A Brief History of Bathing
DESPITE ITS MODERN LINK TO PHYSICAL CLEANLINESS, OUR FOREBEARS SUBMERGED THEMSELVES — OR REFUSED TO — FOR DIFFERENT REASONS.
FOR THE AVERAGE
American, bathing is commonplace and expected. Natural as that fastidiousness may seem, it’s far from universal. Even in the developed Western world, routine bathing became a foregone conclusion only in the past century or so. From ancient Rome’s public baths to early-modern Europe’s water aversion to today’s ubiquity of in-home showers, our relationship with cleanliness is anything but static.
MOST ANIMALS
groom themselves in one fashion or another to avoid disease. Washing is, in one sense, an extension of that primordial practice. Perhaps this instinct guided the first human who bathed in a river or lake, or showered under a waterfall. But the historic record shows members of early civilizations immersing themselves in water with different intentions, often in social and ritual contexts.
The most famous and best documented bathing culture is that of ancient Rome, supported by a vast network of aqueducts and lavish bathhouses. Elites and commoners alike soaked daily, in both hot and cold water, scraping their bodies clean with tiny rakes. The custom “went far beyond the functional and hygienic necessities of washing,” writes historian of Roman architecture Fikret Yegül in Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity. “It was a personal regeneration and a deeply rooted social and cultural habit.”
The buildings were often designed with space for games, physical exercise and, in some larger complexes, libraries and lecture halls. As this suggests, the baths were not built with sanitation policy in mind, but rather to satisfy the public and glorify the sponsors of these luxurious facilities, as Virginia Sarah Smith writes in Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity. “The public baths mainly existed for reasons of pleasure, politics and propaganda,” Smith says. “In the long term, the hygienic impact of the public bath system was probably marginal.”
EUROPEANS OF
the early modern age were as obsessed with cleanliness as anyone. But English theologian John Wesley’s maxim that “cleanliness is, indeed, next to Godliness” didn’t extend to bathing. In fact, Westerners of his era believed bathing was downright dangerous. They feared that if they submerged themselves in water, they risked toxins infiltrating the body through its pores. Instead, they changed their shirts frequently and took “dry baths,” wiping themselves down with cloth.
Such habits persisted well into the 19th century, until bathing entered its current renaissance. With advances in plumbing technology and water infrastructure, more and more Americans installed tubs and showers in their homes, ringing in the regime of private, daily baths. Perceptions of bathing shifted toward widespread acceptance and, eventually, the supposed superiority of consistent washing.
The past few millennia, however, should make clear that the modern pursuit of hyper-hygiene isn’t the default approach to getting clean. “Even more than in the eye or the nose, cleanliness exists in the mind of the beholder,” Katherine Ashenburg writes in The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History. “Every culture defines it for itself.”
The most famous and best documented bathing culture is that of ancient Rome.