#petticoating

“Petticoated boys could be denied their inheritances and kept on as domestic workers long into adulthood. Most became maids. Often the justifications for the petticoating became blurred, as what initially started as an attempt to correct behaviour became something done purely for convenience or for financial reasons. After all, a woman could retain the value of an inheritance, retain ownership of a property, all the while keeping the services of an unpaid domestic servant, so long as she insisted on the continuation of her son’s petticoated status. Indeed the law at the time protected this decision, most believing the well-being and continued financial security of Mothers took priority over petticoated maids considered unable to make much of themselves as young men. This kind of arrangement most commonly occurred in the houses of widowed women, whose sons, without the pressure or help of their fathers, had little push or opportunity to enter into a masculine profession or seek higher education. It hardly needs to be said that their mothers’ insistence on women’s clothing, petticoats, and uniforms made any re-entry into male society all but impossible for these young men. She could thus retain her son’s services as a ladies maid for however long she pleased, confident that there were few opportunities elsewhere for a petticoated maid, and able always to dangle the promise of eventual inheritance, something continually deferred, if not outright denied, even after a lifetime of service in a women’s role.”