OBERT BERNARD MLAMBO

Semiotics of Dress in Ancient Rome as male cultural dominance: Some

parallels with Zimbabwe

In ZAMBEZIA, Journal of Humanities, Volume 34, Nos.i/ii

University of Zimbabwe Publications 2011.

This paper explores the effects of the dress code, both male and female in Ancient Rome
and in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe. It looks at gender related elements of the
dress code of Classical Rome and modern Zimbabwe, and attempts to discover human
sartorial behavior as is exhibited in Zimbabwe following its colonization. Dress, as a
non-verbal communicative device plays a crucial role in authenticating and subverting
socio-political myths. Dress is standardized, normalized, appreciated by the society or
conversely, judged by the same society on different grounds. I argue that in Ancient Rome
as in colonial and post colonial Zimbabwe dress was used to reinforce the inferior status
of various social groups and in the process mystified and sanctified male authority and
class authority. In the latter one detects a society that has tendencies of pragmatism,
neutrality and inclusivity when it comes to dress, when in actual fact what is construed as
normal, usual and reasonable is made to be so by the societal values that derive their
impetus from the Victorian Culture of morality and dress. This culture, steeped in
patriarchal tendencies, reinforced class related, race related, and political consciousness
based on dress, among the Africans. There are precedents in Ancient Rome, where
dressing was often associated with dogmatism and emperors would sign decrees to insist
on a certain type of dress. In this context certain colors were thought to be too
“startling” and “loud” for a lady to wear. There were colors that would be worn by
prostitutes that were not fit for “staid matrons”. It is the secondary argument of this
paper that, although, an indication of class, dress signifies many other things. Evidence
and examples from Classical Rome will throw light on the occurrence of such things in
Zimbabwe.

1
INTRODUCTION

Issues in this paper come from the realization that as was the case in Ancient Rome there

are beliefs and concerns in Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular that are rarely

given the serious thought they deserve, and that such beliefs have a negative impact on

society’s attitudes, towards women’s choice of dress. This research seeks to fill the

vacuum by providing a meeting place for dialogue. It explores the world of values and

the shaping of perceptions about the female body in different types of attire in Zimbabwe

by uncovering the amorphous value forming matrix on which the tug-of-war for the

female body stretches and shrinks. Ancient Rome has inspired this study by its striking

parallels with Zimbabwe.1

No longer is our knowledge of the ancient world as closely linked to the modern events

and history as it was in the earlier centuries. Instead of being a norm of knowledge and

culture, the classical heritage is in a state of competition with modern trends of thought,

whose metalanguages (McClymont: 2007:1) write the rules of the game for intellectual

activity. It is no longer the classics which judge us but we who judge the classics. The

potential of horizon-expansion before us should not arbitrarily exclude what the history

of Rome has to offer. We should be free to expand our horizons, not limited arbitrarily to

a few channels. McClymont (2007:2) indicates that there is need for classicists to

participate more in debates on fundamentals and epistemology. I therefore use knowledge

1
Patricia A. Hannah in her article ‘The Reality of Male Nudity: Looking to African Parallels’ points out
that if one is prepared to look without prejudice and to avoid preconceptions about so-called ‘primitive’ and
‘civilised’ peoples, profitable comparison may be made with the African tribes.

2
of what was instanced in Rome to comprehend and explain the matrix of power in

clothing practices in Zimbabwe.

Jane Schneider and Annette B. Weiner (1989, 1) suggest the importance of cloth to the

making and transformation of political and social meanings in human societies. This

approach is taken against the history of clothing and dress code in ancient Rome and

Zimbabwe. I want to discuss what may seem a more common sense problem: what it

means to be clothed, to experience clothing on one’s body, and to clothe others - in short,

what might constitute the embodied practice(s) of clothing. In his historical work on

cloth, clothing, and the practice of revealing and concealing the human body in Nigeria,

Bastian (1996) is interested in how memory, history, and identity adhere to and exist in

the very seams and folds of clothing: how clothing shapes bodies and even, in some

cases, gives form to amorphous bodies and calls up temporary and tenuous but

nonetheless embodied, historically specific identities (Hendrickson 1996: 97). In the

same line I want to talk about the relationships between clothing and bodies, and how a

knowledge of gender, history, and the powers of a wider Roman world on the one hand

and the modern world (in the context of colonial and post colonial Zimbabwe) on the

other, can be seen to be physically transmitted through the textures, shapes, smells, and

understood aesthetic judgments embodied in clothing.

One of the aims of this essay, then, is to think about clothing as “a medium for the

transfer of essential substances” (Schneider & Weiner 1989, 18), but without strictly

problematising what might constitute such substances – whether material, spiritual,

3
moral, or any combination of the three. Clothes as a commodity appear, at first sight, a

very trivial thing, and easily understood. Analysis shows that they are, in reality, a very

queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties (Karl Marx in

Burke 1996:1). Clothing is not only cloth or even a combination of cloth and accessories.

Clothing is also constructed from the bodies that are purposefully concealed and revealed

by cloth and other forms of adornment.2 The purposeful quality, meaning and practice of

clothing and the interplay of images of clothing and observed clothing practice in ancient

Rome and Zimbabwe is my main concern.

CLOTHING PRACTICES AND MEANINGS

Dress conventions since time immemorial are not static, but shift, and are negotiated

between dominant interests (the state and patriarchy) and ordinary people, in ways that

are influenced by the cultural politics of their time.3 The toga in Rome, which marked the

exclusive dignity of the Roman citizen in boys and men and, with its variations, even

revealed his social rank, was in the case of women, the dress of prostitutes and of those

2
In pre-colonial and early Zimbabwe, one of the predominant descriptive phrases used for whites by
Africans was “men without knees,” occasioned by the habitual wearing of long pants. The veiling of white
bodies was often seen as one with the veiling of white intentions, desires, and interests. This may be seen as
a similar experience and attitude that the Romans had with the trousered Gauls.
3
In Zimbabwe during the liberation war the use of skin lighteners attracted criticism from political activists
who viewed the use of lighteners as the most potent and immediate embodiment of elite collaboration with
the colonial project. In Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana from 1957 – 1966, there was a public and nationalist
discourse surrounding dress and “Ghanaian–ness” during the early and often heady years of African
liberation Jean Allan 2002, “Let Your Fashion Be in Line with Our Ghanaian Costume”: Nation, Gender,
and the Politics of Cloth – ing in Nkrumah’s Ghana” in Jean Allman (ed) Fashioning Africa: Power and the
Politics of Dress.

4
who had been tried and found guilty of adultery (Balsdon 1962:252)4. The heaviness of

the toga afforded to its wearer a “dignitas” (dignity) that Vergil proudly notes, ‘Romanos,

rerum dominos, gentemque togatam.5 It maintained its form in recognizable shape from

the beginning of the Republic up to the dissolution of the Empire in the fourth century

(Cowell 1961:71). In early Republican Rome a woman, when out of doors, revealed no

more of her body than does a nun today; and it was, reputedly, on the simple ground that

she had appeared in public with her head uncovered that, at some early date, C. Sulpicius

Gallus divorced his wife (Balsdon 1962:252). The garments which the Roman woman

showed to the world were a tunica (which, from the first century BC., came to be called

stola(long female upper garment), and a palla(mantle/robe) (Balsdon 1962:252). A

woman’s stola extended to the ground; the lower edge of the palla(robe/mantle) extended

as far as the knees. In Zimbabwe today regardless of occupation and urban or rural

residence, the accepted notion of how to dress, makes men to insist on suits, long-sleeved

shirts, and ties and, after a certain age, hats become important for their public ensemble.

Irrespective of occupation, women insist on skirts below the knee, short sleeved loose

blouses or plain dresses and after a certain age, head scarves are part of their ensemble in

public. Most youths are more outgoing, flouting the dress conventions just described,

young women by wearing slacks, jeans, miniskirts and tight fitting blouses, and young

men by wearing baggy pants, and Bermuda length shorts, sometimes with deadly

consequences. By wearing a pair of trousers, the woman in Zimbabwe is seen by the

conservative-minded as associating herself with the fast paced, highly public world of

4
In Rome Plebeians, herdsmen, and slaves wore narrow tunics of course linen in dark colors, patricians
wore fine white wool.
5
Vergil, “Aeneidos Lib 1”, p11:282. In English it means,”The Romans, masters of all affairs and a toga
wearing nation”.

5
men. Women who take a feminized variation of the outfit are seen to be making a public

statement about transformations in gender, education, or economic status that they

experience.

We have resonances in Ancient Rome for the above. It does not appear that women in

Roman antiquity wore any other kind of underwear (Olson 2003:205). The separation of

women’s legs, even by a single layer of fabric, was thought for many centuries to be

obscene and unholy (Hollander in (Olson 2003:205). Women wore underskirts, and

stockings gartered around the knee, but no close coverings over the thighs, belly, or

behind (Hollander in (Olson 2003:205).6There is no literary evidence stating or even

implying that woman wore under drawers (Olson 2003:205). Roman satirist Juvenal, in

the second century A.D. wrote, “What modesty can you expect in a woman who wears a

helmet, abjures her own sex, and delights feats of strength…?” Juvenal is unsparing of

his sarcasm for the ladies who join in men’s hunting parties and for those who attend

chariot races in men’s clothes (Juvenal 1, 22-23; 61-62; 6,246-264). The reality that

underlies these clothing practices in both ancient Rome and Zimbabwe is thoroughly

patriarchal with no space for female value.

The Roman republic, soon after the Punic wars and the general unsettlement that

characterized its closing years, weakened the old traditions of virtuous contact. There was

scant attention to tradition in the late Republic and early principate. As Rome was

“refined” and exposed to Hellenization, and other cultures, the austere and strict

6
According to Hollander in (Olson 2003:205), in the early nineteenth century prepubescent girls wore
pantalets, but respectable women did not. Under drawers became a respectable accessory, finally a
conventional necessity, only after 1850.

6
relationships in the social mores of Rome were warped. Cicero in De Officiis 1/On Duties

1 prescribes certain rules regarding to human propriety in bodily actions. “But the

propriety I refer to shows itself also in every deed, in every word, even in every

movement and attitude of the body. And in outward, visible propriety there are three

elements – beauty, tact, and taste…First of all, Nature seems to have had a wonderful

plan in the construction of our bodies. Our face and our figure generally, in so far as it

has a comely appearance, she has placed in sight; but the parts of the body that are given

us only to serve the needs of nature and that would present an unsightly and unpleasant

appearance she has covered up and concealed from view…..all right minded people keep

out of sight what nature has hidden and take pains to respond to nature’s demands as

privately as possible…” Cicero goes on to argue against being too punctilious or

exquisite in regard to dress. This represents the general philosophy of the strictures of life

and what the community of Cicero’s day believed.

In 35 B.C, by senatus consultum (resolution of the senate) Livia and Octavia were

granted public statues. These statues, of women in modest dress and depicted as the

embodiment of Roman womanly virtue, most likely served as a stark contrast to the god -

like depiction of Cleopatra. Perhaps, they served as a moral lesson and also served as a

reminder of Octavian’s noble and virtuous family in contrast to Antony’s oriental and

shameful lusts in Egypt. This Roman example has striking parallels with Zimbabwe.7

ACCULTURATION

7
See representations of Augustus and women of the Julio Claudian Dynasty of Emperors in (Hope:2000).
In public some state events in Zimbabwe president Mugabe is on record insisting on modesty dressing. He
openly attacks the mini dress and to him such attire signifies moral decay.

7
Various hegemonic projections of “civilized” manners, bodies, and consumption since

Roman times were located in dress. The Roman view of the provinces is a case in point.

Africa and Egypt, to take the most easily identified cases are represented very much

within the traditional Greco–Roman artistic form of personifications, as women, with

idealized features and wearing rather nondescript, classical dress; in this context their

‘ethnic’ features (Africa’s symbolic elephant – skin head – dress and Egypt’s dreadlocks

and rattle) are represented. They are being identified as exotic and distinct entities, who

have been brought ‘inside’ the orbit of Roman imperial culture and made to conform to a

degree (Hope 2000:14). The African is portrayed with his distinct identity. The Romans

gave an interesting cultural identification of Africa. I have used this Roman perception of

Africa to illustrate that it was true even in southern Africa, of whose culture the Romans

did not have precise knowledge (see footnote 9).

The Romans saw themselves as instigators of the ‘global’ culture (Huskinson 2000). The

specifically Roman amictus (attire) of the Republic and the early Empire was the cloak

known as the toga, a word related to the verb tegere – to cover. It was unaltered and of

irreducible amplitude and remained the national costume of the Romans throughout the

heyday of the Empire. So unmistakable was it, that the Roman residents of Asia took off

their togas in order to conceal their identity from Mithridates (Carcopino 1965:175) Its

use was prohibited to non–citizens (Hope 2000:131). Citizenship and its associated

privileges whether legal advantages or styles of dress, were most celebrated by new

citizens who found a sense of pride and superiority in the freshly acquired identity. The

attainment of citizenship was often marked in visual and verbal forms, especially during

8
the first two centuries A.D. (Hope 2000:132). The Romans used to ridicule the Gauls for

wearing trousers. During Caesar’s time, only very few Gauls were admitted to the senate,

who may have been of Roman origin (Scullard 1985:152). The toga was a garment

worthy of the masters of the world, flowing, solemn, eloquent, but with overmuch

complication in its arrangement and a little too much emphatic affectation in the self–

conscious tumult of its folds (Carcopino 1986: 176).

The Roman example described above immediately evokes memories of the cultural

conquest and matrix of domination (through clothes) at play in the history of Zimbabwe.

This came as a result of colonialism. In recent history two main foreign cultures came

into contact with the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa: Arab and European.

Arab influence was minimal. As regards to its impact on dress, Muslim influence was

limited to the eastern coastline and tapered off, completely disappearing as one went

inland (Beach:1986:107). The present day Moslem attitude towards female dress is the

most rigorous. Some cultural exchange did of course take place, with a number of Arab

words being adopted by the Bantu. However despite their presence, it is actually the

Muslims themselves who were acculturated. Even the Portuguese Christians and traders,

who were active in this region of Africa at the same time as the Muslims, did not impact

the culture of the region sufficiently to change the African view of nakedness.

9
Bantu culture did not see immorality in nakedness. Historically, the African did not

consider nakedness or semi-nakedness to be an issue.8 The Africans before the coming of

Europeans had a taste for what was fashionable in their world. The bead craftsmanship

and the fact that they grew cotton and wove finer cloth than what was imported bears

testimony to this. The art of hair-dressing is one particular example that may help to show

the distinctiveness of African indigenous culture. Hair since pre colonial Zimbabwe has

been a medium for creative self expression. A traditional hairdresser in the early Karanga

Empire was inspired by local wild life; hair was twisted into shapes representing the

horns of a buffalo, the tusk of an elephant, the beak, tail or wings of a bird.9

Women in pre colonial Zimbabwe would have chosen cloth above other alternatives, as

Beach quoting Antonio Gomes states: ”..they desired it very much… apparently in

preference to skins or bark cloth.” (Beach 1986:90) Having chosen to put up with less

cloth giving less covering, because it was expensive, the women did not have a guilty

conscience (Munjanja 2009:15). To them the purpose of dress was not for covering

shame arising from nakedness. Haralambos and Holborn give the illustration of a

missionary embarrassed by the presence of bare-breasted African women in his

congregation:”….he ordered a consignment of brassieres. The ladies could make little

sense of them in terms of their norms of dress.” (Haralambos, and Holborn 1987:5). Thus

8
Clothing satisfied the needs of protection, when required, distinction and ornament, but not modesty, that
is, only three of the generally recognised functions of dress. According to Hannah in ‘The reality of Greek
Male Nudity: Looking to African Parallels’ the ancient Athenians probably would have sympathised with
this point of view. The Greeks, have no hesitation in stripping off completely when strenuous activity is
required (Hannah 1998:28). The Greek chlamis may leave half of the body bare.
9
A Chigwedere, The Karanga Empire (Harare: Books for Africa, 1996).p37. It is also interesting to note
that in Roman literature Africa was seen as the parent and nurse of wild beasts, (Livy Viii 3.24), but in art
she was usually portrayed wearing an elephant – scalp headdress (Maritz 2009:898). Her other attributes
could include a cornucopia, scorpion, lion, elephant tusk or modus of corn (Maritz 2008:898).

10
the women did not dress for their own sake but for the sake of the missionary.

Historically it is the religious who have regarded nudity as a threat to morality. It

presented a sordid spectacle for the Christian, but not to those who were nude (Green

1998:174). The Africans developed a guilty conscience in the area of their dress. Where

previously the Africans covered their bodies to look important and more beautiful, they

now dressed to hide nakedness (Beach1986:90). They eventually assumed the European’s

view on the issues of dress, nudity and morality. What is tragic is that these new ideas,

knowledge and attitudes are at play in Zimbabwe right now and it is the women who are

affected.

In the early years of colonial rule in Zimbabwe, cloth served initially as a means for

comparing levels of civilization among the colonized, and then as a colonial index by

which to measure the march toward civilization of the “wild” and the “naked tribes”.

Young men and women took advantage of new colonial models of dress to represent the

generational difference of their everyday experience. Understanding the need for shoes –

feeling the pinch of Western fashion commodities – was only one thing that separated the

everyday experience of fathers and sons, and also an important marker of their increasing

separation.

The coming of “modern” ways of dressing and body keeping made Africans discover a

new commoditized body, and they cherished it, for it confirmed their new status and

power.10

10
A young girl leaving the rural areas to live in the city would be transformed. In the rural areas a girl with
faded frock that immodestly defined budding breasts coming to Harare to join the University does not find

11
THE MINI-SKIRT CONTROVERSY11

In ancient Rome, fashion (especially after the Punic) wars introduced some variations

into a dress which had at first been uniform for both sexes and for every social rank

(Carcopino 1965:175). The woman’s tunic tended to be longer than the man’s and might

even reach to the heel (tunica talaris)(tunic that reaches down to the angles) (Carcopino

1965:176). The tunica talaris when worn by a man was considered effeminate (Cicero,

Verr. 11 5, 31; 86; Cat. 11 22). We are told by Carcopino that matrons did not wear

jewels in ankles (Carcopino 1965:262). This suggests that their dress was not supposed to

leave ankles exposed as this might have meant female sexual exhibitionism unfit for

respectable women. Sullivan has it that in the early empire some women could not feel

any passion unless they saw slaves or bare–legged messengers. A culture of voyeurism

seems to have been present among the Romans. Fear and/or a masked fascination with

the “naked” body of women may explain why the Romans insisted that women put on

clothes that did not emphasize bodily outlines.12 It is interesting to note that whores in

Rome may not have worn a breast band (strophia). One of Catullus’s prostitutes suddenly

it easy. These girls could be easily noticed by their broad – toed feet that had grown thick – skinned
through daily contact with the ground in all weathers. Putting on sandals is not an alternative for them.
11
In this section I do not only deal with the mini skirt. I also look at dresses that are not long enough to go
at least beyond the knees. These always find opposition among Zimbabwe’s conservative population.
12
The strophium was one garment that could denote moral stance: the respectable married woman kept her
breast band on even during lovemaking. There are paintings extant from Pompeii which show women
making love with the breast band on as well as off. For strophium See Clarke, J., Constructions of sexuality
in Roman art 100 BC- 250AD

12
bares her naked breasts to a passerby, surely indicating she was not wearing a breast band

(Cat. 55.11 – 12). This highlights the problem that nudity poses in societies today. What

we see is the denunciation of the “shameful” transgressions of social and/or bodily

boundaries involved. This provides a striking parallel with Zimbabwe.

Looking at the mini-skirt in Zimbabwe today in the context of what was instanced at

Rome; mini-skirt is a cry out for freedom, because it is an attempt to burst the strictures

of society. Freedom betrays the possibility of enslavement, and this freedom entails a

continual striving against that possibility. Semiotics of dress is an art form. A crisis has

arisen because society sets limits on how far up or down. A further dilemma occurs when

morality is defined on the basis of that hemline. At one time, the second vice president of

the republic of Zimbabwe Joyce Mujuru even threatened to ban the mini-skirt. President

Mugabe himself on many occasions, such as his birthday parties has often spoken against

the mini skirt. He speaks hard against it in a way that reminds us of the Augustan

humanism expressed in Augustus’ social policy. Augustus worked to restore a sense of

the ancient virtues discussed earlier. He wielded the patria potestas (authority of the

father) both over his family and over the Roman families. When his daughter and

granddaughter, both named Julia, were detected in an un-Augustan behavior, he

responded like one of the grimly pious fathers of the early Republic and sentenced them

to severe punishments (Arnott 1972: 174).

The people of Zimbabwe have over the years experienced male outrage in reaction to

skimpily dressed women with instant “justice” being meted out. The outrage over the

13
mini-skirt displays an astonishing mind shift and cultural shift in a country where

everyone little more than a hundred years ago used to be scantily dressed. The action of a

dominantly male crowd in Zimbabwe is a regression in terms of moral development,

given that sixteenth century African communities did not rip off the skimpy dresses of

their women folk (Munjanja 2009:19). The moral system encoded in the clothing that

mission Christianity considered appropriate for girls and women to wear is one important

factor at play in the interaction of men with women bodies in Zimbabwe, and the other is

how these clothing practices can challenge “older forms of status and authority”.

Dress is a language in its own right, nonverbal in transmission. The woman who puts on

pantyhose (sometimes colloquially called pulling socks), the mini-skirt and other forms of

attire which make their bodies visible is seen by many in Zimbabwe to broadcast a

message to those around to say, “I am wearing a miniskirt. I know my legs look good and

I am bold enough to show them” As a result, the crowd in cities or towns in Zimbabwe or

in any busy place has lashed out physically and violently at such attire. Starkly posed

against the crowd, such attire stands to challenge and to test apparently firmly-held views

and beliefs. This crowd mentality dominates attitudes in Zimbabwe. As women and girls

go about their normal businesses in town on any other public places they fall victim to the

city crowd.

14
The crowd in Zimbabwe has also presented itself as the keeper of our culture. It is at the

tip of behavior change in African society where a new unhu/ubuntu13 has evolved, what

may be called a pseudo–culture (Munjanja 2009: 20). The new culture, championing

decency, even though decency is not new to ubuntu, manifests itself in dignified dress.

Thus according to this culture it is disrespectful for a daughter – in – law to dress in a

mini-skirt in the presence of her in–laws. It creates indecency where innocence was the

order. If Cicero were to rise from the dead today, he would refer us to Book 1 of his On

Duties where he says: “And in our own custom, grown sons do not bathe with their

fathers, nor sons–in–law with their fathers–in–law.”(Cicero On Duties 1: 129).

THE FEMALE BODY AND THE COMMODIFICATION PROCESS (ANCIENT

ROME AND ZIMBABWE)

In the context of ancient Rome, commodification, though the term did not exist,

manifested in the development of new fashions and new commodities used in their

clothing practices. Just as we now see the impact of Western values on our own society in

Zimbabwe, Romans in Petronius’ and earlier times were witnessing the impact of

Hellenistic values on their sociocultural fabric: We now witness women adopting new

styles of dress, deemed by society to be “sexually provocative”, “tempting”, and

“disgusting”. Romans witnessed ladies who no longer considered themselves fashionable

unless they were tarted up a la grecque(in Greek fashion) (Balsdon 1962:253). Plautus in

the 2nd century BCE draws our attention to this process in his Epidicus, “What are they at,

13
Ubuntu, according to Munjanja (2009:23), describes the humanity or “peopleness” of a person, The body
of customs that are called ubuntu embody values that describe the extent to which a being is imbued with
those aspects of belief and behavior that are Bantu.

15
sir, these women that invent new names for garments every year? The Loose–knit tunic,

the Close Knit Tunic, the Linen Blue, the Interior, the Golden Edge, the Marigold or

Crocus Tunic, the Shift–or Shiftless–the Mantilla, the Royal or Exotic, the Wavy or the

Dowry…. and not a kernel of sense in all of it.” Nixon (in Balsdon 1962: 253).

Color, above all, gave women’s clothes their attraction, and ‘purple’, with gold, was

traditionally the epitome of extravagance in dress, as the debate on the repeal of the

Oppian law well indicates (Balsdon 1962:254). When the lex Oppia was debated in 195

BC, gold was the only precious metal whose use by women was discussed. In the Empire

rich women possessed stones of every kind–opals, sapphires, emeralds, beryl, jasper,

sardonyx, carbuncles, topaz, onyx, pearls. Jewels were worn, ear–rings (inaures),

necklaces, bracelets, rings, brooches, diadems in the hair and–though not, of course, by

respectable matrons–in ankles (Balsdon 1962:262). Writers such as Pliny, Seneca and the

satirists tell much about the jewels which women wore. It must be noted that they write

not as connoisseurs, but as moralists, emphasizing the vulgarity and extravagance of

women who overlooked themselves with jewelers, the degeneracy of such ornament,

when contrasted with the unadorned simplicity of the Roman matron of legendary

antiquity. The economically alarming drain of currency from the Empire to foreign

countries in the East is estimated by Pliny as being 100 million sesterces a year (Pliny,

NH9, 106; 12, 84).

Among the fancied colors were dark rose (nigrantis rosea color), hard and brilliant

scarlet (nimiae eius nigritiae austeritas illa nitorque)/(austerity and brightness of its

16
excessive darkness), amethyst and ‘the color of congealed blood, blackish at first glance,

but gleaming when held up to the light.’ (Balsdon1962: 254). Certain colors were thought

to be too startling for a lady to wear. They were worn by prostitutes, who having the

further advantage over staid matrons that their feet were exposed, could wear jeweled

anklets. These colors and ornaments made the female body of the Roman woman into a

spectacle and this created problems for women in Rome as society became both the judge

and the hangman. Sober colors, Ovid recommends: white for women with dark

complexions, black for those who are fair (Ovid, AA 3, 169-92). He also recommends

white as a favorite color for ‘matrons’.

The “vanity” of rich clothing was for Tertullian and the Christian teachers part of the

common vanity of earthly pleasure. Traditional and religious authority was therefore seen

encoded in Rome by certain items of regalia and by the color of dress and sometimes on

the basis of the hemline. Julius Caesar restricted the use of whole purple garments to

certain persons and certain days and Augustus himself allowed only senators on office, at

the games they were presiding over to wear them (Friedlander 1908:176). It seems

therefore that clothing practice is plainly about the embodiment of power–whether

through the construction of conventional attractiveness or through the transgression of

boundaries and setting up of alternative social/gendered/ political spaces for people to

occupy (Hendrickson 1996:112).14

14
Emperors signed decrees attempting to insist on the toga being worn: Claudius decreed it obligatory for
the tribunal, Domitian for the theatre, Commodus for the amphitheatre.

17
Commodification in Zimbabwe is understood here as a process by which the indigenous

people of Zimbabwe were supplied with new European goods produced by capitalist

manufacturers. This process made the female body a center of attraction because new

bodily commodities advertised the body. The advertising aimed at promoting these new

goods (clothes, and materials for beautifying the body) but the advertisements used the

body as a medium to convey different messages concerning both the body and the

advertised goods. As a result of the new fashions, pleasures of consumption among

Africans as represented by manufacturers have been up to now increasingly and explicitly

tied to the satisfaction of the body and its hungers. I see the process as the source of

problems encountered by women in Zimbabwe. In a society where morality is defined on

the basis of the hemline, mini-skirts and cosmetic substances, among the most average

rural and urban Zimbabweans, are not tolerated.

The process of commodification was characterized by advertising, promotion, and

marketing, directed at indigenous peoples, of manufactured goods, for use on the body

such as skin lighteners, petticoats, soap, bras, mini-skirts, pants, panty holes, high heeled

shoes etc. These commodities played a great role in the socio-cultural transformation of

Zimbabwe.

As Burke (1996:10) notes commodities in Zimbabwe were both concrete material

expressions of colonial capitalism’s resources for domination and testimony to less

visible and more uncertain changes in identity. Haug in corroboration uses the example

of underpants manufacturing and has this to say:

18
 Since capital producing underpants is aiming for a niche in a profitable market,

underpants are necessarily in the spotlight. Since they must be saleable at

monopoly prices, they must be shown in the right light, and thus, once again, the

body is emphasized… the advertised underpants are made into a “hit.” They

become the body’s snug marketing package, and thus the concerns of capital

appear as it were, in underwear and, by seeming to take an interest in the body,

promote commodities by suggesting that they advertise the body itself. The body,

on whose behalf all this advertising is happening, adopts the compulsory traits of

a brand named product…Capital’s interest in the body even contains aspects

which are rather more detrimental to it than the Christian aversion to the flesh,

which capital propagates as its missionary in a different constellation (Haug

1986:83).

The above quotation shows that advertisements caused among Africans a desire for “new

looks” which made their bodies attractive to the eye. African women fell prey to this

process as they expressed a readiness to acquire new looks. Unfortunately the new looks

clashed with ideas of the Victorian culture of morality and African traditional views of

propriety which had been held as determining the standard and acceptable appearance of

the female body.

Commodification was a process driven by the imperatives of capital and the “civilizing”

projects of the colonial state and mission. One executive advertiser, J. E Maroun, who

19
studied markets in Southern Africa, once said “From the outset, we must realize that

almost all our efforts in the African market should be designed predominantly to change

culture-the traditional way of doing things-and in some instances even to introduce ideas

which are foreign to and contradict tradition…” (Maroun1960:121). In support of this, in

one pamphlet of the Rhodesian Ministry of Information, African women are said to have

“…an asset which should make her the envy of more worldly women; she is entirely free

from self consciousness, thus she learns and absorbs simply, unaffectedly, as a child

does.”15 Commodification thus was powerfully determined by the African individuals

and communities who were imagined as the subjects of the process.

To whiten her face, a woman in Rome used white–lead (cerussa), chalk or Melian–white

(Balsdon 1962:262), and a black substance was used for the eyelids and to lighten the line

of the eye. Prostitutes, whom we encounter so frequently in the poems of Martial, used

these lighteners, and too much scent, and this “mistake” was made, it seems, by a woman

as cultivated as Cynthia (Martial 3, 55; 4, 4; Prop 1, 2.).

The rules expected by the Roman society to determine what is socially unacceptable find

parallels in Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular. Tertullian, writing in Africa,

abhorred make-up as much as he abhorred elaborate coiffure (Tertullian, De Cultu Fem.2,

5) Some Christian churches in Zimbabwe preach against make–up. The use of skin

lighteners by Zimbabwean women (during the colonial period) illustrate the extent to

which the process of bodily transformations impacted on the life of these women. Use of

skin lighteners demonstrated the inextricable intertwining of consciousness about class

15
ZNA S 2113/1-2, Ministry of Information, Papers and Drafts, “Meet the African”, 1962

20
and race, but gender also played a significant role (Burke 1996:103). 16 Lighteners, like

cosmetics, were used disproportionately by women. The use of lighteners attracted

vociferous criticism from “traditionalists” who viewed the products as the most blatant

submission to the corruptions of “modernity” and as a distillate of the oppressive

colonization of the self (Burke 1996:192). In the 1970’s, lightener consumers were

derisively referred to by many as “Fanta faced (orange dark faces) with Coca–Cola legs”

(Zimunya 1988:37). They were said to be people who tried to become white in their faces

but who could never escape their essential Africanity, their blackness (Burke

1996:190).17 At various moments in Zimbabwean culture during the post Chimurenga

era, the subtle articulation of these practices of smearing of lotions has flashed into

visibility, idiomatically attached to social class, gender and generation. A persistent

thread running through such moments, however, has been shifting and contingent notions

about “traditional” and “modernity” shadowed by a complex and fractious relationship

between several generations of Zimbabweans (Burke 1996:174).18

16
Many of the old women between the ages of 50 and 65 including my mother whom I interviewed
reported that they had used Ambi, and Bu-Tone or another lightener in the 1970s and 1980s.
17
Dambudzo Marechera (1993:92) describes Africans who tried to purge their tongues, by improving their
English and getting rid of any accent from the speaking of it.”Always washing himself at least five times
everyday. He had all sorts of lotions and deodorants to appease. He did not so much wash as scrub himself
until he bled. He did things to his hair, things which the good Lord never intended any man to do to his
hair.”
18
In a discussion I held with my grandfather who is 87 he remarked “The difference between myself the
civilized and my poor rural folk then was that I wore clothes like white peoples, as expensive as I could
afford, while they were satisfied with old clothes. After washing, I smeared Vaseline on my face; they used
soap or food oil.” As a result, rural life, “traditional” culture, parents and elders, the marginal poor, all were
defined at various moments as dirty, repellent, unhygienic, embarrassing, or insufficient, filthy and
backward. The use of these commodities is connected to the lager play of commoditization in Zimbabwean
communities and in Rome and is connected to the determinative role of consumption in producing
difference and subjectivity. Marechera (1993:92) notes “He bought clothes, whole shops of them, then
certainly he was a man. And his shoes were the kind that makes even an elephant light footed and elegant.
The animals that were murdered to make those shoes must have turned in their graves and said yeah, man.
He had to have every other African within ten miles of his person follow his example.”

21
This development, and the subsequent production of “modern” African bodies, produced

meanings, beliefs and perceptions that associated such bodies with bodies of women that

were rebellious and of doubtful morals. Commodification was a double-pronged

instrument for the conversion of the African woman into a symbol of

“civilization”/”progress” at the same time that it turned her into a consumer body through

the creation of appetites for “new things” such as soap, dress, bras, body and hair oils etc.

Vambe, for example, described what he saw as the “corruption” of the women in rural

Zimbabwe in the 1930s: “Many of the women had emerged from their traditional role of

excessive modesty and subservience.” (Vambe1976:20). These women managed this by

adopting the new fashions brought to them by the white men as described above. At this

moment and with this particular look, women’s clothing practice therefore showed how it

was possible to use clothing to make subtle, contested, but effective sociopolitical

statements as well as high style. Similarly, many African men have regarded cosmetics

and miniskirts as the material expression of their fears about women’s mobility and

power. The stereotype of the socially destructive woman, the woman who defies

patriarchy and its rules is what has dominated the Zimbabwean society, to some extent

even until today. Such a woman has usually been seen as urban, often as a prostitute, and

frequently she has also been portrayed as a social climber obsessed with “modernity”

(Burke 1996). In this respect, judging from the content of archival files of complaints by

African men throughout the colonial period and testimony by African men before

commissions investigating the social conditions of urban communities, as well as other

similar historical documents, these have been typical views within the broader spectrum

22
of masculine culture in the colonial era and little has changed to this day.19 The masculine

comparison of independent femininity with voracious sexuality has endowed attire that

leaves bodily outlines and also such commodities as skin lighteners with a powerfully

attractive connotation of sensuality.

In Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions, a novel that gives a true reflection of

colonial times and a history of commodification, one character discovered a new

commoditized body at school, and cherishes it. Another character Tambudzai (a girl) is

sent to school and she foresees a similar bodily transformation as emblematic of the

larger freedoms she can now grasp (Dangarembga 1988:58). It must however be noted

that these freedoms had consequences, as the African community was not used to living

with girls enjoying these freedoms. This shows the role that schools played as a medium

through which the process of commodification took place. The colonial state also created

other communication outlets: roving cinema vans and demonstration units. The

Rhodesian government operated traveling vans since the 1940s that displayed propaganda

and films in rural areas and mining compounds (Burke 1996:141). “Bioscopes” in

township halls served the same function. The entire community of Africans in what was

then Rhodesia was set ablaze by this drive for “new” bodies.

In the 1960s in Zimbabwe the process continued with great intensity and people

witnessed clothes that stole their souls. This was in line with the visual culture of modern

consumption that had begun in the West. It was a culture replete with bodily images.

19
ZNA A/3/3/18 (Administrator’s Office Correspondence), ZNA N 3/7/2 and ZNA NSA 2/3/1. See also
Barnes, Teresa A. “The Fight for Control of African Women’s Mobility in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1900-
1939” Signs (Spring 1992).

23
Dresses crept up women’s thighs and women became much taller, because of high heeled

shoes and hot pants. With this, manners died with a hiccup (Chinodya 1989:79-81).20

These clothes are seen to have made the female body a powerful site for the eyes of men.

The problem of this comes in the wake of the fact that one of most subtle but powerful

personifications of the mingling of bodily practices, of the desires, truths, and restrictions

contained within historically divergent regimes of everyday life has come from the

relationship between generations within African families (Burke 1996:178). The politics

of family life in both Shona and Ndebele society in Zimbabwe have been historically one

of the densest types of social power affecting individuals. Forms of social control

exercised by organized groups of senior kin or by parents are among the strictures some

young Zimbabweans have struggled to escape ever since the 1920s and a process that

accelerated after the 1950s throughout the entire colonial period (Vambe 1972:30). To

make matters worse colonial authority over African bodies was often consolidated at the

expense of elder Africans who had previously exerted domain over that sphere of

education and training. This loss of authority has had complicated consequences for the

relationship between the generations. In interviews that I carried out school children and

informants in their twenties often expressed frustration about the attempts of their parents

and relatives to manipulate their behavior.21

20
Martial (Martial 11.99 ) like the above author criticized Lesbia for her choice of tunics which according
to Martial sodomized Lesbia’s oversized Cyanean buttocks.
21
Panashe Kufakunesu and Tinashe Mubako both form 4 pupils at Simbaravanhu Secondary School in
Bikita District of Masvingo province bemoaned their situation as their parents threatened to sack them from
home if they continued to put on miniskirts which their aunt who works in Harare bought for them. Girls in
most rural areas of Zimbabwe are often in trouble each time they put on slacks. They are never allowed to
put on attire that resembles male attire, as such attire is not allowed for women.

24
The commoditization of the female body has continued until today, even with great

intensity. On the one hand clothing and dressing are continually being modified by the

desires of women themselves, and on the other hand the desires of women fall precisely

into a trap of male voyeurism. This voyeurism leads designers into mimicking women’s

fantasies and desires with new products or commodities while it turns women’s bodies

into objects of male desire, sometimes with deadly consequences.

CONCLUSION

The Romans dressed in not so much a fashionable style, as a traditional one.

Notwithstanding this fact, clothing practice remained rather political. The Romans were

contemptuous of the customs of others in some respects, and their attitude in dress

contrasted sharply with their idea of fine art, or literature. It is worthy of noting that their

dress remained virtually unchanged while their morals deteriorated. In Zimbabwe there is

an influx of new fashion. Traditional and social ideas are at play and it has been noted

that the endless transformation within female clothing constructs female sexuality and

subjectivity in ways that are at least profoundly disruptive both of gender and of social

order, as seen by the religious and the conservative elements of the generality of

Zimbabweans.

25
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