"show ankle" query

[Amy West]

What's the support for this claim of origin/use for the dual
staircases? I am skeptical of these sorts of claims as there are
myths like the "closet tax" that circulate about historic houses and
there is absolutely no documentary evidence (no statutes, no records)
for such things.

---Amy West

>Date:    Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:32:24 -0600
>From:    "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
>Subject: "show ankle" query
>
>     I explained that showing ankle derives from the days when
>well-bred women would not not show their ankles in public, and to do
>so was a decided bit of coquetishness. Cf. the dual outside
>staircases before some homes in the South--one coming from the right
>and the other from the left--so that the men and women would not go
>up the same one and produce the risk of a man catching a glimpse of
>the ankle of a woman ahead of him.

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