Before regular bathing became a part of our culture, how could people stand the smell of their own bodies?

Question

I've wondered this for a long time.

After studying pre-20th century world history and culture, I found out that people in Europe and America very, very, VERY rarely bathed. Even the wealthy and the monarchs would go for months without washing their bodies.

I would like to know how people were able to stomach the stench of their own unwashed bodies. And I'm thinking that women would be especially stinky if they did not completely clean their bodies during and after their menstrual cycles.

How could people have s*x with each other smelling like that?

And did people clean themselves and/or wipe properly after defecating? And what did they use to wipe themselves with?

I'd really appreciate an educated response from someone who would be so kind as to share their knowledge with me on this subject.

It would also be great if you could provide a link or the name of any documentaries that have been made about this subject!

BTW,

I'm completely 100% serious.

Answer 1

Actually, it was very much a part of the practice in Northern Europe, and throughout the Roman Empire.  It didn't stop until, believe it or not, the Christian Church started preaching that it was not important to beautify the body,... you should only praise god.

Afterward the people just didn't come back to it very quickly.  Around the early to mid 1800s, it was considered good to take a bath once a week in most of the U.S.  Much of Europe followed much later.  Napoleon actually wrote his wife at one point that he would be home in a week.... don't bath!   He himself said that if god had intended man to bath, then he wouldn't have invented perfume.

Answer 2

Good question.  I've wondered that myself.  (And your Avatar's facial expression is so perfect it made me laugh!)  Well, your own body is pretty easy to take because you're always in the middle of it.  You get used to it and don't smell it at all anymore.  As for other people?   Maybe you can get used to that too.  Women tucked fragrant flowers into their dresses not only to make themselves smell better, but to distract their own noses from other people's stink.  I think men and women both carried sachets of different types to put up to their noses (herbs and spices tied in a cloth or enclosed in a tiny container with holes to smell through).  Wouldn't that be insulting if someone put something up to their nose when you came near?

Answer 3

You ask a lot, so I'll just deal with the 'bathing' part.

Ancient Greeks and Romans bathed frequently, usually in public bathhouses.  (If you were not wealthy, you would have to do this yourself.) Lower classes bathed less frequently, for practical reasons:  You would have to wash in the river, because you could not afford to go to the baths; or go to the trouble of heating well-water at home, either of which would be very inconvenient.

By the time of the Middle Ages, people bathed less not because of any unusual doctrinal Christian reasons, but because in a public bathhouse you would meet members of your own s*x - and, might be tempted to engage in homosexual relations.  After the plagues occured, people became very fearful of disease; and so - noticing that  sometimes people caught cold after bathing - bathing decreased further.

Meanwhile, people coped well because their noses became less sensitive; and used a great deal of perfume.

You can find more if you just looked up Middle Ages + hygene.

Answer 4

Actually bathing WAS a part of our culture.

Romans and Greeks and their huge bathhouses.

MIddle Easterners bathed.

There is mentions of bathing in the bible, both to clean and to purify.

Asian, especially Chinese, ancient writing speaks of bathing regularly.

Egyptians bathed.

Africans bathed.

American natives bathed....they even tried to get the Pilgrim to bath because they smelled bad.

South American tribes bathed often.

Even the Spartans bathed and did their hair before facing the Persians.

It was pretty much only white Europeans that suddenly decided that bathing......or taking their clothes off period......was bad.....unreligious....and unhealthy for you.

Bathing and shaving was quite popular throughout history.

The ideas of the early Catholic Church had a lot to do with this.

Not only didn't they bath, they didn't get undressed, even for...well, you know.

They didn't brush their teeth either.

Queen Elizabeth, you'll notice, never smiles, because her teeth were black.

African Natives and American Natives had very white, very strong, and very healthy teeth....because they CLEANED them.

And they wore TONS....GALLONS.....BARRELS....WAGON LOADS....of Perfumes.

Seriously.

Answer 5

If you've ever seen one of those movies in black and white of musketeers or knights then you've noticed a charactrer or two with a handkerchief in his /her hand sniffing it every once in a while.

With other people's body odor around you,the "hanky" was  soaked in perfume and you sniffed it once in a while so you wouldn't smell everyone else.

After the fall of Rome,it was decided that to wash yourself would make you sick.Not to sound vulgar,but I couldn't "get jiggy with it" if my partner really smelled bad. I remember watching n History Channel about Hadrian's Wall. There was an aqueduct system with water flowing thru it for the soldiers on guard duty to use. They had toilets with flowing water and you'd clean yourself with a sponge tied to the end of a stick. Then you'd wash off the sponge  for someone else to use later. YUCK!

Answer 6

People in Europe did bathe during the medieval period, medieval art is full of pictures of people bathing, and some large establishments, like palaces and monasteries for instance, had indoor plumbing.  With the common people, public steam baths were very popular, especially in London, until they were closed down by Henry VIII.

Bathing seems to have become less popular in the early modern period than it had been in the medieval era, and it was not popular in the American colonies, and it remained less popular until the 19th century.  After all, since most people did not have indoor plumbing, bathing was hard work, you would have to fill a bathtub with buckets of water hauled up from the well, and empty the tub afterwards.  Quite a hard job.  How often would you bathe if you had to do that, rather than just turning on a tap?

However, people did wash, and certainly the upper classes would bathe, there were bathrooms in palaces for instance, and the upper classes would have other people to fill their baths for them, which would make it more popular.

People probably washed themselves without bathing, just using a basin of water, and sponging themselves down.  This was certainly common in the early 19th century.  Lucy Larcom, a mill girl, remembered watching her sister in 1835 taking a full bath before going to work "even though the water was chiefly broken ice....It required both nerve and will to do this at five o'clock on a zero morning in a room without a fire."