Why in the old days they put on the boys?

"The tradition of dressing boys in women’s clothing comes from a Christian idea that children are the most innocent among people, because, not lived, they did not have time and sin. Especially in such a gentle age when they have no rear thoughts. Hence the cult of angels, whom from the XVI century depicted in the paintings of secular or spiritual painting to emphasize the good thoughts or sinless object of the object. At the same time, a tradition appeared (first of all in the environment of the aristocracy and the intellectuals associated with it) to dress children in the same dresser without sex differences.

Since in the Middle Ages it was believed that a man should be raised from seven years (princes – future knights – put on the horse for the first time in seven years), then it was after this age in clothes that gender differences appeared.

From the XVIII century, the Europeanized Russia adopted this experience. In certain circles (first aristocratically-noble, and then bourgeois), this practice has become a kind of good tone: the children were dressed in the same "Paveless" outfits that are now perceived unequivocally like women’s clothing, not from practical considerations, but to emphasize their belonging to the elite circle. Therefore, this practice has lived in some layers of society until the end of the XIX century, and in some cases even occurred in the first third of the twentieth century ".