From the habit of dressing, which began sporadically, clothing soon developed into a status symbol and became a fashion. However, the open wearing of status symbols promotes envy, and where envy arises, the temptation of theft is not far away, theft is followed by robbery, and robbery is followed by murder: Clothing promotes the tendency to criminal deeds.

On the other hand, openly wearing status symbols demonstrates the superiority and power of the higher-ranking person. However, open expressions of superiority and power also very quickly lead to oppression and abuse of this power. Clothing thus establishes and consolidates inequality between people and thus creates conflict and dependency.

Nevertheless, clothing eventually became a norm, and at some point, much later, social dress codes came in place. In biblical Judaism, clothinglessness is associated with poverty and shame, an indication that in clothed societies nakedness soon became deliberately negative.

Clothing covers – even in its simple form of an apron – the genitalia and the excretion organs as subject to shame of the body. Of course, that supports social rules such as the taboo to "stare", as the objects of eager looks disappeared under the clothing. Under these circumstances, the rules of the social code could be more lenient, although the more serious offences such as sexual assault on others continued to be under severe threat of punishment even in clothed societies – as in peoples living in the nude.

The fact, that the development towards clothing was by no means inevitable, is proved by innumerous societies, which were able, to do without clothing completely or almost completely until modern times and even nowadays. There is no doubt, that the civilising achievements of these peoples, to develop and maintain a functioning social code – often without written law – for their coexistence, far outweigh the civilisation achievements of those peoples who have "made things easier" by dictating to wear clothes.