresses to be worn with a modest round or V-shaped neckline. In the German Empire, for example, all Roman Catholic bishops joined in issuing a pastoral letter attacking the new fashions.Gernsheim, Alison. Victorian and Edwardian Fashion. A Photographic Survey. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1981. Reprint of 1963 edition. , p. 94
Oneness Pentecostalism, another branch of Pentecostal Christianity, teaches the wearing of modest clothing. Oneness Pentecostal denominations, such as the United Pentecostal Church International, maintain the teaching of gender distinctions, including a belief that men should have short hair and women should not cut their hair (cf. ). While at the beach, women wear rather than what adherents would consider revealing bathing suits. Oneness Pentecostals do not adorn themselves with cosmetics or jewelry. Additionally, certain Oneness Pentecostal denominations, such as the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, observe the wearing of headcoverings by Christian women (cf. ). (2025). 9780252069987, University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252069987
The church-funded university, Brigham Young University (BYU), requires students and tenants of BYU housing to sign an agreement to live according to these standards of modesty. The Brigham Young University Honor Code, which includes "Dress and Grooming Standards," agreement to which is required for application.
The Hindu belief, suggests Christopher Bayly,C. A. Bayly, D.H.A. Kolff, Two Colonial Empires: Comparative Essays on the History of India and Indonesia in the Nineteenth Century, Springer, is that modesty through appropriate dress has the energy to transmit spirit and substance in a social discourse. Dress serves as a means of expression or celebration, with some dressing elements such as saffron threads or white dress worn by men as moral, transformative and a means to identify and communicate one's social role in a gathering, or one's state of life such as mourning in days or weeks after the passing away of a loved one.
The canons of modesty for Hindus in South Asia underwent significant changes with the arrival of Islam in the 12th century. The Islamic rulers imposed a dress code in public places for Hindu dhimmis, per their Islamic mores of modesty. The sari worn by Hindu women extended to provide a veil, as well as a complete cover of her navel and legs. In the early 18th century, Tryambakayajvan—a court official in south central India—issued an edict called Stridharmapaddhati. The ruling outlined a required dress code for orthodox Hindus in that region.Lesile, J. (Editor) (1992), Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women, Motilal Banarsidass Publications Stridharmapaddhati laced social trends with Hindu religion to place new rules on modesty for women, but gave much freedom to men.
The concept of modesty evolved again during colonial times when the British administration required Indians to wear dresses to help identify and segregate the local native populations. Bernard CohnBernard Cohn (1987), An Anthropologist Among the Historians and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, and othersRobert Ross, Clothing: A Global History, Cambridge, remark that dress during the colonial era became part of a wider issue in India about respect, honor and modesty, with the dress code intentionally aimed by the administration to reflect the relationship between the British ruler and the Indian ruled. The British colonial empire encouraged and sometimes required Indians to dress in an 'oriental manner', to help define and enforce a sense of modesty and to identify roles and a person's relative social status.see Bernard Cohn, "Cloth, Clothes and Colonialism: India in the 19th Century", and Susan Bean, "Gandhi and Khadi: The Fabric of Independence"; both in Weiner and Schneider (editors), Cloth and Human Experience, Smithsonian Institution Press (1989) Among Indonesian Hindus, the accepted practice of toplessness among teenage Hindu girls changed during the Dutch colonial rule, with women now wearing a blouse or colorful cloth.
In general, a disregard of modesty can be confusing or distressing, in particular to traditional Hindu women. Even in a health care context, some Hindu women may express reluctance to undress for examination. If undressing is necessary, the patient may prefer to be treated by a doctor or nurse of the same sex. Culture and Religion Information Sheet: Hinduism Government of Western Australia (July 2012), page 7
Among Muslim consumers, spending on modest fashion rose by 4.8% between 2022 and 2023 and is expected to reach $428 billion by 2027.
"O Prophet! Say to your wives, your daughters, and the women of the believers that: they should let down upon themselves their jalabib." -Quran 33:59. Jalabib is an Arabic word meaning "loose outer garment".
In some Muslim societies, women wear the niqab, a veil that covers the whole face except the eyes, or the full burqa, a full-body covering garment that occasionally does cover the eyes. Wearing these garments is common in some, but not all, countries with a predominately Muslim population.
Though by some scholars these expressions of modesty are interpreted as mandatory, most countries do not enforce modesty by law. However, a few countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iran, enforce specified standards of dress for women.
Most scholars agree that men are required to cover everything from the navel to the knees; some men choose also to wear the traditional Islamic cap (taqiyah), similar to the Jewish yarmulke or kippah. The taqiyah may vary in shape, size, and color, with differences according to tradition, region, and personal taste.
It is the custom for a married Orthodox Jewish woman to cover her hair in public, and sometimes at home. The hair covering may be a scarf (tichel), snood, hat, or a wig called a Sheitel.
In a given society, the criteria varied according to the circumstances; for example artworks on public display were more restrained than those for private display to adults.
Nudity in art was sometimes suggested without actual depiction by:
In , even in cases where the genital area is not covered with clothing, genitals are often simply not drawn, as is the case in Family Guy and other . In the film Barnyard, showing Anthropomorphism cattle of both sexes walking on two legs, instead of either showing genitals of male cattle or not showing them, the concept of a "male cow" was used, with an udder. In Underdog a partly animated anthropomorphized dog is shown with a penis when a real dog is filmed, and without one in the animated parts.
Paintings are sometimes changed because of changed modesty standards, and later sometimes changed back. During the Counter-Reformation there was a "fig-leaf campaign" aiming to cover all representations of human genitals in paintings and sculptures that started with Michelangelo's works. Works covered in this way include the marble statue of Cristo della Minerva (church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome) which was covered by added drapery, as it remains today, and the statue of the naked child Jesus in Madonna of Bruges (The Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium) remained covered for several decades. Also, the plaster copy of the David in the Cast Courts (Victoria and Albert Museum) in London has a fig leaf in a box at the back of the statue. It was there to be placed over the statue's genitals so that they would not upset visiting female royalty. The statue of Achilles at Hyde Park Corner now has an incongruous figleaf permanently attached, after it was stolen several times.
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