h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Another daft question is why do men button-up left over right, and women button up right over left?

I was told that the reason goes back to the days before buttons, when people wore cloaks which they wrapped around themselves.

A righthanded man would wrap his cloak left over right, so that he could draw his sword (which he would wear at his left hip) without getting it fouled in his cloak.

A righthanded woman would carry her baby in her right arm, nursing it on her right breast, and wrap her cloak right over left to protect it.

I don't know if either of these is true, but they do have a logic to them.

Women naturally carry babies on their left arm, close to their heart. I always thought that was cobblers, I carried my son in my left arm purely to have my main arm free for doing other stuff. Until I saw my left-handed female friends doing it too.
I'm not sure what this does to your wrapping cloak theory.

Disproves it completely!

oh, sorry about that.

Don't be sad Mina, it was just a theory. And if it can be disproven that easily then it can't be right.

I wonder what the real reason is, then?

Simple - so that men can get into women's pants as easy as their own and vice-versa

I see your point... But do you really think that's the final explanation? What's the deeper meaning?

RickyDazla,
I had a friend who had devised the same theory, but he never fulfilled his ambition to explain why, with the advantages afforded to the left handed male / right handed female configuration, there are not more left handed people around.
R.I.P. Keith.

RD
Oops,
Just re-read your posting. The "Keith Hypothesis" predicates that access is more difficult for a right handed couple than for the male LH / female RH. The opposite of your theory.
It is a pity that keith did not live long enough to be enrolled as a researcher.

Most women instinctively carry their babies in their left arm. And your theory about having your right arm free to do stuff is spot on. But, regarding breastfeeding, at some point you do have to change over. So the cloak thing is cobblers twice! The real reason is just simple bloody mindedness. But I bet the Victorians are at the root of it.

Depends who's unbuttoning who?

It's like this:
Men could dress themselves 100+ years ago: shirts, trousers, waistcoats (that's vests to any Americans out there) can all be buttoned by the wearer. Ladies' dresses of the time, however, went over corsets and often buttoned from neck to ankle, so they had to be buttoned by someone standing in front of the wearer.

So: for men the active part (pushing the button through) is on the right as you wear the garment, for women it's on the left as you wear the garment, but on the right as you face the wearer.

But what this doesn't explain is why clothes manufacturers still continue this habit...

Brilliant. How do you know all that then?

I'm a trivia queen - so much that I am now a professional-trivial-question-answerer. Honest. Sad isn't it?

Hmmm, I am unconvinced by this argument.

Very few women were sufficiently wealthy to have someone else to dress them. And conversely, men of the same class had valets. I will concede that it is likely that more women had maids than men had valets. Besides which I push buttons with my left hand and tug thm through with my right. (I have just been sitting here trying it out!)

I'd be curious to know when buttons were invented. Mind you if buttons were expensive, then they would tend to be used more by women who could afford maids...

My original suggestion was trounced by Mina, but if you hold your baby in your left arm, and want your right free to feed your two year old, maybe you would wrap your cloak or shawl around you right over left...?

Althoough men had valets they wouldn't normally button shirts for them: they did do things like buttoning spats though. Women of all classes would need help with costumes: from mothers, daughters, sisters etc. Heck, even I can remember alll the girls standing in a circle at school after PE to zip each other's dresses up, and my Mum can add even more than that!

I will try and find an original source if you like, w*rk permitting.

I think it's just a communist/facist/alien/insertyourfavouritehatedgrouphere plot. But if you can dig up when buttons were first used, now that would be something (I have often wondered about that as I sat finishing of a blouse/shirt whatever)
Did you ever wonder how much of a pain it must have been to lace up your corsets etc? we have it easy. Even though bras can sometimes be a bit of a struggle

I too have heard the sword-drawing reason for left-over-right buttoning in men.

I have never heard an explanation for the opposite in women, but I always assumed that it was simply done by women to demonstrate their difference to men, i.e. their 'non-manliness'. It is common even these days to have instances where males and females make a point of their gender or their 'non-other-gender'ness, and we live in an age where (I would imagine) this is less so than ever before.

It seems a much simpler explanation than getting maids involved!

If it's "simpler", does that not make it less likely?

The relative simplicity of an explanation is not necessarily related to its likelihood.

For example - 'God did it' is to my mind one of the simplest explanations for anything, but it's likelihood as the correct explanation is in continuous dispute!