The ancient Hebrews honored beards. Peter the Great taxed his shaggier subjects. Lincoln grew one to make his mug look more presidential. By Dave Shiflett Jan. 27, 2016 6:57 p.m. ET Those who are by nature contemplative, or who just have too much time on their hands, may occasionally ponder the reason why so many modern men shave their faces. As with most deeply philosophical questions, the obvious answer—because they want to—is probably insufficient. A richer sense of the topic can be gleaned from “Of Beards and Men,” a surprisingly interesting study of mankind’s love-hate relationship with facial hair by Christopher Oldstone-Moore, who lectures on history at Wright State University. Those who choose to shave, or not to shave, are not simply opting for a look that pleases them, Mr. Oldstone-Moore writes. They are shaped by “seismic shifts dictated by deeper social forces that shape and reshape ideals of manliness.” Remember that, fellas, the next time someone accuses you of being insensitive to seismic forces. Mr. Oldstone-Moore gives several indications that he aced Academic Jargon 101—“the language of facial hair is built on the contrast of shaved and unshaved”—but he also presents a pleasant survey of beard knowledge with a wry sense of humor, starting with a trip back to the dawn of humanity, when beards evolved “because our prehistoric female ancestors liked them.” A bushy mug was also a weapon to terrorize adversaries—a passive version of beating the chest and grunting loudly. As civilization set in, whiskers became more than mere babe bait or predator repellant. Mr. Oldstone-Moore finds a divine mandate for beards in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. A bit later on, Greek dramatists mined the popular prejudice against clean-shaven men, who were considered effeminate if not outright degenerate. But all things must pass, and beards were no exception. Their chief executioner was Alexander the Great, no slacker when it came to self-adoration. He believed that his shaved face presented “an otherworldly image of ageless perfection.” His look rocked antiquity and has, for the most part, dominated for the past 23 centuries. Beards did not of course disappear, and our author identifies a few eras in which wearing whiskers was downright respectable, so much so that beards were sometimes grafted onto faces previously portrayed as hairless. Exhibit A is Jesus of Nazareth, “the most recognizable bearded man in Western civilization,” according to Mr. Oldstone-Moore, even though the Good Shepherd was initially portrayed with a face as bare as Justin Bieber’s. When church fathers eventually adopted “a positive view of facial hair as part of their assertion of a male-dominated gender order,” Jesus bearded up—and has remained that way up to our own time. Still, it often seems as if the bearded should be recognized as a historically persecuted minority. The medieval era was fond of the razor, and the belief that “beardlessness was next to godliness” could inspire outright persecution. The University of Paris, Mr. Oldstone-Moore tells us, banned long-bearded men from lecture halls in 1533, and a few years later the city’s chief court outlawed beards on judges and advocates. In the same spirit the so-called Enlightenment preferred a shaved face and long wigs. Russian strongman Peter the Great proclaimed a near-jihad against his shaggier subjects, whom he considered an impediment to modernization, and even levied a beard tax. Mr. Oldstone-Moore does not overlook the fact that beards have conferred benefits, even for women. Hatshepsut, the first female king of Egypt, deployed a fake beard that convinced compatriots that she was a man. Closer to our time, Josephine Clofullia, a 19th-century “freak show” sensation, boasted a beard “that shamed any man’s we have ever seen,” as a contemporary critic raved. Mr. Oldstone-Moore honors other unshaved eminences, including Karl Marx, whose beard was thick enough to house a family of Bolsheviks, and Abraham Lincoln, who was inspired to fuzz up when 11-year-old Grace Bedell informed him that women with bearded spouses “would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be president.” Lincoln had another incentive to cover his mug, as reflected in his reply to Stephen Douglas’s charge that he was two-faced: “If I had another face do you think I would wear this one?” Yet while beards were popular in Lincoln’s day, there were always critics, including the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. In 1851, he wrote that beards “should be forbidden by the police. It is moreover, as a sexual symbol in the middle of the face, obscene: that is why it pleases women.” Just after the turn of the century the medical magazine Lancet reported that clean-shaven men were less likely to suffer from colds, and by 1915 the Los Angeles Police Department wouldn’t promote any man with a beard. A Chicago woman interviewed on the street declared: “I want a modern husband, not one reared in Noah’s ark.” That censorious spirit has found its way to our era, Mr. Oldstone-Moore writes, reflected in a 1976 Supreme Court ruling (Kelly v. Johnson) holding that “Americans do not have a legal right to grow beards or moustaches as they choose” if their employer demands a clean face. And while several cultural icons have been bearded, including John Lennon—who heroically advised the world to “Stay in bed. Grow your hair. Bed peace. Hair peace.”—a bare face is the default look. That could change. Beards are becoming somewhat more common these days—at least on entertainers, athletes and Civil War re-enactors—though Mr. Oldstone-Moore says that we will not have arrived at a true bearded age until “facial hair becomes desirable, or even acceptable, for soldiers, managers, and legislators.” In the meantime, he adds, scientific studies show that contemporary women prefer men with stubble, which signals the maturity and masculinity to grow a beard but allows the underlying pretty face (or otherwise) to shine through. The best of both worlds, it seems. One wonders what Schopenhauer would make of that. Mr. Shiflett posts his writing and original music at www.Daveshiflett.com.
