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Beard

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Beard is hair that grows on the jaw, chin, upper lip, lower lip, cheeks, and neck of humans and some non-human animals. In humans, usually pubescent or adult males can grow beards. Some women with hirsutism, a hormonal condition of excessive hairiness, may develop a beard.

Throughout the course of history, societal attitudes toward male beards have varied widely depending on factors such as prevailing cultural-religious traditions and the current era's fashion trends. Some religions (such as Islam and Sikhism) have considered a full beard to be essential and mandate it as part of their observance. Other cultures, even while not officially mandating it, view a beard as central to a man's virility, exemplifying such virtues as wisdom, strength, sexual prowess, and high social status. In cultures where facial hair is uncommon (or currently out of fashion), beards may be associated with poor hygiene or an uncivilized, dangerous demeanor. In countries with colder climates, beards help protect the wearer's face from the elements.

Biology
The beard develops during puberty. Beard growth is linked to the stimulation of hair follicles in the area by dihydrotestosterone, which continues to affect beard growth after puberty. Dihydrotestosterone also promotes balding. Dihydrotestosterone is produced from testosterone, the levels of which vary with season. Beard growth rate is also genetic.

Evolution
Biologists characterize beards as a secondary sexual characteristic because they are unique to one sex, yet do not play a direct role in reproduction. Charles Darwin first suggested a possible evolutionary explanation of beards in his work The Descent of Man, which hypothesized that the process of sexual selection may have lead to beards. Modern biologists have reaffirmed the role of sexual selection in the evolution of beards, concluding that there is evidence that a majority of women find men with beards more attractive than men without beards.

Evolutionary psychology explanations for the existence of beards include signaling sexual maturity and signaling dominance by the increasing perceived size of jaws; clean-shaved faces are rated less dominant than bearded. Some scholars assert that it is not yet established whether the sexual selection leading to beards is rooted in attractiveness (inter-sexual selection) or dominance (intra-sexual selection). A beard can be explained as an indicator of a male's overall condition. The rate of facial hairiness appears to influence male attractiveness. The presence of a beard makes the male vulnerable in hand-to-hand fights (it provides an easy way to grab and hold the opponent's head), which is costly, so biologists have speculated that there must be other evolutionary benefits that outweigh that drawback. Excess testosterone evidenced by the beard may indicate mild immunosuppression, which may support spermatogenesis.

History
The ancient and classical world

Lebanon
The ancient Semitic civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent and centered on the coastline of modern Lebanon gave great attention to the hair and beard. Where the beard has mostly a strong resemblance to that affected by the Assyrians and is familiar to us from their sculptures. It is arranged in three, four, or five one rows only, the beard falling in tresses, which are curled at the extremity. There is no indication of the Phoenicians having cultivated mustachios.

Israel
Israelite society placed special importance on the beard. Many religious male figures are recorded to have had facial hair; for example, numerous prophets mentioned in the Tanakh were known to grow beards. The Torah forbids certain shaving practices altogether, in particular Leviticus 19:27 states, "You shall not round off the side-growth on your head, or destroy the side-growth of your beard". Mishnah interprets this as a prohibition on using a razor on the beard. This prohibition is further expanded upon in kabbalistic literature. The prohibition carries to modern Judaism to this day, with rabbinic opinion forbidding the use of a razor to shave between the "five corners of the beard" - although there is no uniform consensus on where these five vertices are located.

According to biblical scholars, the shaving of hair, particularly of the corners of the beard, was originally a mourning custom; the behavior appears, from the Book of Jeremiah, to also have been practiced by other Semitic tribes, although some ancient manuscripts of the text read live in remote places rather than clip the corners of their hair. Biblical scholars think that the regulations against shaving hair may be an attack on the practice of offering hair to the dead, which was performed in the belief that it would obtain protection in Sheol. The prohibition may also have been an attempt to distinguish the appearance of Israelities from that of the surrounding nations, and likewise, reduce the influence of foreign religions. The Hittites and Elamites were clean-shaven, and the Sumerians were also frequently without a beard; conversely, the Egyptians and Libyans shaved the beard into very stylized elongated goatees. Maimonides criticizes the shaving of the beard as being the custom of idolatrous priests.

Mesopotamia
Mesopotamian civilizations (Sumerian, Assyrians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, and Medians) devoted great care to oiling and dressing their beards, using tongs and curling irons to create elaborate ringlets and tiered patterns.

Egypt
The highest-ranking Ancient Egyptians grew hair on their chins which was often dyed or hennaed (reddish brown) and sometimes plaited with interwoven gold thread. A metal false beard, or postiche, which was a sign of sovereignty, was worn by queens and kings. This was held in place by a ribbon tied over the head and attached to a gold chin strap, a fashion existing from about 3000 to 1580 BCE.

Indian Subcontinent
In ancient India, the beard was allowed to grow long, a symbol of dignity and wisdom (cf. sadhu). The nations in the east generally treated their beards with great care and veneration, and the punishment for licentiousness and adultery was to have the beard of the offending parties publicly cut off. They had such a sacred regard for the preservation of their beards that a man might pledge it for the payment of a debt.

China
Confucius held that the human body was a gift from one's parents to which no alterations should be made. Aside from abstaining from body modifications such as tattoos, Confucians were also discouraged from cutting their hair, fingernails, or beards. To what extent people could actually comply with this ideal depended on their profession; farmers or soldiers could probably not grow long beards as it would have interfered with their work.

Only a certain percentage of East Asian men are capable of growing a full beard. Another proportion of East Asian men are capable of growing facial hair but only in a very specific growth pattern in which hair only grows above the lip, below the lip, and on the chin, with no hair growth on the cheeks or jaw. Another proportion of East Asian men are capable of growing facial hair in some combination of the two.

Iran
The Iranians were fond of long beards, and almost all the Iranian kings had a beard. In Travels by Adam Olearius, a king of Iran commands his steward's head to be cut off, and on its being brought to him, remarks, "what a pity it was, that a man possessing such a fine mustachio, should have been executed". Men in the Achaemenid era wore long beards, with warriors adorning theirs with jewelry. Men also commonly wore beards during the Safavid and Qajar eras.

Greece
The ancient Greeks regarded the beard as a badge or sign of virility; in the Homeric epics, it had almost sanctified significance so that a common form of entreaty was to touch the beard of the person addressed. According to William Smith in these ancient times, the mustache was shaven, leaving clear the space around the lips. It was only shaven as a sign of mourning, though in this case it was instead often left untrimmed. A smooth face was regarded as a sign of effeminacy. The Spartans punished cowards by shaving off a portion of their beards. Greek beards were also frequently curled with tongs. Youngsters usually did not wear a beard, moreover wearing a beard became optional for adults in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.

Macedon
In Ancient Macedonia, during the time of Alexander, the Great the custom of smooth shaving was introduced. Alexander strongly promoted shaving during his reign because he believed it looked tidier. Reportedly, Alexander ordered his soldiers to be clean-shaven, fearing that their beards would serve as handles for their enemies to grab and to hold the soldier as he was killed. The practice of shaving spread from the Macedonians, whose kings are represented on coins, etc, with smooth faces, throughout the whole known world of the Macedonian Empire. Laws were passed against it, without effect, at Rhodes and Byzantium; and even Aristotle conformed to the new custom, unlike the other philosophers, who retained the beard as a badge of their profession. A man with a beard after the Macedonian period implied a philosopher, and there are many allusions to this custom of the later philosophers in such proverbs as: "The beard does not make the sage". Due to this association with philosophers, who lost reputation over time, the beard acquired more and more a negative connotation, as in Theodore Prodromos, Lucian of Samosata, and Julian the apostate (who wrote the Misopogon, i.e., "beard hater").

Rome
Shaving seems to have not been known to the Romans during their early history (under the kings of Rome and the early Republic). Pliny tells us that P. Ticinius was the first who brought a barber to Rome, which was in the 454th year from the founding of the city (that is, around 299 BCE). Scipio Africanus (236-183 BCE) was apparently the first among the Romans who shaved his beard. However, after that point, shaving seems to have caught on very quickly, and soon almost all Roman men were clean-shaven. Being clean-shaven became a sign of being Roman and not Greek. Only in the latter times of the Republic did the Roman youth begin shaving their beards only partially, trimming it into an ornamental form; prepubescent boys oiled their chins in hopes of forcing premature growth of a beard.

Still, beards remained rare among the Romans throughout the Late Republic and the early Principate. In a general way, in Rome at this time, a long beard was considered a mark of slovenliness and squalor. The censors L. Veturius and P. Licinius compelled M. Livius, who had been banished, on his restoration to the city, to be shaved, to lay aside his dirty appearance, and then, but not until then, to come into the Senate. The first occasion of shaving was regarded as the beginning of manhood, and the day on which this took place was celebrated as a festival. Usually, this was done when the young Roman assumed the toga virils. Augustus did it in his twenty-fourth year, Caligula in his twentieth. The hair cut off on such occasions was consecrated to a God. Thus Nero put his into a golden box set with pearls and dedicated it to Jupiter Capitolinus. The Romans, unlike the Greeks, let their beards grow in a time of mourning; so did Augustus for the death of Julius Caesar. Other occasions of mourning on which the beard was allowed to grow were appearance as a reus, condemnation, or some public calamity. On the other hand, men of the country areas around Rome in the time of Varro seem not to have shaved except when they came to market every eighth day so that their usual appearance was most likely a short stubble.

In the second century, CE Emperor Hadrian, according to Dio Cassius, was the first of all the Caesars to grow a full beard; Plutarch says that he did it to hide scars on his face. This was a period in Rome of widespread imitation of Greek culture, and many other men grew beards in imitation of Hadrian and Greek fashion. Until the time of Constantine the Great the emperors appear in busts and coins with beards, but Constantine and his successors until the reign of Phocas, except for Julian the Apostate, are represented as beardless.

Celts and Germanic Tribes
Late Hellenistic sculptures of Celts portray them with long hair and mustaches but beardless. Caesar reported the Britons wore no beard except upon the upper lip. The Anglo-Saxons on arrival in Great Britain wore beards and continued to do so for a considerable time after.

Among the Gaelic Celts of Scotland and Ireland, men typically let their facial hair grow into a full beard, and it was often seen as dishonorable for a Gaelic man to have no facial hair.

Tacitus states that among the Catti, a Germanic tribe (perhaps the Chatten), a young man was not allowed to shave or cut his hair until he had slain an enemy. The Lombards derived their name from the great length of their beards (Longpbards - Long Beards). When Otto the Great said anything serious, he swore by his beard, which covered his breast.

Middle Ages
In Medieval Europe, a beard displayed a knight's virility and honor. The Castilian knight El Cid is described in The Lay of the Cid as "the one with the flowery beard". Holding somebody else's beard was a serious offense that had to be righted in a duel.

While most noblemen and knights were bearded, the Catholic clergy were generally required to be clean-shaven. This was understood as a symbol of their celibacy.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, Zoroastrians would apparently keep mustaches but shave the hair on their chins. The prophet Muhammad encouraged his followers to do the opposite, long chin hair but trimmed mustaches, to differ from the non-believers. This style of beard subsequently spread along with Islam during the Muslim expansion in the Middle Ages.

From the Renaissance to the Present Day

Most Chinese emperors of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) appear with beards or mustaches in portraits.

In the 15th century, most European men were clean-shaven. 16th-century beards were allowed to grow to an amazing length (see the portraits of John Knox, Bishop Gardiner, Cardinal Pole, and Thomas Cranmer). Some beards of this time were the Spanish spade beard, the English square cut beard, the forked beard, and the stiletto beard. In 1587 Francis Drake claimed, in a figure of speech, to have singed the King of Spain's beard.

During the Chinese Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the ruling Manchu minority were either clean-shaven or at most wore mustaches, in contrast to the Han majority who still wore beards in keeping with the Confucian ideal.

n the beginning of the 17th century, the size of beards decreased in urban circles of Western Europe and by the middle of the century men usually wore a mustache or, at most, a pointed goatee. In the second half of the century, being clean-shaven gradually became more common again, so much so that in 1698, Peter the Great of Russia ordered men to shave off their beards, and in 1705 levied a tax on beards to bring Russian society more in line with contemporary Western Europe. Throughout the 18th century essentially all upper class and most middle-class European men would be cleanly shaven.

At the end of the 18th century, after the French Revolution, attitudes began to turn away from the upper-class fashions of the previous century, particularly among the middle classes. During the early 19th century most men, particularly amongst the nobility and upper classes, went clean-shaven. However, the revolutionary fashion of France which had become popular among the lower and middle classes began to creep its way into the upper class as well. This is seen in the 1820s and 1830s with many men adopting sideburns or side whiskers which gradually grew in size in the ensuing decades. This was followed by a dramatic shift in the beard's popularity during the 1850s, with it becoming markedly more popular. Consequently, beards were adopted by many leaders, such as Alexander III of Russia, Napoleon III of France, and Frederick III of Germany, as well as many leading statesmen and cultural figures, such as Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Karl Marx, and Giuseppe Verdi. This trend can be recognized in the United States of America, where the shift can be seen amongst the post-Civil War presidents. Before Abraham Lincoln, no President had a beard; after Lincoln until Woodrow Wilson, every President except Andrew Johnson and William McKinley had either a beard or a mustache.

The beard became linked in this period with notions of masculinity and male courage. The resulting popularity has contributed to the stereotypical Victorian male figure in the popular mind, the stern figure clothed in black whose gravitas is added to by a heavy beard.

In China, the revolution of 1911 and subsequent May Fourth Movement of 1919 led the Chinese to idealize the West as more modern and progressive than themselves. This included the realm of fashion, and Chinese men began shaving their faces and cutting their hair short.

By the early twentieth century, beards began a slow decline in popularity. Although retained by some prominent figures who were young men in the Victorian period (like Sigmund Freud), most men who retained facial hair during the 1920s and 1930s limited themselves to a mustache or a goatee (such as with Marcel Proust, Albert Einstein, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin). In the United States, meanwhile, popular movies portrayed heroes with clean-shaven faces and "crew cuts". Concurrently, the psychological mass marketing of Edward Bernays and Madison Avenue was becoming prevalent. The Gillette Safety Razor Company was one of these marketers' early clients. These events conspired to popularize short hair and clean-shaven faces as the only acceptable style for decades to come. The few men who wore the beard or portions of the beard during this period were usually either old, Central European, members of a religious sect that required it, or in academia.

The beard was reintroduced to mainstream society by the counterculture, firstly with the "beatniks" in the 1950s, and then with the hippie movement of the mid-1960s. Following the Vietnam War, beards exploded in popularity. In the mid-late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, beards were worn by hippies and businessmen alike. Popular musicians like The Beatles, Barry White, The Beach Boys, Jim Morrison (lead singer of The Doors), and the male members of Peter, Paul, and Mary, among many others, wore full beards. The trend of seemingly ubiquitous beards in American culture subsided in the mid-1980s.

By the end of the 20th century, the closely clipped Verdi beard, often with a matching integrated mustache, had become relatively common. From the 1990s onward, fashion in the United States has generally trended toward either a goatee, Van Dyke, or a closely cropped full beard undercut on the throat. By 2010, the fashionable length approached a "two-day shadow". The 2010s decade also saw the full beard become fashionable again amongst young hipster men and a huge increase in the sales of male grooming products.

One stratum of American society where facial hair was long rare is in government and politics. The last President of the United States to wear any type of facial hair was William Howard Taft, who was in office from 1909 to 1913. The last Vice President of the United States to wear any facial hair was Charles Curtis, who was in office from 1929 to 1933. Both of whom wore mustaches, but the last President of the United States to wear a beard was Benjamin Harrison; who was in office from 1889 to 1893. The last member of the United States Supreme Court with a full beard was Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who served on the Court until 1941. Since 2015 a growing number of male political figures have worn beards in office, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and Senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton.

References;
1. Beard

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