As a result, a man had to prove the strength of his gender, which was done through behaviour and outward appearance.īehaviours that were considered effeminate were golden to be discarded and through public expectations and consumer culture, the masculine ideal of a soldier and explorer was created with the aim of creating an aura of masculine power through behaviour and clothing. The slow rise of the female sex and their increased visibility in the public sphere in the 19th century caused insecurity among male segments of the population and the fear of a social role reversal spread. ( 3) As a reaction to the industrial capitalism of the Victorian age, gender roles developed with very pronounced tendencies to place jewellery primarily in the female sphere. However, the understanding of jewellery as we find it today in the Western world has a lot to do with the social upheavals in the 19th century. While in the 18th century it was still good manners at Western European courts to adorn oneself as a man in order to compete with female rivals, this changed completely almost 100 years later. What is certain, however, is that jewellery was always worn by men and always symbolised an external sign of power. Which gender in the following centuries wore a lot of jewellery and when was always subject to the zeitgeist of the era and the respective culture and cannot be easily generalised. Creation of Nineteenth-Century Masculinity Wearing jewellery was therefore not to be seen as a mere decoration of the body or a means to show wealth and power, it was an important part of togetherness and was worn by men and women alike.
Jewellery helped to overcome fear and pain as well as illness and was thus already an integral part of the daily struggle for survival on a spiritual level 75,00 years ago. Wearing it has always helped men and women to define their own personalities and to indicate their social status and membership of a particular group. Even in early communities of human interaction, jewellery was the means of choice to express oneself and make oneself understood by others. Jewellery is one of the oldest cultural achievements of mankind.