Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair (34 page)

One intent of this work has been simply to marvel at the extraordinary lives of men and women in history. The personalities considered here are a diverse bunch, to be sure. Another aspiration has been to shed light on dark corners of our understanding, dispelling common misperceptions about facial hair and its history. The most significant myth to be set aside is the notion that changes in facial hair are the meaningless product of fashion cycles. Beard lore is full of bogus explanations for changes in style that have distracted us from a far more interesting reality. Alexander did not order his men to shave simply to prevent beard pulling; he inviting them to see themselves as extraordinary and heroic. Hadrian did not grow a beard to cover a skin problem; instead, he was attempting to redefine masculine and imperial authority in terms of philosophic reasoning. King Francis I of France did not grow hair on his cheeks because his face was injured by a snowball; he was, rather, expressing Renaissance pride in humanity. Beards did not become popular in the nineteenth century because of the Crimean War or the American Civil War, nor did they disappear in the twentieth century because of Gillette’s safety razor. These great shifts marked, rather, varying strategies to assert appropriate and compelling forms of manhood in the altered political, economic, and family patterns of industrial society. To explain the prevalence of the shaven idea in the
West, one must look first to Alexander the Great, then to the medieval church, and finally to the seventeenth-century royal courts, all of which promoted beardlessness as the mark of a superior sort of man.

The variability of the male face in history testifies to the mutability and variety of ideas of manhood within a given period, and across time. This observation confirms a central tenet of gender theory that masculine and feminine identities are created, not natural, and are subject to continuous historical transformation. The difficult part is tracking and explaining these changing formulations. Considering facial hair is one way to do this.

In the broadest terms, beard history offers a chronology of masculine history marked by major shifts in attitudes to facial hair. In the history of the West since classical times, shaving has been the default position, punctuated by four great beard movements. The term “movement” is appropriate because a historic shift toward beards required in every case a certain amount of deliberation and conscious effort, while subsequent reversions to shaving have proceeded with little comment. In some periods, particularly in the Middle Ages, opposing styles of hair representing differing ideals of manhood have coexisted in a single society. These situations, however, are exceptional.

One fundamental idea proved remarkably resilient over the course of Western history, and that is the association of hair with nature and, conversely, the removal of hair with the control or transcendence of nature. Champions of the beard movements in the second, sixteenth, and nineteenth centuries (and of smaller efflorescences along the way) have all made explicit reference to a masculine persona grounded in the physical body. It is the male body, they argued, and the mental and moral strengths latent within it, that ultimately justifies masculine claims to authority, pride, and dominion.

By contrast, shaving the beard has been consistently associated with some kind of transcendence of the body. This alternative idea posits that true manhood is grounded in powers and ideals beyond the self, whether God, community, nation, or corporation. The quintessential shavers from the beginnings of civilization were the priests. The logic of priestly shaving—cutting away the sin and corruption of our physical natures to approach a higher plane of being—was manifest in
the earliest practices of Western civilization, and was reinvented by the Christian church in the Middle Ages, as well as many non-Western religious traditions. This idea of masculine transcendence was not, however, limited to the priestly context. By shaving himself Alexander the Great was declaring that he was not subject to the limits of his human body, or even to his humanity, but that his powers emanated from the realm of the divine. For less heroic men, shaving has been an acknowledgment of one’s reliance on membership in a masculine collective. An eighteenth-century gentleman, for example, carefully conformed to elegant taste to prove his social worthiness, while a twentieth-century man employed a razor to win trust and secure employment.

The prevalence of the shaving standard since Alexander is strong evidence of the cultural preference for manliness grounded in social approval rather than the physical body. This does not mean that bearded men are not socialized or that shaved men fail to be individuals. It means simply that, over time, shaving has proved to be a useful cultural practice in shaping a masculine identity properly oriented to its social foundations. T. E. Lawrence was a striking example of this effect. Immersed in Arabian life, he symbolically retained his connection to the source of his identity and strength—Britishness—by scraping his face with a dry razor.

The case of the military mustache is an interesting variation on these basic themes. Its staying power between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries indicates that its symbolism was truly powerful. It staked out an ideal middle ground on the spectrum of shaving that elegantly expressed the position of the soldier—subject to the discipline of his superiors (shaved chin and cheeks), yet also reliant on his own physical and moral fortitude (hairy upper lip). In modern civilian life, this same compromise has made mustaches more socially acceptable than beards.

The shape of beard history helps us gain perspective on our own times, first by alerting us to the social power of facial hair. As in the past, the condition of our own times is visible on men’s faces. What is immediately apparent is an increased variety and experimentation indicative of an ongoing renegotiation of what is expected of men, and of what men wish for themselves. Much of this communication is nonverbal or even subconscious, but there are a wide variety of issues at
play, including personal autonomy, social regulation, religious identity, gender roles, and sexual attraction. We live in interesting times.

This book cannot hope to offer a complete evaluation of the subtle, complex language of hair. There is much more to be said and done, particularly in the consideration of hair on the head and body. More discoveries are yet to be made as the historical hair code is deciphered.

I am grateful to the many people who supported me and this project over many years. This book exists because of the enthusiasm and professional guidance of my agent Malaga Baldi and acquisitions editor Doug Mitchell. Special thanks also to editor Joel Score, as well as Ashley Pierce, Kyle Wagner, Isaac Tobin, Joan Davies, and the rest of the talented staff of the University of Chicago Press. I can say with all truthfulness that this book would not have been possible without the invaluable wisdom and encouragement of my scholarly buddies in the “Vickies”: Carol Herringer, Rick Incorvati, Barry Milligan, Tammy Proctor, and Laura Vorachek. I am deeply grateful to others who have read and critiqued all or parts of this manuscript: Alun Withey, Christopher Forth, Michael Leaman, Amy Livingstone, Claudia E. Suter, Sean Trainor, and my wife, Jennifer Oldstone-Moore. I owe unending thanks to several talented linguists for translations from many languages: J. Holland, Allison Kirk, Katie Derrig, Daniel Koehler, Maria Hickey, Shaydon Ramey, David T. Barry, Anjelika Gasilina, and Daniele Macuglia. A big thank-you also to my student research assistants, Evan Weiler and Maria Hickey. I am grateful for the help and encouragement in this venture of my colleagues in the history department at Wright State, especially Paul Lockhart, who taught me the ropes of the publishing world. Many thanks also to those who provided me with photographs for this book: Claudia E. Suter, Noël Tassain, Gene Dillman, and
Keith Parish. Leanne Wierenga helped me navigate key foreign negotiations. Friends and family members have offered insights and beard lore wherever they found it. Thanks to Lynn Rigsbee, Donald Deer, Jim Secord, Reynold Nesiba, Glenn Short, and many others. Love and unending appreciation to my parents Stanley and Elizabeth Moore and my in-laws Michael and Elizabeth Oldstone for their intellectual, moral, and financial support for this venture. Finally, loving thanks to my brilliant wife Jennifer and long-suffering daughters Caroline, Aileen, and Marilee. I know a lot of words, but not enough to express my love for you all.