Beard-wearing is back: here’s the short history of beard-wearing

HAKIZIMANA Maurice

When it comes to beards, there are two camps: on the one hand, those who think it’s dirty, prickly, ugly and looks bad. On the other hand, there are those who wear it proudly and spend time lovingly nurturing it. Not long ago, the man who wore a beard or long hair immediately drew attention to himself in many countries. He was classified, in most people’s minds, as an extremist or an individual in revolt against society. 

According to a recent survey, 92% of men aged 25-34 now wear a beard. More than a fad, the beard has become an element of 21st century masculinity. Over the age of 35, 53% of them sport a beard, a figure that rises to 60% among those over 50.

An Australian study reveals that wearing a beard reduces the risk of massive exposure of the skin to harmful UV rays and thus prevents certain types of cancer. The beard could limit respiratory diseases, pollen and other allergens such as dust that are the cause of many allergies and a bearded face prevents them from going down to the lungs.

A brief history of the beard

Image caption:Beards and moustaches from the 16th and 17th centuries

The beard is one of the founding attributes (according to some ethnologists) of masculinity. The wearing of beards was fashionable and imposed by traditions or religions, more or less according to the period and the socio-cultural context, and this probably as early as prehistoric times.

The beard has long been regarded as a divine attribute and sovereignty. In ancient Egypt, for example, the pharaoh (the king) or even the queen are depicted separately from the other characters, including a hairpiece beard.

Pharaoh wearing uraeus, nemes and bearded hairpiece

In ancient Greece, the wearing of beards was a sign of virility and courage for soldiers. The wearing of beards, for the philosophers (in Athens), was a sign of wisdom and experience. Hair and beards were always neat, and was a way for Greek philosophers to “exalt the ideals of the ancient aristocratic city” and confirm a recognized “social status”.

The Stoic Epictetus

The Stoic Epictetus once placidly said that as a philosopher he would rather have himself beheaded than shaved, as Emperor Domitian might have demanded before he exiled all philosophers. For him, the beard is a sign of gender difference. 

The beard is said (in Judaism) to be a sign of wisdom and respect because it symbolizes and allows the passage from the mind to the heart, from thought to action, from theory to practice.

The Jerusalem Talmud, preserved in the Genizah of Cairo.

  • “Priests must not shave … the beard on the sides”.—Leviticus 21:5 

However, shaving was a sign of mourning as in the Book of Ezekiel:

  • “As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword for yourself to use as a barber’s razor. Shave your head and your beard”.  Ezéchiel 5:1  
  • “The beard is the ornament of man.”–The Talmud

Shaved beard

Alexandre The Great (in Macedonia) required his soldiers to shave their beards closely before battle so as not to offer their opponents a hold in hand-to-hand combat.

Among the Romans, the wearing of beards was discredited in the first century, then gradually reappeared as an aesthetic canon, first for men over 40, associated with old age and experience; Then its wearing became “the distinctive sign of every man of culture, enlightened, of the emperors and of the wealthy alone”.

In the eighteenth century, Tsar Peter I of Russia, known as Peter the Great, in an effort to westernize his empire, put an end to the tradition of wearing a beard by instituting a beard tax. He himself cut off the beards of some recalcitrant boyars.

Tsar and Emperor of Russia 7 May 1682 – 8 February 1725

In the Russia of Peter the Great, the beard became a visible sign distinguishing the noble from the peasant, the soldier from the clergyman. In fifteenth-century Europe, most men were clean-shaven, with many edicts forbidding its wearing.

In Europe, from the years 1510-1520, the beard and moustache first reappeared in the Italian court (royal and curial beards), then the beard spread to the European aristocracy. 

 François Ier re-established in France the fashion of the long beard from 1521 then the wearing of the beard gradually disappeared in the seventeenth century with the coming to fashion of the wearing of the wig in France and Europe.

François Ier King of France 1 January 1515 – 31 March 1547

The beard came back into fashion in the West in the second half of the nineteenth century until the First World War. It reappeared in the 1960s and 1970s of the twentieth century thanks to the protest movements linked to the hippie counterculture.

Pioneers of the Foreign Legion.

Beards and moustaches are now accessories that we like to wear and change thanks to shaving or waistming, and detached from any symbolic significance. Moreover, companies are more permissive at this level.

Hakizimana Maurice wearing a well-groomed mustache

The philosopher  Friedrich Nietzsche  with a rather distinctive mustache.

Beard and Religions

During the fourth century, Jesus began to be portrayed as a Jewish-looking man, with a beard and long hair,a recognizable style, not usually worn by the surrounding Romans. The Romans used to shave.

It is evident that Jesus wore a beard and that the early Christians followed the custom of the time or place in which they lived. Those who converted to Christianity probably remained faithful to this custom, while converts from among the Jewish community continued to follow tradition and retained beards.

Jesus portrays him as a Jewish-looking man, sporting a well-groomed beard

| Did Jesus Really Exist?

Islam

In Islam, the wearing of a beard is a Sunnah (or tradition) of Muhammad, who himself had a full beard, as well as of his Companions. The status of wearing beards is not mentioned in the Qur’an but the Prophet ordered Muslims to grow their beards saying in a hadith: 

  • “Let your beards grow, and trim your moustaches, differentiate yourself from the polytheists”.

The example of Muhammad keeping his beard intact was followed by believers and letting it grow is considered by Muslims to be the badge of masculine dignity.

 After the capture of Kabul on 27 September 1996, the Taliban interim government issued a number of rules, including this one concerning beards: 

  • “It is forbidden to shave or trim your beard. Wearers with hairless or sparsely hairy chins will be imprisoned until the beard grows and reaches the size of a hand. »

Did you know?

Beard hair grows by an average of 0.27 mm per day to an average length of 30 cm if not trimmed or pulled. This growth rate increases from adolescence to the age of 35–40 years, then stabilizes and decreases from the age of 70. Beards grow faster in the summer when the body produces more androgen hormones

Records

The Norwegian-American Hans Langseth, holder of the world record for the longest beard (5.33 m in 1927) who was redheaded, photographed in 1912.

Currently, the beard length record is still held by Hans Langseth (1846-1927). In 1927, his beard measured 5.33 m. This Norwegian bequeathed his beard to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington

The record in France is held by Father Coulon (Vandenesse 1826 – Montluçon 1916), or Louis Coulon of his real name, who was a worker at the Usines Saint-Jacques in Montluçon. In 1889, according to the journal La Nature, he already sported a beard of 2.32 m16. On February 24, 1899, he appeared on the cover page of the Journal Illustré: he wore a beard of 3.35 meters that he was going to wash in the waters of the Cher.

Photograph of Louis Coulon with his chaton in 1890

Beards in the army

Beards are not allowed in the Rwandan Defense Forces, the U.S. Army, the Philippines, South Korean, Syrian, Norwegian, Swedish, Lebanese, and Israeli military. Mustaches, but not beards, are allowed in Singapore’s military.

In Europe, the Belgian army allows moustaches and beards. The same goes for the Austrian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Estonian armed forces, and the French and Canadian armies, but in these countries the beards have to be trimmed properly.

Bearded Officer Cadets of the Royal Military College of Canada

Russian Army 1856, printed c. 1889-1891

The wearing of beards is back: Here are photographs of bearded men in different fashionable styles

Style 1: La barbe de trois jours (The Three-Day Beard)

Style 2: A goatee (Une barbiche ou bouc)

A goatee is a beard or small beard consisting exclusively of a tuft of hair on the chin. 

Style 3: Sideburns (Favoris)

This is American singer Elvis Presley wearing sideburns in 1970.

Style 4: Suvorov beardsThis is Lemmy Kilmister, one of the most famous Suvorov beards

Style 5: The Imperial Beard

Style 6: Full beard

Here are beard styles for black and mixed-race men

And you, do you like to proudly wear a beard or do you prefer to stay clean-shaven? What can we say about the return to fashion of wearing beards today?

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