Most dress codes today ban things rather than suggest standards from fear of driving away business.

Most have heard of the traditional, albeit somewhat fusty, practice of the emergency tie—the inevitably creased and limp piece of silk kept behind a maitre d’s podium for the guest who might have forgotten his own. In a perfect scenario, the tie is the establishment’s own, perhaps embroidered with an insignia and in some muted color palette. More often it has been fished from the lost-and-found bin, dribbles of clam chowder still very much intact.

I have seen the practice extended to blazers at clubs and restaurants that require a jacket. Hilarity ensues when a busboy is sent to chase down the borrower who, after two glasses of chilled Beaujolais, has forgotten he wasn’t wearing one when he entered. But during a recent visit to the Yucatán Peninsula, I witnessed this practice applied to the lower half: the lending of trousers, I am sad to report, exists.

It was the evening following a raucous wedding, and our large party had a considerable wait before the tables and staff could be mustered. We were in good, if groggy, spirits, and filled the time pleasantly with rounds of Havana Club, Aqua Mineral y Limón. Several restaurants faced each other in the courtyard where we lounged and people-watching was inevitable. At some point I became aware of a group of men stepping into what appeared to be baggy trousers. I considered for a moment if they were some sort of troupe gearing up for a performance, but then they followed the tuxedoed maitre’d into the dining room and sat down. Several moments later, and in front of another restaurant, I saw a sunburnt couple approach; a few words were exchanged before the hostess reached into the drawer of a small chest, producing a similar pair of large, black pants. The man sheepishly stepped into them before being seated. And then I grasped the game: the dress codes of all these places prohibited shorts, but rather than turn away those wearing them, the savvy business decision had been made to provide trousers.

This beach-goer has little to fear come dinnertime on the Yucatán coast.

This anecdote might just be a cheeky account from a foreign port-of call. But with ample time on the return flight to consider the implications, I have decided the lending of trousers is significant beyond its humor. The practice asks: what is a dress code? Historically, rules governing dress are signifiers of status. Consider sumptuary laws from ancient Greece through Medieval Europe and feudal Japan. Portions of these rules dealt specifically with what cloths and degree of tailoring various echelons of society were entitled to. We might view this as quaint or irrelevant today, but consider that many laws remained in place through the Protestant Reformation, and indeed made landfall in the US alongside Puritan settlers. This idea—that rules of dress rein-in and separate—is still ingrained, something that sadly plays itself out by the toting of so called luxury brands. One might argue that the steeper taxes often imposed on these goods are a contemporary version of sumptuary laws—a built-in penalty for those who desire to display their riches.

The other way of looking at a dress code is as an aid in the face of confounding and infinite choice. If men are asked to wear tuxedoes, and if what constitutes a tuxedo is not permitted to drift, then there exists little room for error. If guests are instead asked to wear, as one recent invitation put it, “chic party clothes” the margin for egregious faux pas is a gaping canyon. Put simply: the presence of a clear dress code is a relief rather then a burden. It must, of course, be enforced if expected to equalize those to whom it applies.

The problem with handing pants out at the door (not the hygiene one) is that they don’t improve the aesthetics of a dining room; nor do they shame anyone into dressing better in the future, as demonstrated by the hooting and hollering men I saw cinched into their communal coveralls. Ultimately, what may have started as a quiet convenience for the tie-less man has ballooned into a farcical enabler of ever lower standards.

The cocktails were good there though.