The Role of Maternity Corsets in Morality

There is a prevailing notion in the 19th century that women's bodies at any age, any stage, were inherently weak and needed support. The child's corset was designed to make the girl stand up straight for a better posture because her body was too weak to stand up on its own. And the same goes for the maternity corset. It's got five rows of laces that are kind of all around the body. So there's a linkage between basically the correct body and morality. Right. Exactly. There are vestiges of this thinking and these kind of garments that are still out there today.