Beards are a biological marker in human beings that a person is mature and ready to create offspring. Terribly scientific but that's their sole function, and its why teenagers have spotty beards. If humans lived in the wild and a female had a choice between a barely bearded 14 year old and gorilla of a man in his 30's, she knows which of these dudes is more likely to pass on the best genes for her offspring. But, that is no longer applicable in our modern civilized world.
Back in ancient Greece and other civilizations of the period, beards were considered a mark of wisdom and nobility (a throw back to prehistoric mating rituals?). In fact most ancient peoples were bearded, even the pharoahs had those fancy golden chin beards. It was the Romans who started us shaving!
 |
| What have the Romans ever given us? |
In the Roman world, a shaved chin free of whiskers was a mark of civilization and probably served to separate the Romans from the bearded barbarians to the North of their border. Lets face it, shaving is a horrible experience even today, can you imagine doing it back then with no Gillet razor or mirror? The Roman shave was a sign to others that you had enough money to pay someone else to do something trivial to you, and let them near your neck with a sharp knife. Gangsta boi!
In the middle ages, we forgot everything that the Romans taught us (hyperbole for you history buffs, Jesus!) and men started being manly again. All throughout Europe beards flowed, high born and low, with a few old unfashionable geezers still trimming their whiskers. Didn't the medieval people ever watch The Lord of the Rings and see how cool a beard made Gandalf look? I guess it didn't help that by the 1500's, some dudes discovered all those old Roman documents and had some kind of rebirth of enlightened ideas and people started shaving again (and wearing tights, see, its all evil!)
By the time we get to the period of enlightenment, people have abandoned all hope and wear silly powdered wigs and makeup. This is a dark time and we speak not of it.
Lets jump to the 19th century and check out the rival of whiskers. Yes beards were back in fashion, especially in my native Africa where men walked around looking like this. Huzzar!
 |
| Pip-pip tally ho old sporting fruit, Zulus over the hill and back for tea at 3, what! |
This was a time of awesomeness again, when men did manly things like charge cannon batteries on a hill through a valley and such nonsense I say old chap. It lasted for a while, but some douche decided that automation would be a good thing, and along with other mass made household items, cheap razors started to spread their insidious influence over the world, and beards lost there swag once more.
And that is where we are today, probably a little worse off because of the whole terrorists having a beard thing. People focus on the beards but its actually the bombs strapped to their chests which make terrorists bad, people are so dumb!
But fear not, because even though the beard in fashion has its peaks and troughs, we are but beasts in fancy clothes, and having a beard kicks in those natural instincts I told you about. Since growing my beard, I have to beat the women off with sticks, two sticks, flaming sticks, made of steel and teeth.
No comments:
Post a Comment