By: Victor Ozioma Chigaemezu Onyeaghala.
PREAMBLE:
Over the years, our society has been faced with dispositions, attires, and dresses not considered to be morally, socially and religiously acceptable by most people, especially among the young adults. Often times, these inordinate dispositions or display amount to scandal and public feeling of shock or anger, which can be termed disgraceful.
The contemporary youths have misconceptualized terms like “DIGNITY”, “DECENCY”, “FASHION”, and “MORALITY”.
However, Dignity infers respect, honor, importance and value; therefore, any fashion code which does not promote dignity and morality of human person is considered immodesty. This prompted a Redemptorist Moral Theologian, Fr. Henly Satler to say – “If one actually desires to stir up lust in another, his intention is evil and he commits a mortal sin, even if he does not succeed in that purpose”. Certainly, the fifth commandment that says thou shall not kill, also forbids the killing of the soul by scandal. Moreover, the body you are degrading is the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 cor. 6:19).
In the other hand, decency is another phenomenon facing diminution and total neglect as it is not considered nowadays
Thus, decency entails honest and polite behavior that follows accepted moral standards and shows respect for others. It also depicts standards of behavior in society that people think are acceptable. In contrary to this, there will be civil unrest and coarse, and the survival and unity of the society will be eluded or turn into an unrealizable nightmare. However, decency has the potency of promoting unity, stability and progress of a given society in as much as all the classes of citizens both the rulers and the ruled abide by it.
FASHION AND MORALITY IN OUR SOCIETY:
Human beings by nature are moral agents, and morality poises his existence. Fashion as shown above can degrade personality if not checked, and it can also boast morality if properly managed, and morality shapes fashion. So, morality can be streamlined as the yardstick for measuring good fashion code.
Therefore, any dressing code not considering morality can never be related with decency and such styles does not dignify human person.
Nudity as so many people parade the streets and campuses of higher learning is in no way fashion, civilization nor ethical as they would think, as it opposes morality. However, they are only creating nuisance and scandal in the society. A good number of adults exposes their private body parts in the name of fashion, some young adults, including boys and girls sag their trousers, showcasing their wrinkled buttocks, while most ladies expose their breasts with some sort of dresses not suitable for sensible and mature woman, and some put on bum-shorts and miniskirts that can’t allow them to sit or even bend down, all these are titled fashion.
An ideal fashion is that which presents an individual moral and valuable in society.
However, ethically speaking, any reasonable individual who puts on lustful clothing could be termed immoral or immodest since they pollute the society with their nude outfit.
Any society whose fashion does not pronounce morality is more or less sodomic because prostitution, rape, sexual harassments and abuses, and all forms of social vices will thrive such land. This will only wreck down the standards and norms of the society as it gives rise to impure and dirty desires. St. John Chrysostom says that scandal is so abominable in the eyes of God, that though He overlooks every grievous sin, He cannot allow the sin of scandal to pass without condign punishment.
Morality trains us to run away from any fashion that exposes the shape or parts of the body, or fashioned in a way that it draws attention to any part of the body (e.g. short skirt, sleeveless clothes, transparent clothes, tight dresses, women in trouser, show-back, show-breasts, and sagging etc.).
How can you offer yourself as an instrument of the women of the Great Babylon (Rev. 17:5) to promote lust and wage war against purity. The Bible says that we must reap what we sow Those who sow in the field of self-indulgence shall harvest from it corruption (Gal. 6:7-8). A seductive appearance of a woman excites lust in the hearts of men, and due to human weakness some of them end up committing mortal sins from it–“for many have perished by the beauty of a woman, and thereby lust is enkindled as a fire” (Sirach 9:8).
The habit of immodest fashion is prevalent among youths in today’s Nigeria, over exposure to foreign culture through modern day channel of mass medias like satellite broadcast, internet and unregulated videos, especially musical videos have taken their toll on the moral rectitude of our youth especially girls. Dresses meant for in-house night-rest wares are misconstrued by our gullible ladies as everyday wears. However, good dressing is good business. It will elicit respect from your contemporaries and most importantly it will save you the hazards of being a target for rape, for most rape victims are bad dressers.
Pope Pius xii, says:” We have to prefer the spiritual welfare of our neighbour to our bodily comforts. If a certain kind of dress constitutes a grave and proximate occasion of sin and endangers the salvation of your soul and others, it is your duty to give it up. Oh Christian mothers, if you knew what a future of anxiety or peril, of ill-guarded shame you prepare for your sons and daughters, by imprudently given them custom to live scantily dressed and making them lose their sense of modesty, you would be ashamed yourself and you would dread the harm you are causing to yourself and the harm you are causing these children whom Heaven has entrusted to you to be brought up as Christians.
No matter how broad and changeable styles may be, there is always an absolute norm to be kept. Style must never be a proximate occasion of sin. Immodesty in fashion depends upon the cut of the garment. The garment must not be evaluated according to the estimation of a decadent or already corrupt society”.
How many young girls there are, who do not see any wrongdoing in following certain shameless styles like so many sheep? They certainly would blush if they could guess the impression they make and the feeling they evoke in those who see them. Such incredible fashion is not suitable for virtuous girls.
In a simpler language, modest fashion shows high level of morality. Both culture, religion and social life calls for moderate dressing and societal harmony, growth, smooth co-existence and sustainability.
DIGNIFIED FASHION vs MORALITY:
This is that fashion or dress code theat follows ethical or moral standards. It is that style of fashion guided and, or opined to the acceptable norms and valued of the society. It is culturally, socially and religiously not frowned at, but is embraced and encouraged. It does not arouse sexual desire to anyone who sees it. However, it presents human person as a responsible and sensible creature distinct from animal. It takes morals and conscience for an individual to fashion his/her dresses in a way that presents them rational and reasonable. Anyone who indulges in a moderate fashion, and respects human body as sacred is considered virtuous and morally sound or responsible. A dignifying fashion code does not violate the customs of the society, it does not create chaos rather it harmonizes the cultural, social and religious coexistence.
However, to foster a high level of decent scenario in our contemporary world, parents are encouraged to be good moral examples to their children, give them attention and to as well regulate the films they watch at home, also the mass media must at all times promote good moral values by regulating the type of films to be uploaded, religious leaders must preach against, counsel and deliver those under demonic influence, as well, authorities should introduce binding principles to monitor and regulate the attires of students in institutions of higher learning. Above all, outline punishments awaiting any individual found guilty, this will go a long we in solidifying dignity, decency, and sanity in fashion codes, and morality will take its place in the nature of man.
EFFECTS OF IMMODEST FASHION ON MORALITY:
When the sense of dignity is lost on fashion, the order of the day becomes dress as you wish, there by decaying the norms of morality. And when this is done, the consequence could be assaults like sexual harassment or rape, prostitution, rapid spread of HIV/AIDS and other venereal deadly diseases and infections as well as armed robbery and poor academic performance in schools which leads poor societal development.
This social malady has made our male folk to become sexually restive. When this eat deeply into the fabric of their conscience, respect accorded to the elderly will gradually wider away. There will be no more sacredness to our bodies and the tendency to begin to have sexual affairs on the roads and streets like dogs is there, human value will certainly degenerates to that of animals.
Immodest fashion debases womanhood, any girl seen dressing half naked is measured to be public stuff (prostitute). It speaks evil of the society where it obtains. Irresponsible, undisciplined, ungodly, and uncultured men are attracted and earn young girls rape, misuse them and subject them to avoidable abortion. Because of this, morality goes to extinction, and immorality takes over the society, trend and rotten it. Thereby molestation becomes inherent or incessant especially among girls by men arose by the sight of their nudity and hellish gestures.
SUMMARY:
Fashion and Morality are inseparable in relativity, an ideal fashion depicts morality and morality is shown in fashion. People define themselves in their dressing, both modest and immodest spell out their identity by the single act of dressing. Your dress can show if you are responsible or irresponsible, serious minded or unserious. Because the way you dress is how you will be addressed.
Fashion does not imply nakedness, and those who go naked in the name of fashion exhibits high level of madness and are guilty of moral pollution and should be taken to the psychiatry for medical examination because it is only the mad people that freely go about naked, even though some of them still have the sense of shame.
The concept of dressing or fashion from the Biblical point of view started from the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve used leaves to cover their nakedness. Right from then, dressing became part of humankind. The Qur’an also captures it right when it says ‘’Tell the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty. From the above, it clearly shows that both Christianity and Islam preach against indecent fashion.
Abinitio, decency, especially in fashion, is identified as a vital feature of the African culture.
Decency in dressing has so much to do with acceptable moral values and qualities of appearance of an individual or group of persons. A dress is said to be indecent when it is morally offensive; that is, if it exposes the private parts of the body that are meant to be covered.
To curb the menace and decadence militating against sound fashion code, and restore dignity and decency in our society, laws should be made to regulate this with headlong follow-up. All classes of people should abide by such regulations otherwise should be able to face the penalty.
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