White Wedding Dresses Do NOT Signify Virginity

"She shouldn't be wearing white to her wedding" is something a rude person might say about a non-virgin bride. Some women even joke about how they themselves shouldn't being wearing white. However, while many women today wear the color merely out of tradition, it is a myth that the color white has always meant virginity. It was originally meant to showcase wealth, but has transformed into the misconception of a long tradition of "purity". In reality, the reason people wear white gowns began with a queen who lived almost two centuries ago.

How the White Dress Became Popular

Whether it be a big ball gown or a tight-fitting mermaid style, the white dress is a staple in weddings of the Western world. So much so, that when a bride goes for another color, guests often see it as a deviation from the norm and as going against tradition. However, in the history of Western weddings, the white dress is not that old of a practice, considering it did not become the thing to wear until Victorian times (1837-1901).

While some people wore white to their weddings before the Victorian era, it was Queen Victoria who popularized it when she married in 1840. Victoria knew that her white dress would make her stand out in a huge public event. She wanted her wedding to be a grand spectacle.

People adored her white dress, but it was only the rich who could afford to copy her style. During that period, white fabric was not only expensive, but difficult to maintain. It was hard to keep white clothing the same bright shade as when made. Constantly hand-washing the fabric would have been a pain, and Victorians had enough problems.

Since white fabric did not last long, the rich could make a statement by donning a dress that they would only wear once. The color originally symbolized wealth and status, but Victorians also noticed that white dresses showed up well in the era’s grayscale and sepia photos. The idea of white dresses meaning virginity likely came from late Victorian magazines that wanted to link weddings with traditional Victorian ideals. In fact, an 1849 article in the magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book stated that white was the color to wear because it was “an emblem of the purity and innocence of girlhood, and the unsullied heart she now yields to the chosen one”. Weddings for women were thought to be a transformation into womanhood.

However, it is not surprising that Victorians thought of marriage as the gateway to womanhood. During the era, they considered gender as strictly binary, and they divided men and women into different "spheres": Men were in the public sphere and women were in the private sphere of domesticity. While there were women who rejected this idea (such as the "New Woman", or women who fought for intellectual and social freedom), many women found respect from society in valuing family and motherhood. Just as she did with the white wedding dress, Queen Victoria was an influence in this as she had a large family in a grand, domestic setting.

The White Dress Becomes Today's Staple

While the rich wore white, most women would still wear their “Sunday best” to their weddings, and they did not think it was strange to re-wear the outfit multiple times afterward. However, as mass production made more white fabric and gowns available, more women could afford white dresses for their big day, and by the 1920’s, white became the it hue of weddings. While the Great Depression led many brides resorting to practical choices such as not buying new dresses or waiting to get married, more brides during WWII wanted to walk down the aisle quickly with military men. This surge in marriages led to weddings becoming a business. Magazines catered to bridal fashion with white dresses at the forefront, and clothing businesses profited from people buying dresses they would only wear once.

Let's be real. What other time will she wear this?

Unless you're someone like Mariah Carey, who wore her dress from a previous marriage in her music video "We Belong Together".

Today, we even have television shows dedicated to brides finding dresses for their special day. Not to mention, many bridal stores will have big sales that send many woman on the hunt for the "perfect wedding dress". While the common misconception is that the dress symbolizes purity, it is because of a queen and some rich, status-obsessed Victorian folks that white weddings dresses meant only to be worn once are still in.