A long beard serves, to some extent, to protect the throat, but a moustache serves no such use, and it seems therefore more probable that beards as well as moustaches were developed in man for ornamental purposes, as in many monkeys (see, for some very curious pictures of bearded monkeys, Descent of Man, chap. xviii.) But why should women have lost their beards while men retained theirs? Because of the importance of emphasising the secondary sexual differences between man and woman, on which the degree of amorous infatuation depends. The tendency of evolution, as we have seen, has been to make the sexes more and more different in appearance; and as man chooses his mate chiefly on æsthetic grounds, he habitually gave the preference to smooth-faced women, whereas woman’s choice, being largely based on dynamic grounds, fell on the bearded and moustached men, since a luxurious growth of hair is commonly a sign of physical vigour. Hence the humiliation of the young man who cannot raise a moustache, and the reciprocal horror of the young lady who finds the germs of one on her lip. Both are instinctively afraid of being “boycotted” by Cupid, and for ever debarred from the pleasures of mutual Romantic Love.
Women are quite right in dreading hair in the face as a blemish, for it is not only objectionable as a masculine trait, but also as a characteristic of old age, a hairy face being quite a common attribute of aged females. But with men the case is different. Though women may still be often influenced in their amorous choice by a beard, it is not, as just pointed out, on æsthetic grounds; and it is indeed very dubious if the beard can be accepted as a real personal ornament. True, the ancient Greeks respected a beard as an attribute of maturity and manhood, but their ideal of supreme beauty was nevertheless an unbearded youth: Apollo has neither beard nor moustache. The ancient Egyptians had a horror of the bearded and long-haired Greeks. “No Egyptian of either sex would on any account kiss the lips of a Greek,” and whenever the Egyptians “intended to convey the idea of a man of low condition, or a slovenly person, the artists represented him with a beard” (Wilkinson). Similarly, in the second edition of his Anatomy of Expression (1824), Sir Charles Bell wrote that “When those essays were first written there was not a beard to be seen in England unless joined with squalor and neglect, and I had the conviction that this appendage concealed the finest features. Being in Rome, however, during the procession of the Corpus Domini, I saw that the expression was not injured by the beard, but that it added to the dignity and character of years.”
These two sentences contain the whole philosophy of beards. The expression of character is not injured, but rather increased by a beard; but if it conceals the fine features of youth it is objectionable. There are men whose faces are too wide, and whose appearance is therefore improved by a chin-beard; and there are others whose faces are too narrow, and who consequently look better with side-whiskers. But in a well-shaped youthful masculine face a beard is as great a superfluity, if not a blemish, as in a woman’s face.
Now, since the faces of civilised races are undoubtedly becoming more beautiful as time advances, it is comforting to know that, notwithstanding female selection, the beard is gradually disappearing. Very few men are able to raise a fine beard to-day, even with the artificial stimulus of several years’ daily shaving; and the time, no doubt, is not very distant when men will go to the cosmetic electrician to have their straggling hairbulbs in the chin killed. This may produce an inherited effect on their children; and the always smooth-faced mother, too, cannot but exert some hereditary influence on her sons as well as her daughters. The women, in turn, will inherit some of the superior æsthetic Taste of the men, and begin to see that there is more charm in a smooth than in a bearded face; while there will still be room enough for those sexual differences in facial Beauty which feed the flame of Love.
The following newspaper paragraph, though it may be a mere jeu d’esprit, is amusing and suggestive: “A Frenchman sent a circular to all his friends asking why they cultivated a beard. Among the answers 9 stated, ‘Because I wish to avoid shaving’; 12 ‘Because I do not wish to catch cold’; 5 ‘Because I wish to conceal bad teeth’; ‘Because I wish to conceal the length of my nose’; 6 ‘Because I am a soldier’; 21 ‘Because I was a soldier’; 65 ‘Because my wife likes it’; 28 ‘Because my love likes it’; 15 answered that they wore no beards.”
Moustaches are much more common to-day than beards, and it is barely possible that they may escape æsthetic condemnation, and survive to the millennium. Persons with very short upper lips or flat noses, it is true, only emphasise their shortcomings by wearing a moustache; but in broad faces with prominent noses a well-shaped, not too drooping, moustache is no doubt an ornament, relieving the gravity of the masculine features and adding to their expression. As Bell remarks: “Although the hair of the upper lip does conceal the finer modulations of the mouth, as in woman, it adds to the character of the stronger and harsher emotions.” “I was led to attend more particularly to the moustache as a feature of expression,” he says, “in meeting a handsome young French soldier coming up a long ascent in the Côte d’Or, and breathing hard, although with a good-humoured, innocent expression. His sharp-pointed black moustache rose and fell with a catamount look that set me to think on the cause.”
Young men may find in Bell’s remarks a suggestion as to how they may make the moustache a permanent ornament of the human race. The movements of the moustache are dependent on the muscle called depressor alæ nasi. By specially cultivating this muscle men might in course of time make the movements of the moustaches subject to voluntary control. Just think what a capacity for emotional expression lies in such a simple organ as the dog’s caudal appendage, aptly called the “psychographic tail” by Vischer: and moustaches are double, and therefore equal to two psychographic appendages!
Sexual Selection would not fail to seize on this “new departure” in moustaches immediately in order to emphasise the sexual differences of expression in the face, and thus increase the ardour of romantic passion. A few days ago I came across an attempt in a German paper to explain the meaning of the word Flirtation. The writer derives the word from an old expression meaning to toss or cast about. This he refers to the eyes, and thinks that the proper translation of Flirtation is äugeln, i.e. to “make eyes.” We, of course, know that flirting is a fine art which includes a vast deal besides äugeln; but “making eyes” is certainly one of its tricks. Now, is it not probable that by and by, when young men will have properly trained their depressor alæ nasi, they will look upon the making of eyes as a feminine attribute, and, instead of winking at their sweethearts, express their admiration by some subtle and graceful movement of the moustaches? This would obliterate Darwin’s assertion that Love has no special means of expression.
BALDNESS AND DEPILATORIES
Superficial students of Darwinism are constantly making owlish predictions that ere many generations will have passed bald heads will be the normal aspect of man. But, as we have just seen in the case of beards, it is not utility or Natural Selection so much as Sexual, Æsthetico-Amorous Selection on which the evolution of Personal Beauty depends. If Natural Selection were at work alone we should, indeed, ultimately become bald; for as soon as man begins to cover his head with a cap or hat, he takes away the chief function of the hair on the top of the head, where it serves as a protection against wind and weather. But Sexual Selection now steps in and says that the hair must remain, because without it the head looks decidedly ugly, whatever its shape.