The color white also had nothing to do with purity until the 20th century. Queen Victoria popularized the color when she chose to wear it on her wedding day, and thanks to newspapers, a growing medium, the whole world heard about her white dress. Before then, and for a while after, women just wore their nicest dress to their wedding, regardless of color. White was uncommon because it was hard to create and maintain a pure white in the days before bleach, so often only the wealthy had white clothes. Once bleach was common and more women started wearing white, the "purity/virginal" aspect of the color became popularized. Which is rediculous because in all classical art, alll of it, the Virgin Mary is never shown in white. She is usually in blue.
reply
share