Is it a sin, venial or mortal for a women to wear loose fitting pants around the house.  I am talking about pants that a normal man will not wear because they are definitely a women's style.

Is it a sin?

Quote from: MrsZ

If you don't mind my asking, why did the Pope have to write about women in pants in the 860's?

I'm curious about this as well.  Can someone answer this question?

The Bulgars were equestrian nomads from the Pontic steppe who migrated seasonally in search of pasturage.  They must have worn clothing similar to other steppe nomads, which seems to include a type of pants under a type of dress or robe.  Perhaps this dress has varied in length over time, and the Bulgar women therefore observed a custom akin to that found in Chinese and Indian and other Asian women regarding the wearing of bifurcated garments for their lower body.  There was considerable tension and regular warfare between the urbane Byzantines and the rustic Bulgars, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Byzantines insisted on the Bulgars' being wicked because of their "barbarian" customs.  Perhaps Pope Nicholas was responding with that in mind ("No, you don't have to live like the Greeks to be saved and to be pleasing to God").  Here is a traditional Tajik women's outfit (who knows if it is traditional enough to be representative of Pontic steppe women's clothing from the mid-IXth century, though, especially considering the Bulgars' migration to what is now Bulgaria) :




The pants are on the girl standing fourth to the right in the pink outfit.

Feminism was still unheard of, but amongst nomadic societies it is common for much of the hard labour to be done by the women, while the men fight and hunt or tend to their horses and sheep.  That is to say, the women are servants of the men, and in the old days (such as the time when Pope Nicholas wrote to the Bulgars) on the steppe women were often made a man's wife by being kidnapped or the marriage being arranged for an alliance.  Afterwards, a man's wife could potentially be stolen by another, and there is a possibility that she would not be rescued and would live as a concubine.  Polygamy was observed amongst the khans of different groups, as well.  

The weather changes often on the steppe (so practical clothing is required), and the home is often on the move, so the sedentary housekeeping of Western women cannot really be maintained there, and the nomads must find a different way to separate the functions of men and women, according to the nature of masculinity and femininity.  That being said, I think that they could readily adopt some Western customs as a point of virtue, and have their society transformed for the better by Our Lord without having to abandon nomadism as such, since many of their present customs are at variance with the natural law (polygamy, for instance, which is something that was merely permitted prior to the New Covenant but is no longer allowed).  Unfortunately, Christianity has not been much of an influence there, or else it has come to the steppe via the Eastern schismatics and by Nestorians.