The cultivation of the beard belongs peculiarly to barbarous
races. Among these races it is frequently regarded as the most sacred and
beautiful part of the person, as an object to swear by, an object to which
the slightest insult must be treated as deadly. Holding such a position,
it must doubtless act as a sexual allurement. "Allah has specially created
an angel in Heaven," it is said in the _Arabian Nights_, "who has no other
occupation than to sing the praises of the Creator for giving a beard to
men and long hair to women." The sexual character of the beard and the
other hirsute appendage is significantly indicated by the fact that the
ascetic spirit in Christianity has always sought to minimize or to hide
the hair. Altogether apart, however, from this religious influence,
civilization tends to be opposed to the growth of hair on the masculine
face and especially to the beard. It is part of the well-marked tendency
with civilization to the abolition of sexual differences. We find this
general tendency among the Greeks and Romans, and, on the whole, with
certain variations and fluctuations of fashion, in modern Europe also.
Schopenhauer frequently referred to this disappearance of the beard as a
mark of civilization, "a barometer of culture.
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