Editing Belt (clothing) (section)

==History==
{{section or|date=May 2021}}
[[File:Eesti rahvariidevöö.JPG|thumb|left|Pattern on a cloth belt that is part of one [[Estonia]]n national costume.]]
Belts have been documented as male clothing since the [[Bronze Age]]. Both sexes have used them off and on, depending on the fashion trends. In the western world, belts have been more common for men, with the exception of the early [[Middle Ages]], late 17th century [[Mantua]], and skirt/blouse combinations between [[1900s in Western fashion|1901 and 1910]]. [[Art Nouveau]] [[belt buckle]]s are now collectors' items.
In the latter half of the 19th century and until the [[World War I|First World War]], the belt was a decorative as well as utilitarian part of military uniform, particularly among officers. In the armed forces of [[Prussia]], [[Russian Empire|Tsarist Russia]], and other Eastern European nations, it was common for officers to wear extremely tight pressing into their stomachs and gutting them up, wide belts around the waist, on the outside of the uniform, both to support a saber and for aesthetic reasons. These tightly cinched belts served to draw in the waist and give the wearer a trim physique, emphasizing wide shoulders and a pouting chest. Often the belt served only to emphasize the waist made small by a [[corset]] worn under the uniform, a practice which was common especially during the Crimean Wars and was often noted{{clarify|date=July 2016}} by soldiers from the Western Front. Political cartoonists of the day{{when|date=July 2016}} often portrayed the tight waist-cinching of soldiers to comedic effect, and some cartoons survive showing officers being corseted by their inferiors, a practice which surely was uncomfortable but was deemed to be necessary and imposing.
[[File:Sir James Brooke (1847) by Francis Grant.jpg|thumb|[[Sir James Brooke]] as [[White Rajahs|Rajah of Sarawak]], depicted wearing a belt. Painting by [[Francis Grant (artist)|Francis Grant]], 1847]]
[[File:Coronation Belt.jpg|thumb|Made of rock cut diamonds embedded on a gold belt.]]

In modern times, men started wearing belts in the 1920s, as trouser waists fell to a lower line. Before the 1920s, belts served mostly a decorative purpose, and were associated with the military. Moreover, prior to that trousers did not even have belt loops. As sportswear, trousers with belt loops were already present in the 19th century.<ref>See pictures [[:File:NY Metropolitans.jpg]] or [[:File:1868 Reds.jpg]] for instance.</ref> Today it is common for men to wear belts with their trousers. In the US military belts are worn snugly at dress events or at inspection so as convey impressions of fitness and discipline. From 1989 onward the US military standards regarding belt tightness during normal duty and non-duty activities have been somewhat more relaxed to prevent deleterious effects of prolonged excessive abdominal constriction.

In some countries, a father's belt could be associated with [[corporal punishment]]. As belts are constructed out of materials like leather that are both strong and light, a belt can be easily wielded to produce intense pain by using it as a whip to strike the buttocks of a misbehaving child. Moreover, belts were convenient disciplinary tools, as they are generally immediately available for use. The belt can symbolize fatherly authority and paternal responsibility for one's children's behavior and moral development, but corporal punishment is not recommended for use in modern society as it was in the past.

Since the 1980s and more commonly in the mid-1990s,{{citation needed|date=June 2014}} the practice of [[sagging (fashion)|sagging]] the pants, in which the [[waistband]]s (usually secured by a cinched belt) of trousers or (typically long) shorts are worn at or below the hips, thereby exposing the top part of any underwear not obscured by an upper-body garment, has been seen among young men and boys. This practice is believed to have originated with prison gangs and the prohibition of belts in prison (due to their use as weapons and as devices for suicide) -- historically, including in the latter part of the 20th century, gang-affiliated young men and boys were expected to wear their belts fastened tightly.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sag-harbored/|title=Sagging Pants|website=Snopes.com|date=15 April 2005|access-date=22 July 2019|archive-date=21 April 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220421124543/https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sagging-pants/|url-status=live}}</ref>