| Sumario: | Quaker women's plain clothing acquired a special significance in the eighteenth century. This article examines its meaning through an analysis of various kinds of cultural products, including plays, periodicals such as the Spectator, and novels such as Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740). It also addresses writings on the question of appropriate attire by Quaker authors. Women Friends' sartorial choices became a parameter from which to measure the specific kind of cultural shifts that occurred generally in eighteenth-century English society regarding gendered prescriptions for women's conduct and patterns of consumption. These changes are chronicled from the early stages of the movement in the last decades of the seventeenth century through the early decades of the eighteenth century, when Quakerism developed into an established denomination. The acceptance and eventual desirability of Quaker women as spouses, illustrates the ways in which English society began to codify and establish ideal wifely behaviour.
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