Cute Young Blonde Girl With Blue Eyes Undresses Her Shirt And Bathing In The Bathtub

Western history
Throughout history, societies devised systems to enable water to be brought to population centres. Ancient Greece utilized small bathtubs, wash basins, and foot baths for personal cleanliness. The earliest findings of baths date from the mid-2nd millennium BC in the palace complex at Knossos, Crete, and the luxurious alabaster bathtubs excavated in Akrotiri, Santorini. The Greeks established public baths and showers within gymnasiums for relaxation and personal hygiene. In fact,the word gymnasium comes from the Greek word gymnos, meaning naked. Ancient Rome developed a network of aqueducts to supply water to all large towns and population centres and had indoor plumbing, with pipes that terminated in homes and at public wells and fountains. The Roman public baths were called thermae. With the fall of the Roman Empire the aqueduct network fell into disrepair and most of it ceased to be used. In the Middle Ages, bathing commonly took place in public bathhouses. However, public nudity was frowned upon by liturgical factions of the period. Public baths were also havens for prostitution, which created opposition to the public baths. Rich people bathed at home, most likely in their bedroom, as 'bath' rooms were not common. Bathing was done in large, wooden tubs with a linen cloth laid in it to protect the bather from splinters. Additionally, during the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation, the quality and condition of the clothing (as opposed to the actual cleanliness of the body itself) were thought to reflect the soul of an individual. Clean clothing also reflected one's social status; clothes made the man or woman. Additionally, from the late Middle Ages through to the end of the 18th century, etiquette and medical manuals advised people to only wash the parts of the body that were visible to the public; for example, the ears, hands, feet, and face and neck. This did away with the public baths and left the cleaning of oneself to the privacy of one's home.
The switch from woolen to linen clothing by the 16th century also accompanied the decline in bathing. Linen clothing is much easier to clean and maintain - and such clothing was becoming commonplace at the time in Western Europe. Clean linen shirts or blouses allowed people who hadn't bathed to appear clean and well groomed. The possession of a large quantity of clean linen clothing was a sign of social status. Thus, appearance became more important than personal hygiene. Medical opinion supported this claim. Physicians of the period believed that odors, or miasma, such as that which would be found in soiled linens, caused disease. A person could therefore change one's shirt every few days, but avoid baths - which might let the 'bad air' into the body through the pores. Consequently, in an age in which there were very few personal bathtubs, laundry was an important and weekly chore which were commonly undertaken by laundresses of the time.