Some years ago, heavily bearded Commander Edward Whitehead, chairman of Schweppes USA, was asked by a starlet whether women minded kissing bearded men. ‘My dear/ he said, ‘no one minds going through a little foliage to get to a picnic’ True, but when the man ends up wearing remnants of the picnic in his beard, some do mind. Fashions in facial hair come and go and at present, most men remove all trace of it daily. Biologists find it hard to explain why this is so, dedicating an estimated 3600 hours (150 days) over a lifetime to scraping off about eight metres of stubble.
One important function of facial hair is to distinguish males from females. Other primates, such as gorillas and orang-outangs, don’t need such signals because there is a large and obvious size difference between the sexes. From a distance any-old orang-outang can tell the sex of another swinging through the forest. The males are more than double the weight of females.
Although humans think of themselves as a species which has less body hair than other primates, their beards are far more pronounced. In humans, a beard is a definite sign of maleness. If men let their beards grow and went strolling naked through the savanna, from a distance other humans would instantly note the frontal spread of hair, from the face down, and identify them as male. But it seems humans no longer depend on such signals. The male impulse to shave is a mystery but may be an attempt to reduce the difference between the sexes.
Regardless of race, all human males are capable of growing a beard. In some it may be very sparse but there is always enough hair to make it noticeable.
Although beards can be unruly and wild, they can also be a symbol of patriarchy, scholarliness and veneration. Any insult or mutilation of a beard has always been viewed as an act of contempt.
In manicured societies such as ours, deeply religious men often eschew shaving to indicate they have left worldly standards behind. Still, it is estimated that 95 per cent of Australian men shave daily.
While a man’s beard may make him appear venerable, it may also make him vulnerable. Recognizing this, Alexander the Great in 323 BC decreed that his soldiers shave them right off, lest they provide easy handles for the enemy. In keeping with Norman style, William the Conqueror told his courtiers to shave, and they remained facially unadorned until the knights returned from the Crusades with beards and changed the fashion.
In the early 1700s Peter the Great would not permit beards at the Russian court and those who failed to comply had their chins denuded with a rough oyster knife. Ordinary Russians who wished to continue wearing a beard had to pay a tax. The story goes that some, fearful that they would not be recognized in heaven, kept their shorn hairs in a box and were buried with them.
Facial fuzz was high fashion in Victorian London and spread to America where, in the Lincoln era, everyone wore a beard. That passed out of vogue, too, and today in the United States, many police departments, fire brigades and employers in countless restaurants strictly prohibit beards.
US civil rights advocates have been trying to reverse such beard bans since the 1980s on the grounds that they discriminate against black men. It is estimated that half the black men in the United States suffer from the skin ailment pseudofolliculitis barbae (PFB), which is linked to shaving.
Their facial hair is particularly strong and among those suffering PFB, tight curly beard hairs, which have been sharpened by razors, re-enter the skin and cause painful inflamed bumps. A ten-year legal saga over a ‘no beards’ rule at Domino’s Pizzas ended a few years ago with the US appellate court ruling that the company had to grant medical exceptions to workers who had PFB.
PFB is seen in Australia although it is not very common here. But dermatologists often encourage fair-skinned men to grow beards as protection against the sun. In the Australian Army and Air Force beards are generally not allowed (there are some exceptions) but they can be worn in the Navy in times of peace. In wartime they come off, in case a mask needs to be worn.
A beard must be a worthy adornment because men always seem to be swearing by them. Even the three little pigs invoked the ancient power of the beard when they warned the big bad wolf that not by the hair of their chinny chin chins would they let him in.
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