China: The Art of Making Silk (1), Picking and sorting mulberry leaves (11th century)

Detail from an anonymous Song Dynasty (960-1279) painted scroll.

In China, silk worm farming was originally restricted to women, and many women were employed in the silk-making industry. Even though some saw this development of a luxury product as useless, silk provoked such a craze among high society that the laws were used to regulate and limit its use to the members of the imperial family. For approximately a millennium, the right to wear silk was reserved for the emperor and the highest dignitaries.

Later, this right gradually extended to other classes of Chinese society. Silk began to be used for decorative means and also in less luxurious ways: musical instruments, fishing, and bow-making. Peasants did not have the right to wear silk until the Qing dynasty.

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