Breeching boys and whipping boys, oh my!

There is a reference in one of Jane Austen's letters to "breeching" According to Jane, her "nephew was breeched and whipped on the same day" This appears to have had a double meaning beause an obsolete meaning of the word breeched is whipped. During the time of Shakespeare, they even spoke of breeching boys as whipping boys, which might also simply mean scapegoats.

Apparently, the real meaning of breeching is when a boy was put into gender-specific clothes instead of wearing gowns or short coats like his sister. Costume and art historians struggle with trying to identify the gender of children in portraits as both girls and boys are wearing dresses-- often called short coats for boys. Infantas in arms wore gowns were what the infant in arms which were longer than the feet. Little boys wore the shorter gowns called short coats by some until the boy was put into boy clothes.

In the past, these clothes were merely male garments such as adult men might wear. The boys were even given small daggers or swords (no sharp edges) to wear. In some cases this is also about the same time when the family would cut the boy's hair hair cut in a masculine style. Bye by baby curls, huh?

In the Regency period, skeleton suits and other outfits for boys intervened between short coats and adult styles. In Jane Austen's letter in which she says that her " two year old nephew was breeched, for good and all, and whipped in the bargain" some people were so certain that the breeching ceremony included whipping the boys that I checked around. I couldn't find anything except information to suggest that most boys were older than two, and that the boys themselves were usually happy because they took their place in the dominant masculine world, and maybe weren't treated like a baby anymore. So I seriously doubt this also included a whipping but rather was a pun on Jane's part to play on the obsolete meaning of the word breeching. I also found no indication that there was an actual ceremony. It was probably more like the fuss we make over a first tooth, or first step.