Latest / Ridiculous History / Why do British lawyers wear wigs?

Transcript

Why do British lawyers wear wigs? · Ridiculous History

0:24
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. My name is Ben Bullen. I
0:27
Speaker 1: am not a lawyer mine. You know you're here. Like
0:30
Speaker 1: those lawyer jokes, lawyers really get crapped on, don't they. Yeah,
0:34
Speaker 1: they get a tough time, especially in the world of
0:36
Speaker 1: comic They say, llawyer, what's uh? What do you call
0:39
Speaker 1: a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean a
0:41
Speaker 1: good start? I also heard one that says, what's the
0:45
Speaker 1: difference between a dead lawyer and a dead dog in
0:47
Speaker 1: the street? There are skid marks in front of the dog.
0:51
Speaker 1: So hi to all our lawyer listener friends. I'm Noel Brown.
0:55
Speaker 1: This is ridiculous history. Um. Before we started, are a producer,
0:59
Speaker 1: al like said, all right, we're rolling on laser wigs. Yeah,
1:03
Speaker 1: I want to do a podcast on laser wigs. But
1:06
Speaker 1: apparently that's not a thing. But lawyer wigs are. Yes,
1:12
Speaker 1: lawyer wigs are a thing. Growing up as a kid,
1:17
Speaker 1: I was always very skeptical about this night. I had
1:20
Speaker 1: assumed that it was just like a television thing, televisual
1:25
Speaker 1: sight gag. So what we're talking about is something that
1:29
Speaker 1: may be unfamiliar to a lot of people, but it's
1:31
Speaker 1: definitely familiar to you. If you live in a lot
1:35
Speaker 1: of commonwealth countries, you know, and that is that in
1:40
Speaker 1: the legal system, especially like the UK, I think is
1:43
Speaker 1: the most well known for this in the In the
1:46
Speaker 1: legal system, these people who are practitioners of law, the
1:51
Speaker 1: dark arts, the dark arts. Uh, their formal courtroom attire
1:58
Speaker 1: includes these incredibly anachronistic wigs, you know that like powdered wigs.
2:06
Speaker 1: Just just think George Washington. Yeah, it's like they're George
2:10
Speaker 1: Washington wigs, like a founding father wig. And it's the
2:14
Speaker 1: This goes for uh, male as well as female judges, embarrassters, right,
2:22
Speaker 1: and there's like a hierarchy of like wig quality too.
2:25
Speaker 1: We'll get into all that. But this is a fascinating
2:27
Speaker 1: world world of of of legal whiggery. Um. I mean seriously,
2:33
Speaker 1: this is pretty comical. But it's also there's a lot
2:36
Speaker 1: of really fun stuff to unpack here. So why don't
2:39
Speaker 1: we get to unpack him? Sure? So, you know, tradition
2:45
Speaker 1: is a dangerous and tricky thing, and our species loves
2:48
Speaker 1: doing stuff just because someone else did it earlier. Tradition
2:52
Speaker 1: is a hell of a drug. Rick James said that
2:55
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that was that was Rick James. The
2:59
Speaker 1: thing with these wigs is that they are thought by
3:03
Speaker 1: the proponents of the practice to impart and air of formality.
3:09
Speaker 1: You know that. The idea is that you go into
3:11
Speaker 1: a courtroom and you sit down and you see the whigs,
3:14
Speaker 1: and that, coupled with the judiciary proceedings, make you think,
3:19
Speaker 1: oh wow, this is serious. You think someone somewhere down
3:22
Speaker 1: the line misconstrued the word formality with hilarity, right right,
3:28
Speaker 1: And we're not We're not making fun of We're not
3:33
Speaker 1: making serious fun, I should say, of this practice. But
3:38
Speaker 1: you can understand how strange this seems to people who
3:42
Speaker 1: are not familiar with it. The wigs, according to other proponents,
3:48
Speaker 1: are an emblem of anonymity. They distance the wearer from
3:55
Speaker 1: personal involvement, and they visually draw on the supremacy the law.
4:00
Speaker 1: This is according to a guy named Kevin Newton, a
4:03
Speaker 1: DC based lawyer who studied law at the University of London.
4:07
Speaker 1: And they have a name. It's not just called a
4:09
Speaker 1: lawyer wig or a laser wig. These uh, these headpieces
4:15
Speaker 1: are called perukes p e r u k so punk
4:20
Speaker 1: sounding peruke. I don't know why you get peruked up,
4:24
Speaker 1: you know. So the the rules are pretty specific as well,
4:30
Speaker 1: so peruke. But a peruke, it's got a name, and
4:35
Speaker 1: it's just I guess, I guess that's specifically. Would could
4:38
Speaker 1: you use that term outside of the legal the courtroom
4:40
Speaker 1: setting for this style of wig? Is it referring to
4:43
Speaker 1: the style of wig or specifically a wig used in
4:48
Speaker 1: legal setting? I don't know. Peruke is an archaic term
4:52
Speaker 1: for a periwig, which is a highly styled wig that
4:57
Speaker 1: used to be warned for both by both men and women.
5:00
Speaker 1: So in this situation, I imagine them drawing the line
5:06
Speaker 1: at the use of the phrase perrywig. They're like, no,
5:10
Speaker 1: we're calling them perukes because this is serious. Definitely has
5:14
Speaker 1: a more of an air of kind of finality to it,
5:19
Speaker 1: you know, like it's a much more kind of sharp
5:22
Speaker 1: edged word. Cherry wig sounds frivolous. It sounds too there's
5:25
Speaker 1: too much whimsy in a check this out man wigs.
5:31
Speaker 1: If a barrister doesn't wear a wig, it's considered an
5:35
Speaker 1: insult to the court stop the press as a barrister. Yes,
5:40
Speaker 1: a barrister, So there are barristers, solicitors, and judges. Barrister
5:46
Speaker 1: can be distinguished from a solicitor because they wear a
5:49
Speaker 1: wig and a gown in court, and they also work
5:52
Speaker 1: at higher levels than solicitors. Their main role is to
5:56
Speaker 1: act as advocates in legal hearings. So there they stand
6:00
Speaker 1: in the court and they plead a case on behalf
6:02
Speaker 1: of their clients to the judge, who is also perruped up.
6:06
Speaker 1: But like I was saying earlier, been uh, you know,
6:09
Speaker 1: do you know about the whig archy, the higher the
6:12
Speaker 1: hierarchy of wigs, Like it's it's a thing. It's really
6:14
Speaker 1: really cool. Oh man. So you know, you've got your
6:18
Speaker 1: barristers who wear these slightly kind of frizzed up wigs
6:23
Speaker 1: that are kind of frizzy at the crown, and they
6:26
Speaker 1: have horizontal curls on the sides and the back like
6:29
Speaker 1: little uh like like you know, like your mom's curlers,
6:32
Speaker 1: you know that kind of like a little nice tight
6:35
Speaker 1: What do you call that? What kind of curl is that?
6:37
Speaker 1: Is there a name for it? I would Jerry, it's
6:40
Speaker 1: a more of a could you say ringlet a ringlet? Yes,
6:45
Speaker 1: ringlet exactly. That is exactly the word I was fishing for.
6:49
Speaker 1: So yeah, but they're like very organized in there. They
6:51
Speaker 1: flow down the sides and the back um and then
6:54
Speaker 1: they have too long kind of Jedi braids of hair
6:58
Speaker 1: that hang down below the hair and on the neck
7:01
Speaker 1: uh and they sport a looped curl at each end, right,
7:06
Speaker 1: so it's like that's kind of like a Jedi a
7:08
Speaker 1: Jedi braid. These are yeah, these are very specific, very specific,
7:14
Speaker 1: and you've got different types of lawyers, different styles of wigs.
7:19
Speaker 1: The best one though, is the judge, because the judge
7:22
Speaker 1: has a similar, similarly styled wig, but it's way like
7:27
Speaker 1: it's like a blown out version of the barrister's wig.
7:30
Speaker 1: It's a full wig um from a slightly frizzed out
7:34
Speaker 1: top and it kind of transitions into this tight, horizontal
7:39
Speaker 1: array of curls that goes several inches down your shoulder.
7:43
Speaker 1: And these wigs, all of them, from judge to barrister
7:47
Speaker 1: what have you, are made of white horse hair um.
7:51
Speaker 1: And there's a certain amount of gravitas that's associated with
7:56
Speaker 1: the yellowing that happens as the wig's age, because it
8:00
Speaker 1: in parts a certain amount of you know, respect, you've
8:04
Speaker 1: got you know, you've got that yellow wig. You've been
8:06
Speaker 1: at this for a while, Sir ye mad nowadays obviously
8:12
Speaker 1: wearing one of these is at the very best a
8:16
Speaker 1: fashion statement, you know, like if our if our super
8:20
Speaker 1: producer Alex showed up one day and said, you know,
8:24
Speaker 1: I was wearing a barrister's wig. This is the choice
8:28
Speaker 1: I've made in life. Of course we would support him,
8:31
Speaker 1: because we're all actually friends, but it would be weird
8:36
Speaker 1: because people don't typically wear wigs in that style. Now
8:40
Speaker 1: people still wear wigs in general, but they're very it's
8:43
Speaker 1: very different nowadays. And once upon a time, wigs were
8:49
Speaker 1: considered an essential part of being a well put together professional,
8:55
Speaker 1: like if you if you were a person of substance
8:58
Speaker 1: and means, then you wore a wig. It was during
9:01
Speaker 1: that time culturally when wigs began to appear in courtrooms
9:06
Speaker 1: and so it was seen as a mark of a
9:08
Speaker 1: bit of elitism, a mark of authenticity, mark of professionalism,
9:12
Speaker 1: and a mark of success. This was in the seventeenth century,
9:16
Speaker 1: so only the creme de la creme, socially speaking, were
9:21
Speaker 1: those powdered wigs that were made of as you said,
9:23
Speaker 1: no horse hair. Those were just the really dope ones though,
9:27
Speaker 1: like those are the the upper echelon of powdered wigs.
9:30
Speaker 1: There's a whole array of materials that kind of stepped
9:35
Speaker 1: down the quality ladder. I guess he could say, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
9:40
Speaker 1: there was a goat hair spoiled cotton hair stolen from
9:44
Speaker 1: the dead. That is true of those you want to
9:48
Speaker 1: you want a dead man's h scalp, dead man's scalps,
9:52
Speaker 1: tell no tales, my friend, And that's dark. I don't
9:56
Speaker 1: know what that even means. I don't know. I was
9:59
Speaker 1: into it. I could see it contextually unless yeah, and
10:02
Speaker 1: like a line kind of cut your eyes at me
10:04
Speaker 1: a little bit there they cut my eyes? Are you?
10:06
Speaker 1: Is that a weird expression? It is? I was trying
10:09
Speaker 1: to figure out what, how what would that would intain, know,
10:12
Speaker 1: like like like a little like a little side side eye.
10:15
Speaker 1: There you go. How is it? Okay? I'm just for
10:17
Speaker 1: every just you can't see this. I'm just moving my
10:19
Speaker 1: head and maintaining eye contact. Well. Whether or not the
10:24
Speaker 1: wig trade involved cutting of eyes, it also involved a
10:29
Speaker 1: practice that remains around in the modern day, which is
10:32
Speaker 1: that there were people who would grow their hair out
10:35
Speaker 1: and then sell it and people buy real human hair
10:38
Speaker 1: wigs and all joking aside, uh nowadays that is a thing.
10:44
Speaker 1: Um there is there are human hair wigs that are sold.
10:46
Speaker 1: But the thing that I always associate that with is
10:48
Speaker 1: the whole locks of love uh scene. I guess where
10:51
Speaker 1: people will sell their hair to not sell, donate their
10:55
Speaker 1: hair to be made into wigs for cancer patients who
10:58
Speaker 1: have lost their hair through chemotherapy. I think that's super cool.
11:01
Speaker 1: I have a friend, um, who I used to do
11:03
Speaker 1: sound with back in the day, like a production you know,
11:06
Speaker 1: audio jobs, and he had the most luxurious head of
11:10
Speaker 1: hair just down his back, just like a like a
11:13
Speaker 1: great lion. And his mother got sick with cancer and
11:16
Speaker 1: he donated all his hair and he had a wig
11:18
Speaker 1: may out of his hair to give to his mother,
11:21
Speaker 1: and I thought that was just the sweetest Yeah, that's beautiful.
11:24
Speaker 1: That's heartbreaking. Yeah, it really is. But the reason that
11:28
Speaker 1: this is important that he would donate this, or that
11:30
Speaker 1: anyone would donate this, is because today these kind of
11:33
Speaker 1: wigs are very, very expensive. Yeah, yeah, this is the
11:38
Speaker 1: This is the top ind real human hair, and sometimes
11:41
Speaker 1: people rate it by the region of the world where
11:44
Speaker 1: this hair originates. But this is still what's really weird
11:49
Speaker 1: to me about this man. In the seventeen century, while
11:53
Speaker 1: you could get a human hair wig, it was still
11:57
Speaker 1: a couple of steps down below the stat a symbol
12:01
Speaker 1: of a horse hair wig exactly different different times, different strokes,
12:05
Speaker 1: I suppose. But today these wigs that are used in
12:09
Speaker 1: the English court system, they're like a prerequisite, like you
12:13
Speaker 1: have to, like you graduate, you get your law degree,
12:15
Speaker 1: you go and buy your first wig. But like I
12:19
Speaker 1: was saying before, you kind of want to hang onto
12:21
Speaker 1: it because you want that air, that patina, that that
12:24
Speaker 1: yellow thing to happen, so people know that you mean
12:27
Speaker 1: business and that you've been in the game for a minute.
12:30
Speaker 1: You've been wigging out. You're an o g wigster. And
12:34
Speaker 1: uh they they they go for from a you know,
12:36
Speaker 1: five bucks for like one of these smaller, slightly less
12:40
Speaker 1: ornate barrister wig, your starter wig, uh to like three
12:45
Speaker 1: grand for a judge wig, these ones that go you know,
12:49
Speaker 1: all the way down the back. Is a significant investment.
12:52
Speaker 1: And so maybe one of the questions we would ask
12:55
Speaker 1: is we said that this was all the rage fashion wise,
13:00
Speaker 1: eyes right, But why it turns out most most people overwhelmingly,
13:09
Speaker 1: when I say most people, I mean overwhelmingly historians blame
13:12
Speaker 1: it on syphilis. Always comes back down a syphilis that
13:16
Speaker 1: took a turn things have indeed taken a turn for
13:22
Speaker 1: the syphilic. Uh, corpse whigs wasn't enough the corpse whigs
13:27
Speaker 1: that was just like a little bit of a slight
13:30
Speaker 1: ummi added into the story. But now this is becoming
13:35
Speaker 1: this part of the show is syphilis centric. In the
13:39
Speaker 1: sixteenth century, a lot of people in Europe were contracting
13:44
Speaker 1: syphilis was also known as the syphiltici. Yes, yeah, as
13:49
Speaker 1: you probably know it better as the syphiltic. You know,
13:54
Speaker 1: so the treatment used for syphilis, penicillin, wasn't going to
14:00
Speaker 1: be discovered until nineteen, so people with syphilis didn't have
14:05
Speaker 1: a treatment program. Instead, they got rashes, blindness, open sores,
14:10
Speaker 1: eventually dementia and then hair loss. I mean there's market
14:15
Speaker 1: for probably all kinds of like devices and cosmetic little
14:19
Speaker 1: accoutrement to cover up scars and things like that. You know,
14:22
Speaker 1: you think of like half masks for faces and stuff
14:26
Speaker 1: that had some form of deformity that could have resulted
14:30
Speaker 1: from something like syphilis. Oh yeah, that's really good point.
14:33
Speaker 1: I didn't think about that. I just wonder who like
14:35
Speaker 1: cornered the market on you know that kind of stuff,
14:38
Speaker 1: cause cosmetic accessories, shall we say, I always thought those
14:43
Speaker 1: things were cool growing up, you know, seeing the seeing
14:45
Speaker 1: the half mask in the Phantom of the Opera, for instance,
14:50
Speaker 1: that was great. I if I could get away with it,
14:52
Speaker 1: I would just wear one of those, but it would
14:55
Speaker 1: be a little bit anticlimactic and disappointing, you know when
14:58
Speaker 1: I finally took it off. If I had a normal face,
15:01
Speaker 1: so I can lose a nose, you can lose like
15:03
Speaker 1: a hole, like your nose can totally get eating away.
15:06
Speaker 1: Leg I just typed in syphilis mask, uh, and I
15:09
Speaker 1: guess pretty disturbing actually came right up. It's a wire
15:13
Speaker 1: frame with a pair of glasses and a fake nose,
15:15
Speaker 1: but it looks like clearly this is an artifact. Um.
15:18
Speaker 1: And then we've got masks, like we're talking about all
15:21
Speaker 1: that stuff. But you know, if you just had hair loss,
15:25
Speaker 1: a wig would be your best friend and a crucial
15:29
Speaker 1: one because hair loss was very problematic for people socialized
15:34
Speaker 1: at this time. So in this kind of this continues
15:38
Speaker 1: a little bit today. Uh, Long hair at the time
15:42
Speaker 1: was super in fashion. It was all the rage, and
15:46
Speaker 1: because of the prevalence of syphilis, if somebody was prematurely balding,
15:51
Speaker 1: everyone just sort of thought they had syphilis, which is
15:57
Speaker 1: is a really tough, uh, really tough situation, unfair for
16:02
Speaker 1: uh people who are just balding naturally. But you know,
16:06
Speaker 1: Larry David would take great issue with this notion of
16:11
Speaker 1: but you know, bald um what's the word bald is um?
16:14
Speaker 1: You know, they look at a bald person and you
16:17
Speaker 1: immediately assume they have syphilis. You know, that's that's problematic
16:20
Speaker 1: in the you know you guys, you know Larry David, right,
16:23
Speaker 1: Larry David one of the most famous baldman and entertainment.
16:27
Speaker 1: I know, he makes it. He sort of like carries
16:29
Speaker 1: that torch, you know, proudly, very proudly. They can't tankerously. No,
16:35
Speaker 1: it's weird because even today, especially in the entertainment industry,
16:39
Speaker 1: people who are prematurely balding are are kind of typecast.
16:44
Speaker 1: You know, well, there's it's it's seen as like some
16:46
Speaker 1: sort of deficiency in your your person right, like a
16:51
Speaker 1: for instance, if you if you're watching most television shows,
16:55
Speaker 1: you're watching action film or something, and you eat a
17:01
Speaker 1: balding character, the chances are overwhelming that they're going to
17:05
Speaker 1: be like a lower level sleazy villain. And that's completely
17:09
Speaker 1: not true about real people, uh real. The idea of
17:14
Speaker 1: sleazy villainy knows no specific appearance, type, or template, but
17:20
Speaker 1: that's still better than what was happening in the sixteenth century,
17:24
Speaker 1: where someone would look at another person who had hair
17:27
Speaker 1: loss and then say, oh, they have syphilis. Also, wigs
17:32
Speaker 1: were a big help for people who had another, uh
17:37
Speaker 1: prominent hair problem lice. Oh yeah, man, my kid got
17:41
Speaker 1: lice once. What's really oh yeah. And the thing about
17:44
Speaker 1: even today, license seen, it's got this stigma that it carries,
17:49
Speaker 1: right where like your kid gets lice and people look
17:51
Speaker 1: at you. You're like you're a crappy parent, you know,
17:53
Speaker 1: like I did a bad job keeping my kid clean
17:56
Speaker 1: or whatever. You know. But the thing about license it
17:59
Speaker 1: spreads and kids it's they're always you know, touching each
18:02
Speaker 1: other and you know, playing and being kids and all
18:04
Speaker 1: this stuff. And yeah, well you know, when one kid
18:06
Speaker 1: at school gets life, like, it's can be assumed like
18:09
Speaker 1: the whole school has lice. And so you know, let's
18:12
Speaker 1: just think of this period in English history as just
18:15
Speaker 1: like a a macro cosmic schoolyard where everyone's just giving
18:21
Speaker 1: everyone life and syphilis. It might you know, it did
18:26
Speaker 1: reach the higher realms of society. Here's an interesting story.
18:32
Speaker 1: Life doesn't discriminate, less does it discriminate. Louis the fourteen
18:38
Speaker 1: King of France, the Son King. He was the king
18:41
Speaker 1: from six to seventeen fifteen, and he was prematurely balding.
18:46
Speaker 1: So he got over this by or I guess, compensated
18:50
Speaker 1: for this by wearing a wig. And yes, historians do
18:56
Speaker 1: believe that he contracted syphilis. And once he started wearing
19:00
Speaker 1: this wig, it's the king of France. He started a trend,
19:04
Speaker 1: and the upper class, the upper crust of Europe, a
19:08
Speaker 1: lot of them started wearing wigs, including Charles the Second,
19:12
Speaker 1: who was Louise's cousin and was rumored to also have
19:16
Speaker 1: contracted syphilis. I'm telling you, man, syphilis was out of control. Seriously,
19:21
Speaker 1: I mean, if the King of France has syphilis, then
19:25
Speaker 1: you know it's running rampant. I mean it's like he's
19:28
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, like syphilis and lice. They don't discriminate there,
19:31
Speaker 1: that's not just like reserved for the unwashed masses. Freaking
19:35
Speaker 1: the sun king. Dude, have you seen this guy? Have
19:38
Speaker 1: you seen his hair? Yeah? That's what we're getting with this,
19:41
Speaker 1: aren't we Yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot of hair.
19:43
Speaker 1: But it's like he kind of set this, uh, set
19:45
Speaker 1: this thing up as like a massive fashion trend, and
19:49
Speaker 1: then other people started doing it because you know, the
19:52
Speaker 1: king could have you killed upon a word, and if
19:55
Speaker 1: you're hanging out in court all the time, you're probably
19:58
Speaker 1: I think there was a little bit of sink fishy.
20:00
Speaker 1: You know. It wasn't even court though, just right, it
20:02
Speaker 1: was everybody. Yeah, it was a court. Came later I
20:05
Speaker 1: kind of read, yeah, the court, I guess, I mean
20:07
Speaker 1: the the King's court. Excuse me, See here we are.
20:12
Speaker 1: We're missing a misconstruing courts. It's a it's not our fault,
20:16
Speaker 1: it's English. It's my fault. No, it's my I take
20:19
Speaker 1: responsib I take full responsibility for misconstruing court. Just then
20:23
Speaker 1: in the court of the crimson King, well, we can't
20:26
Speaker 1: judge whether we we can't judge whether you should be
20:30
Speaker 1: guilty of that responsibility because neither of us has a perup.
20:32
Speaker 1: It's true, we can't even present our case. It's confusing
20:36
Speaker 1: to alex as a who has a gigantic judge. Wig
20:41
Speaker 1: God right now, he really really does, and he is
20:43
Speaker 1: looking at us quite judgmentally with those piercing bespectacled eyes
20:48
Speaker 1: at those long it's long log. Oh my god, he
20:51
Speaker 1: just kind of tipped them down, and I swear to god,
20:53
Speaker 1: I looked into his eyes and I saw the void. Man,
20:55
Speaker 1: I saw the abyss went back at me. The practice
21:02
Speaker 1: of wearing these wigs in like legal courts, actual courts
21:07
Speaker 1: of law did come later, and I believe it was
21:11
Speaker 1: in the late eighties or so. I think that's right. UM.
21:16
Speaker 1: In this article on how stuff works dot com plug um,
21:21
Speaker 1: you can see a rendering I guess it's like a
21:24
Speaker 1: woodcut kind of thing of um some attorneys, and it
21:29
Speaker 1: looks like one of them has got the wig on
21:31
Speaker 1: and he's got some really sick like mutton chops too
21:33
Speaker 1: on the sides. But then there's two guys behind him
21:36
Speaker 1: that don't have them. So I'm wondering if it was
21:39
Speaker 1: like it didn't really get codified or become like it
21:42
Speaker 1: was maybe like a thing that people did out of
21:44
Speaker 1: fashion at first, and then over time it became more
21:49
Speaker 1: like this is the uniform of the court. And something
21:52
Speaker 1: we didn't mention that I came up in another article
21:55
Speaker 1: that I that I was reading. UM as far as
21:58
Speaker 1: why they still do the US today, we talked about
22:01
Speaker 1: the idea how it gave an air of anonymity and
22:04
Speaker 1: like sort of like we're all equal in the eyes
22:06
Speaker 1: of the law or something. But if you thought about
22:08
Speaker 1: the fact that, um, it possibly imparted some very literal anonymity,
22:15
Speaker 1: almost like a disguise so hardened criminals, maybe I wouldn't
22:20
Speaker 1: know you on the street. That's a really interesting point. Yeah,
22:25
Speaker 1: I wonder, I wonder if that played or how much
22:27
Speaker 1: of a role that played. You know, we do know
22:31
Speaker 1: that it persisted after wigs fell out of fashion, right right, yeah, yeah,
22:35
Speaker 1: And like you know, like you said, it's like totally
22:37
Speaker 1: a historical kind of like like you know, the English,
22:41
Speaker 1: they're all about tradition and the English, Like I just know,
22:46
Speaker 1: like you know, everyone in England, the English and their traditions. Um.
22:51
Speaker 1: But you know, it does appear on first glance that
22:55
Speaker 1: this is like what that is. But they there do
22:57
Speaker 1: seem to be some functional reasons behind it the whole,
23:01
Speaker 1: like maybe it's like sort of like a semi disguise.
23:04
Speaker 1: It also could prevent jurors from judging you based on
23:09
Speaker 1: your your your fashion sense, because all I mean it
23:13
Speaker 1: is a fashioning thing. But everyone has their own type
23:16
Speaker 1: of Each role has a specific type of wig. We're
23:19
Speaker 1: not like, these aren't bedazzled. There's no like. You don't
23:22
Speaker 1: get special you know, buretts or anything in your in
23:24
Speaker 1: your court wig. And it is, as you said, part
23:26
Speaker 1: of a uniform. So it further, uh, it further removes yes,
23:32
Speaker 1: individual or unique identifiers. This was interesting to me as well.
23:38
Speaker 1: By the early eighteen hundreds, only a few types of
23:43
Speaker 1: people wore wigs in this in this sense those in
23:47
Speaker 1: the legal profession coachman and bishops. And bishops I think
23:54
Speaker 1: short shortly after eighteen thirties or so, bishops finally cracked
23:59
Speaker 1: the deal and they were allowed to stop wearing wigs.
24:03
Speaker 1: And recently, as we record this, some of the laws
24:08
Speaker 1: regarding this historical tradition changed. In two thousand and seven,
24:15
Speaker 1: new dress rules did away with barrister wigs. Mainly, I
24:19
Speaker 1: think it's contemptible. You know, it's like, if we can't
24:23
Speaker 1: depend on British lawyers of all stripes wearing these ridiculous
24:28
Speaker 1: head dresses, what can we depend on. That's a good
24:32
Speaker 1: question you. I think you will be happy to note
24:35
Speaker 1: that wigs do remain in use in criminal cases, thank god.
24:41
Speaker 1: So maybe maybe that's another thing, right, maybe that maybe
24:45
Speaker 1: that is another plank in the platform or the argument
24:49
Speaker 1: that wigs serve a practical purpose. They are no longer
24:54
Speaker 1: required for family or civil court appearances, or even while
24:59
Speaker 1: appearing before or the Supreme Court in the UK, but
25:01
Speaker 1: in criminal cases you gotta wig up. All Over the
25:05
Speaker 1: UK and Ireland, judges also continued to wear those luxurious
25:10
Speaker 1: what do you call it ben ringlets until when the
25:15
Speaker 1: practice would discontinue. And also English and British colonies like
25:19
Speaker 1: Canada UM, who some of their provinces abandoned the whig
25:22
Speaker 1: deal you know, throughout the nine centuries, or even Jamaica
25:26
Speaker 1: which got rid of whigs back in UM Lawyers and
25:30
Speaker 1: judges now only wear wigs in like kind of ceremonies
25:35
Speaker 1: I guess, or more in a because I don't know
25:37
Speaker 1: what is a trial left on a ceremony in a
25:39
Speaker 1: super official event. Yeah, so yeah, that's weird. And let's
25:45
Speaker 1: say you're someone who's thinking, man, I really want to
25:49
Speaker 1: see this practice. I want to see history in action,
25:53
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Then your odds, uh, your
25:57
Speaker 1: odds maybe best in Hong Kong of all places. According
26:01
Speaker 1: to a lawyer in Hong Kong named Johnny Moke, the
26:05
Speaker 1: symbolic aspect of the wig and gown is very important
26:10
Speaker 1: to Hong Kong, and he said, my feeling is that
26:13
Speaker 1: Hong Kong will probably be one of the last jurisdictions
26:16
Speaker 1: where wig and gown will continue to be used. So
26:20
Speaker 1: we might need to take a trip. You know, now
26:23
Speaker 1: we've finally got a a compelling reason to uh tell
26:27
Speaker 1: our tell our bosses to send us to Hong Kong.
26:31
Speaker 1: You know, I'm down. Alex says he has a friend
26:34
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong. We go stay with Do they What
26:36
Speaker 1: is their position on wigs? He says their apartment is
26:40
Speaker 1: two square feet, which means that that sounds like plenty
26:45
Speaker 1: of room. Yeah, what could go wrong? I don't know, man,
26:48
Speaker 1: We'll have a misadventure, a gown and wig misadventure. Um well,
26:53
Speaker 1: I think that's it for today, right, yeah, yep, man,
26:56
Speaker 1: that history was done, right? Oh? I guess ridiculous? Was
27:01
Speaker 1: that dumb? It's ridiculous, absurd, it's wacky, right, it's strage,
27:06
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's strange how easily bizarre things can
27:10
Speaker 1: become normal. Totally British listeners, I'm not dogging your system.
27:15
Speaker 1: I just know it's just it's it's wild, you know.
27:17
Speaker 1: I guess when I say dumb, it's just like it's
27:20
Speaker 1: so easy for some little snippets, some little like thing
27:24
Speaker 1: to just infiltrate culture, like almost accidentally. And it makes me,
27:29
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder about the stories of other things
27:32
Speaker 1: that are part of accepted forms of dress that are
27:36
Speaker 1: also kind of ridiculous when you think about it. Neckties, neckties,
27:40
Speaker 1: bow ties, bow ties, they're not doing anything, you know.
27:43
Speaker 1: Polo shirts with two buttons at the top, what's that about.
27:46
Speaker 1: I'm wearing one now, I know I was just snip balling.
27:49
Speaker 1: Here is if some people could see medallions. I guess
27:53
Speaker 1: you know, you want to just show a little nip.
27:56
Speaker 1: I don't even think that's going to reach a nip.
27:58
Speaker 1: Well before were we head into the slippery slope of
28:02
Speaker 1: nip slips. It may be time for us to call
28:05
Speaker 1: it a day, book our tickets to Hong Kong and
28:07
Speaker 1: see wigs in action. I'm down, man, let's go. Let's go.
28:11
Speaker 1: But before we do that, uh, listeners, tell us your
28:15
Speaker 1: wig tails. Does anyone have like a wig story or
28:18
Speaker 1: have you are you a hardened British criminal and you've
28:21
Speaker 1: had to be dressed down by a barrister with ringlets.
28:25
Speaker 1: I would find it hard to take that person seriously.
28:28
Speaker 1: And the barrister, you know, they're standing there with that
28:30
Speaker 1: wig and it's supposed to like I guess in part
28:33
Speaker 1: some kind of fear strike fear into the hearts of criminals.
28:36
Speaker 1: I would just snicker the whole time. Yeah, yeah, well,
28:39
Speaker 1: we're from very different culture. World's apart in terms of
28:43
Speaker 1: head covering in the legal system at least. Uh. Let's
28:48
Speaker 1: point being, send us your tails, send us your wig tails.
28:51
Speaker 1: We have Facebook, we have you can just search Ridiculous History.
28:54
Speaker 1: I think we're the only one. Yeah, you can find
28:57
Speaker 1: us on Instagram, all all the all the goods uf.
29:00
Speaker 1: We even discussed doing a Pinterest account, which we might
29:04
Speaker 1: get to. But you can also email us directly at
29:08
Speaker 1: ridiculous at how stuff works dot com and please be
29:11
Speaker 1: sure and tune in for your next installment of ridiculous headdresses.
29:18
Speaker 1: I mean history, that's the name of the show. Can
29:21
Speaker 1: we get a law in order? I love that sound effect.