How did cleanness as a status symbol evolve?

[Serafina]

Okay, so this recently came up in a discussion:
Humans do view cleanness as a status symbol - throughout history, those of higher social status could afford to be cleaner than those of lower social status.
However, this is not just due to the fact that those of higher social status will perform less dirty work - we also see such behavior amongst other primates. Chimpanzees and other apes will clean each others fur, or clean someone else's fur as a social favor.
The question is: Why do they do that? Is being clean an advantage of it's own when we disregard social customs, or did this behavior evolve out of other behaviors?

[HMS Sophia]

(this is just me thinking more than anything else)
Could it be that because those higher in the system could wash that it's a sign of status?
People began to identify cleanliness with high status, because those with high status could wash...
Does that make any sense?

[Serafina]

(this is just me thinking more than anything else)
Could it be that because those higher in the system could wash that it's a sign of status?
People began to identify cleanliness with high status, because those with high status could wash...
Does that make any sense?

Well that answer would work if we only observed such behavior in humans, but we don't, we also observe it amongst other primates.

[FTeik]

I would say it comes down - as always - to attracting potential mates. We are hardwired to search for the best possible match to share our genes with and aside from the aesthetical point alone, being clean is equivalent to being strong and healthy. Not only is your body less infested with parasites, you also show, that you have the resources available to maintain it. Either by being the first, who gets to eat (lions and wolves) or by having somebody of lower status, who takes care of your pelt (apes).

[Broomstick]

Animal grooming can remove at least some of the fleas, lice, mites, and other parasites, which can improve health and appearance, which can improve chances of mating. Poor grooming, or failing to groom, is a sign of poor health in many species, and not just mammals - birds as well.

So a well groomed animal looks healthy and has a better chance of passing on genes. Yes, that might lend some evolutionary pressure to grooming...

[Formless]

You guys do realize that it wasn't even more than a few centuries ago that people in Europe only took baths once a year at most even if they were of the upper class, right? Evolution has nothing to do with it. Its a cultural thing, and not every society out there from every time period cares as much as we do. Furthermore, we care because of increased awareness of disease and sanitation, not mating rituals. The OP's idea is based on ignorance of historical trends and over analyzing similarities between humans and our evolutionary relatives.

[Formless]

Ghetto edit: Also, what counts as "well groomed" differs from one culture to the next: to take a simple example, some cultures consider bearded men to be acceptable or even a sign of masculinity, others prefer men to be clean shaven. This is considerably different from the behavior of chimps who universally go for picking lice out of each other's fur. But it is consistent with a cultural explanation for human grooming behavior.

[Broomstick]

You guys do realize that it wasn't even more than a few centuries ago that people in Europe only took baths once a year at most even if they were of the upper class, right?

You don't think the long winters and availability of clean water wasn't a factor in that?

People did wash their hands and faces, and changed their clothes even if not as frequently as we do. There wasn't a total absence of cleanliness, and the upper classes where frequently cleaner than the lower, both because of the work they did often being less filthy and because they had servants to draw water and more clothes. People would also take the opportunity to dip into rivers and streams (assuming they weren't open sewers) in the hotter months.

In other words, there were still standards that, if you met them, you were clean by their definitions, even if not by ours.

[FTeik]

You guys do realize that it wasn't even more than a few centuries ago that people in Europe only took baths once a year at most even if they were of the upper class, right? Evolution has nothing to do with it. Its a cultural thing, and not every society out there from every time period cares as much as we do. Furthermore, we care because of increased awareness of disease and sanitation, not mating rituals. The OP's idea is based on ignorance of historical trends and over analyzing similarities between humans and our evolutionary relatives.

And if you add the kind of clothes they wore to the "grooming" you will notice, that the rich and powerful of that period were the only ones to be allowed to wear colours aside from brown, grey and black. We are talking about an evolutionary trait, that manifests itself in different shapes, not something that on the basic level is done consciously. Aside from that, despite the catholic church there were a lot of bath-houses at least in the cities, at least if I remember my history-lessons correct.

[Formless]

You don't think the long winters and availability of clean water wasn't a factor in that?

No. A good part of the reason they didn't have clean water in the first place was because of poor sanitary practice once Rome fell (such as letting raw sewage flow through the gutters of towns, and eventually right back into the water supply). Likewise, the Romans had bathhouses as far north as Britain during their reign and afterwards dark age superstitions about bathing could be found as far south as Italy. Why ask for an evolutionary explanation for what is more simply explained by increased public awareness and education?

In other words, there were still standards that, if you met them, you were clean by their definitions, even if not by ours.

And we need to invoke sexual selection to explain this why? If there is an evolutionary mechanism at work here I would expect its simply instinctive fear of disease (consider that disgust is a universal emotion). Point is, the actual behavior humans demonstrate that we associate with cleanliness rituals and grooming standards are far too complicated and diverse for evolutionary models to explain anything beyond the basic trend of "animals, such as humans, avoid disease as much as possible" which should be obvious.

Now, all that said, do understand that this isn't an either or situation. I just think that the case for evolutionary pressures on cleanliness and grooming standards is weaker than for cultural ones.

And if you add the kind of clothes they wore to the "grooming" you will notice, that the rich and powerful of that period were the only ones to be allowed to wear colours aside from brown, grey and black.

And this can be explained through economic factors. What you wear is not necessarily about cleanliness, its about generally showing off your wealth.

We are talking about an evolutionary trait, that manifests itself in different shapes, not something that on the basic level is done consciously.

Except that evolutionary traits do not work that way. If something is an evolved instinct, the behavior should remain consistent across cultures. You should not see situations where the Dutch arrive in Japan in 1543 and create a stereotype about Europeans not caring much about hygiene that can still be seen today in Japan.

You might as well ask how Kosher rules evolved. They didn't, its a custom found only in a few cultures rooted in the Fertile Crescent. These are excellent examples of why there is in fact a such thing as a stupid question.

Aside from that, despite the catholic church there were a lot of bath-houses at least in the cities, at least if I remember my history-lessons correct.

Only starting in the Renaissance did the Roman idea of the public bathhouse come back into fashion, if I remember my history correctly. But you have almost an entire thousand year period where such practices were not observed even by the higher classes such as kings and nobles.

[Simon_Jester]

Animal grooming can remove at least some of the fleas, lice, mites, and other parasites, which can improve health and appearance, which can improve chances of mating. Poor grooming, or failing to groom, is a sign of poor health in many species, and not just mammals - birds as well.

So a well groomed animal looks healthy and has a better chance of passing on genes. Yes, that might lend some evolutionary pressure to grooming...

Extremely poor grooming can also be a sign of mental dysfunction in humans- related to the above.

You guys do realize that it wasn't even more than a few centuries ago that people in Europe only took baths once a year at most even if they were of the upper class, right? Evolution has nothing to do with it. Its a cultural thing, and not every society out there from every time period cares as much as we do. Furthermore, we care because of increased awareness of disease and sanitation, not mating rituals. The OP's idea is based on ignorance of historical trends and over analyzing similarities between humans and our evolutionary relatives.

Not really. Even in ancient times, while the rich did not bathe often, they were still cleaner than the poor- because they weren't engaged in tasks that would get them dirty as often. The guy shoveling manure will always be dirtier than the guy not doing so, even if neither of them bathes at all.

Except that evolutionary traits do not work that way. If something is an evolved instinct, the behavior should remain consistent across cultures. You should not see situations where the Dutch arrive in Japan in 1543 and create a stereotype about Europeans not caring much about hygiene that can still be seen today in Japan.

Nonsense.

Courtship behavior is evolved. All species that reproduce sexually have courtship rites. However, among humans, acceptable courtship behavior varies: there are ways to go about seeking a mate in one society that will not work in another, and may even get you attacked.

Humans instinctively learn a language as babies, much as they instinctively learn to walk. However, which language they learn is purely a cultural phenomenon.

Intelligent lifeforms' social behavior will always depend on culture, because culture acts to modify instincts. If we see a custom which exists to varying degrees and in varying forms in all cultures, almost without exception, the idea that there is at least a weak evolved trait (say, one that is present in much but not all of the population, or that the brain evolved to be only weakly disposed towards) is not unreasonable.

You are too zealous to condemn this as a stupid idea.

[Formless]

Not really. Even in ancient times, while the rich did not bathe often, they were still cleaner than the poor- because they weren't engaged in tasks that would get them dirty as often. The guy shoveling manure will always be dirtier than the guy not doing so, even if neither of them bathes at all.

...which is more suggestive of the social status explanation laid out in the OP than the evolutionary explanations people seem to have jumped on without stopping and thinking. I mean, you can explain literally any behavior with sexual selection, so I think I'm justified in thinking it should only be resorted to when no other explanation makes sense in light of the facts.

Nonsense.

Courtship behavior is evolved. All species that reproduce sexually have courtship rites. However, among humans, acceptable courtship behavior varies: there are ways to go about seeking a mate in one society that will not work in another, and may even get you attacked.

Humans instinctively learn a language as babies, much as they instinctively learn to walk. However, which language they learn is purely a cultural phenomenon.

Intelligent lifeforms' social behavior will always depend on culture, because culture acts to modify instincts. If we see a custom which exists to varying degrees and in varying forms in all cultures, almost without exception, the idea that there is at least a weak evolved trait (say, one that is present in much but not all of the population, or that the brain evolved to be only weakly disposed towards) is not unreasonable.

You are too zealous to condemn this as a stupid idea.

And you are too zealous to defend it as an intelligent one when so far no evidence has been presented for an evolutionary explanation; whereas I have presented evidence that it is heavily influenced by historical factors and culture. Most animals are afraid of disease, but few bathe, and even fewer still have special dietary rules preventing people from eating pigs (note: I used Kosher rules as an example of a "stupid question" because they are related to Jewish/Islamic beliefs about what animals are considered "clean". The two concepts are directly related in those cultures).

And by the way, for your information psychologists define instincts by their universality and inflexibility. We might say that humans have an instinctive toolset for learning language; we would not say that language is a human instinct because the actual skillset needs to be learned. I don't want to sound pedantic, but it would really help if people understood that distinction. It would certainly help people understand what it means for something to be an evolved trait.

[Mayabird]

No, the evolved trait is there, but we have to step a bit further back to make the proper point.

The point of cleanliness (beyond just "do whatever you think is necessary to not get sick") here, like many other things, is to show off wealth, or rather, "I have enough resources that I can blow a lot of time looking pretty instead of just scraping by to find food and not become food." In this way, someone tries to show off that they're fitter than the rest and their genes are better and all that jazz. Someone who is dirty to the point that they are probably unhealthy or heading that way probably don't have the energy to put into it, and that could possibly be related to genetic fitness somehow in an unconscious assessment; at any rate, people will look down upon them and won't want to screw them so much. Rich people nearly always have higher social status than everyone else no matter how valid or invalid that appraisal should be based on themselves as individuals; money is sexy, an aphrodisiac up there with power.

Whatever form that takes is socially-driven, of course, but seriously, don't try to tell me that humans don't have a general impulse to show off their stuff and it's not everywhere in every culture.

[Formless]

The point of cleanliness (beyond just "do whatever you think is necessary to not get sick") here, like many other things, is to show off wealth, or rather, "I have enough resources that I can blow a lot of time looking pretty instead of just scraping by to find food and not become food." In this way, someone tries to show off that they're fitter than the rest and their genes are better and all that jazz. Someone who is dirty to the point that they are probably unhealthy or heading that way probably don't have the energy to put into it, and that could possibly be related to genetic fitness somehow in an unconscious assessment; at any rate, people will look down upon them and won't want to screw them so much. Rich people nearly always have higher social status than everyone else no matter how valid or invalid that appraisal should be based on themselves as individuals; money is sexy, an aphrodisiac up there with power.

And this explanation is not more a social fact than an evolutionary one how?

Whatever form that takes is socially-driven, of course, but seriously, don't try to tell me that humans don't have a general impulse to show off their stuff and it's not everywhere in every culture.

Okay then. Explain to me how the Native American phenomenon of potlatches (wherein someone gives away essentially all their personal effects to their tribe and allies in a huge feast-like celebration) fits into this paradigm? Oh, and try not to break parsimony while you are at it.

This view is not uncommon, but frankly smacks of ethnocentrism. Sorry if I don't think its necessarily the case.

[Broomstick]

In a potlatch he who gives away the most "wins" - by showing that not only can he amass resources, but he's so good at it he can afford to give it away.

[Formless]

Problem being, by the end of the potlatch the stuff they give away is no longer their stuff. By any measure, you're basically bankrupting yourself and all the material benefit goes to the guests, and now they can show it off. Which is counterintuitive from the perspective Maya was presenting.

Now I can tell you what the actual social purpose of a potlatch is, but its got nothing to do with material wealth.

[Broomstick]

Yes, and at the potlatch after THAT one you get some other guy's stuff.

You do realize that a custom can serve multiple purposes at the same time, yes?

[Mayabird]

Yes, and everyone knows it was their stuff. And also note that it's given away in what's effectively a GIANT FUCKING PARTY where everyone can see it publicly, and they can compare to other ones they've had before. Sure, they end up losing it all, at that moment, but so do people who bankrupt themselves buying giant penis-compensator SUVs to compete with the other guys bankrupting themselves buying giant penis-compensator SUVs. When you have to show off, you go to extremes. If you don't go all the way and someone else does, you lose, even if you won't actually lose. We're badly wired like that.

[Formless]

Yes, but my point wasn't to deny there is an aspect of showing off in a potlatch. Its what is being showed off-- not material wealth, but effort, goodwill, and how many friends you have or can make. Do you understand? Its a very different thing than "people want to show off their stuff".

(its also the time where the totem pole gets updated to reflect the event and change in tribal structure, and so has an element of tribal identity attached, but that's arguably not important here)

Edit: Ninja'd-- i was reponding to Broomstick, not Mayabird. Though I suppose my response works for both.

[Broomstick]

You mean effort isn't inherent to creating material wealth?

Do you think the social status and "goodwill" isn't part of the showing off?

You think friendship isn't a form of wealth?

You are failing to account for all the underlying motives here.

[Formless]

1) No, it is. But showing effort means showing off personal virtues, not acquired goods. Hence the distinction.

2) No. Didn't I say that already? "My point wasn't to deny there is an aspect of showing off in a potlatch. Its what is being showed off..."

3) Not exactly. Comparing friendship/social status to material wealth is like comparing apples and justice systems.

4) You're failing to understand my point. I do understand the motives, I just disagree about what they are or what they mean. I don't think it can be simplified to "look at how filthy stinking rich I am!" in a sense that our (capitalist) culture would understand it.

[Dooey Jo]

Okay, so this recently came up in a discussion:
Humans do view cleanness as a status symbol - throughout history, those of higher social status could afford to be cleaner than those of lower social status.
However, this is not just due to the fact that those of higher social status will perform less dirty work - we also see such behavior amongst other primates. Chimpanzees and other apes will clean each others fur, or clean someone else's fur as a social favor.
The question is: Why do they do that? Is being clean an advantage of it's own when we disregard social customs, or did this behavior evolve out of other behaviors?

Uh yeah, basically chimpanzee grooming has much more to do with doing favours for one another than actual cleanliness. A chimpanzee that took a bath would not rise up the social ladder, and in fact I hear they hate bathing. In contrast, people usually clean themselves, though obviously there are rituals where someone cleans someone else for some reason. However, the important point is that you can't just take one behaviour from one animal and claim analogy to a superficially similar behaviour in another.

That cleanliness would be associated with high status because the rich have the means to be clean is a perfectly valid hypothesis, and it would suggest that if almost everyone could be clean, it would lose it's importance as a status symbol, much like the tan/no tan idiocy. Which is in fact how it is today in western societies. Cleanliness is not really a symbol of high status, because everyone is clean. It is rather being dirty that is a symbol of being lower class/a hobo.

Furthermore, I would question your assertion that cleanliness has been seen as a status symbol throughout the ages. Many religions see some largely arbitrary measures of cleanliness as a moral duty, which everyone are to follow (and which they mostly do). If it is a universal status symbol, it would seem to be an incredibly fuzzy one.

Perhaps it is also worth pointing out that the supposedly dirty peasants in medieval Europe outbred the supposedly cleaner aristocracy by a wide margin, and the relative cleanliness among the peer group was most likely not a very important factor in choosing a partner (not that it always was even a choice made by themselves anyway).

You guys do realize that it wasn't even more than a few centuries ago that people in Europe only took baths once a year at most even if they were of the upper class, right?

You don't think the long winters and availability of clean water wasn't a factor in that?

No, I don't know why you'd think the winters suddenly got longer, but during the Renaissance someone got the idea that water spread disease, and that the public bathhouses spread syphilis, so everyone stopped bathing and instead turned to perfume to cover up the smell.

And if you add the kind of clothes they wore to the "grooming" you will notice, that the rich and powerful of that period were the only ones to be allowed to wear colours aside from brown, grey and black.

First of all, grooming does per definition not entail clothes unless perhaps if you are cleaning them. Secondly, what is your source that only the rich were allowed to wear colours, as opposed to coloured clothes being too expensive and impractical for others to use? I can name a few specific colours which were reserved for select people sometimes somewhere, but the vast majority would have been unable to afford them anyway (why hello, royal purple).


I also have no idea where all the bullshit in this thread about resources and showing off came from. In most cultures you need one resource to stay clean: Water. You also need it to live, so it can't be very exclusive. Sure, you can say that low-status people were dirtier because they built houses out of poo for a living (but did they really?), but exactly how universally applicable do you think that is? You've already talked about native Americans, for entirely unrelated reasons. Think a little more closely about those kinds of societies. And let's suppose we are not using Monty Python as our source on medieval life: Even if peasants had dirtier jobs than nobles, they didn't exactly spend their days rolling around in filth, but they did wash themselves quite often. Their low class would probably be most visible on their clothes, as they usually owned only a few well-used items.

It's frankly appalling to see that all it takes is a mention of "teh chimps!" for criticality and evidence to fly out the window and evolutionary storytelling to take its place. Or maybe it was because Formless was the one to deliver a counter point. Either way, for shame.

[Broomstick]

You guys do realize that it wasn't even more than a few centuries ago that people in Europe only took baths once a year at most even if they were of the upper class, right?

You don't think the long winters and availability of clean water wasn't a factor in that?

No, I don't know why you'd think the winters suddenly got longer, but during the Renaissance someone got the idea that water spread disease, and that the public bathhouses spread syphilis, so everyone stopped bathing and instead turned to perfume to cover up the smell.

Where in my statement do you get that I thought the winters got longer? They were the same length, of course, and for part of the year taking a bath would have meant a need to heat up water as most water around was frozen or nearly so. The Romans had sophisticated plumbing and heating technology for the time that made large baths practical year round, but once the Empire collapsed the plumbers with that level of skill died off and people went back to a tub in the kitchen for the most part (except in Finnland and a few other places that used saunas). Having to heat water on a stove and fill up even a small tub was a pain in the ass, and when you were done someone had to empty the tub out again. Of course people with servants would have more access to baths under such circumstances, though sometimes a community would pool resources for a public/community bath house. And even if you did have servants, during the coldest part of the year reluctance to get wet was probably somewhat sensible given the largely inadequate (by our standards) heating systems of the time.

Yes, the Renaissance raised the specter of syphilis and affected the bath houses, but public bathhouses didn't disappear even then.

And if you add the kind of clothes they wore to the "grooming" you will notice, that the rich and powerful of that period were the only ones to be allowed to wear colours aside from brown, grey and black.

First of all, grooming does per definition not entail clothes unless perhaps if you are cleaning them.

Actually, for some centuries there was a belief that linen undergarments would somehow lift the dirt from the body. Granted, that belief seems confined to Europe, but that might be what FTeik is referring to.

[Duckie]

You guys do realize that it wasn't even more than a few centuries ago that people in Europe only took baths once a year at most even if they were of the upper class, right? Evolution has nothing to do with it. Its a cultural thing, and not every society out there from every time period cares as much as we do. Furthermore, we care because of increased awareness of disease and sanitation, not mating rituals. The OP's idea is based on ignorance of historical trends and over analyzing similarities between humans and our evolutionary relatives.

That is untrue. The "Bathe once a year" is a dumb urban legend. Without running water or showers it was more difficult to bathe, it's true, but most people in mediaeval europe, whether rich or not, bathed as frequently as they could. Among rural farmers it was actually very frequent, and the rich had perfumes and whatnot so probably could get away with doing it slightly less, so bathing actually had more of a bell shaped distribution. Some exceptions to exist- the urban poor and other people who spent most of their time in cities probably didn't do it much, which were highly unsanitary by our standards. Nonetheless, despite my general dubiousness of evo-psych stuff, keeping yourself clean is important to survival and is universal among cultures. What varies is what's considered clean enough and what's considered especially dirty, especially before modern good knowledge of what exactly is sanitary and what isn't due to better theories of disease.

Nonetheless, this is the equivalent of claiming "Lol in the middle ages girls married at 12" (the average age of marriage in pre-industrial britain, even including dynastic marriages at around this age that weren't consummated until much later, which were only done among the upper class, was 24 for women) in terms of stupid, parochial ideas about how barbarous and savage the past was.

They didn't bathe nearly enough to modern or Roman tastes, nor do it in our way, what with a lack of romans building more bathhouses than could ever be visited in a lifetime, or the modern method done via having things like easily accessible and cheap plumbing and showers and whatnot. But they did bathe. Most mediaeval 'bathing' by the way is what is known as 'dunking yourself in the water' or else 'filling a bucket and dumping it over your head and scrubbing, as many times as necessary', as a mansweight in water in a tub would be rather difficult to move about and heat in that era.

[Duckie]

Correction- bathing may have been a bell curve. Just because the rich could get away with bathing infrequently (perfumes, doing little manual labour, and whatnot can go a long way) didn't mean they did. They for one could afford luxuries like frequent bathing and scented baths and all sorts of stuff, if they wanted to. It'd depend very much on the exact place, time, available water supplies and technology, and temperment of the particular person (literally in some cases- baths in certain herbs were used as a treatment under the humour theory of disease at times).