To help satisfy David's needs to make something serious out of girls getting their haircuts, let me give it a try.
Since I'm old enough to remember some of the old "myths", there was one myth which was carried down in Christian religions about women who had their hair cut.
Here is a site if you'd like to learn more:
http://www.spiritualabuse.org/hair/history.htmlMy different families who lived in Russia were from the religious teachings of Martin Luther's, and, from what I understand it [the myth] was considered just as true in the Romanov Catholic communites, however, I'm not sure if the Russian church had these same myths, but, it's probable that it was since this myth is based in the Christian religions.
The myth: A girl could go without a head cover until she was wed. However, she could not cut her hair. If she did, it was broadcasting to the community that she had sinned and this sin was usually based on sexual activity. The exception to the rule was illness. An unmarried girl could wear her hair down. A woman once she was married, covered her head and her hair was pulled upward into a bun of some kind.
Ths aristocractic women always had a variety of styles but in the times of the grand duchesses, the hair styles had been a carry over of what is known as the "Victorian Age" which of course their mother, Alexandra, was tied to in fashion as well as being the granddaugther of Queen Victoria of Great Britain.
Hair was long and allowed to be worn down by the girls and then pulled up into some kind of hairdo after the age of "coming out" which was around 16 or 17 years of age. But still could be worn down under certain circumstances until marriage. Married women kept their hair long and drew it up and back into some kind of bun or hair piece.
So, who are what changed this attitude toward short hair for the grandduchesses?
I believe it was the measles.
But what came before the measles? What allowed them to accept short hair and not be bothered and hide their heads, which they would have just say in Alexandra's time at that same age if it had occured to her?
I believe it was Nicholas II's love of new fangle things. One of which was the moving picture shows brought in from Europe and especially from the US.
These dare devilish female movie starlets hair was cut shorter and shorter until the hair was very short.
Take a look at the pictorial history of the silent screen and you'll hair from 1912 to 1916 and you can see how it does it shorter and shorte. By the 1920s I believe the term used when a girl was getting her hair cut very short, was she had gotten it "bobbed".
Well, as it happens, what the Tsarians and their daughters do in style, be it hair or dress, trickled down through the various levels of society.
I remember the story my mother tells about her older sisters who were told they couldn't cut their hair because it was a "sin".
Her sister begged their mother because some of their friends were wearing the shorter hair styles. But their mother and father stood firm.
One day, while the parents were gone, the sisters were whinning and complaining how out of style they were..... and how it would affect them getting boys.... Their oldest brother got so weary of the complaints that he found his mother's sissors and wack wack with the blades and the hair of his sister's fell to the floor and so his sisters had "bobbed" hair [well almost, the hair was short and then shaped later]. When the parents came home there was a lot of "carryings-on" over the short hair cuts. But, hair doesn't just suddenly get long, again. So, it was done and that was that. Now, how to make the best of it. Not to lose face, my grandmohter never admitted that she hadn't allowed her precious girls to cut their hair. "Afterall, short hair is all the rage these days," one of the sisters recalled their mother saying to some lady friends the following Sunday.
Fashion can even make religious myths become obsolete.
Who benifited? Well, dear David, many people benifited. The peasant women who knew about thrift didn't just cut their hair and throw it away, it was sold to the wig people. The sissor factories benifited because women hair saloons started to pop up everywhere. So, if more sissors are needed then that trickles down into the minning of metals....
Even soap factories started to benifit because women could wash their hair more often and they didn't want to use the same soap used for laundry....
More women found blondes had more fun.... Hair bleaches sprang forth from the old stuff.
Hair pieces had become cheaper and those who liked to have long hair but not deal with it attached to their head for 24 hours a day, purchased them.
I'm sure there are many things I haven't voiced.
David, I can still see you have a frown.
How about this then: Once the hair became shorter, women could wash their hair more often which means lice and ticks were going down the drain and a woman's health improved because of "haircuts".
AGRBear
