new thread
Hi all. On my way home from work today i got the usual chorus of 'get a haircut hippie' etc etc from some local kids who hang around a train station i use.
This is a regular routine for them and because they don't seem to tire of it i don't bother to answer. Anyway, that's not why i'm posting.
As i walked on by i thought 'you know, if they didn't cut their hair they would look similar to i. Long hair is a more natural state of their appearance...so why do they find it so weird?'.
Ok, ok...maybe i think too much but an interesting question (to me) i thought of was 'when and why did MALES start cutting their hair?' Is there some 'Hunter - Gatherer' reason for this or was it just simply a style thing?
If anyone knows when/ why or of any research done on this topic and posted somewhere I’d appreciate the link.
Thanks...
Mostly for power reasons....
Slaves had their heads shaved to take away their individuality and show that their longhaired masters had domination and ownership of them.....
Other groups that had contrasting views with the ruling longhaired classes would cut their hair short to differentaite themselves from those who rule in every which way......
Here's my own theory: It has to do with the fact that men go bald. Way back in history, along with the whole 'alpha male' idea, a younger, stronger man would have more power over other weaker or older people, and would likely have a social position of leadership or power, with some degree of respect from everyone else. As the person in this position gets older, he would likely start getting weaker physically, finding it harder to stay in power (and simultaneously there's a good chance he'd start losing his hair). Of course, this leader wouldn't want to show any outward signs losing power, so perhaps a willingly received haircut would make the effects of baldness more negligible, diminishing the outward signs of aging and getting weaker. Perhaps this leader is also emulated by other men in society, or simply has power to tell others what to do, and other men start getting haircuts. The end result is that men in societal positions of power are able to maintain those positions longer through the illusion of still being youthful and powerful, compared to the truly youthful and powerful who now have short haircuts. As time progresses, other aging leaders find it to their advantage if all men have short hair, again because of the reduced visual contrast between them and the younger, stronger men who may take their place.
As other support for this, the same haircut idea wouldn't apply to women, first because women don't go bald, and because women wouldn't be seen as a physical threat to power anyway. Only in recent times, women who want positions of power may feel obligated to cut their hair to appear more powerful, if only in reaction to the tradition of short hair on men which came about as described above.
For another idea, look at the Native American cultures that support long hair on men. This whole above scenario doesn't apply to them because they don't go bald (at least not that I've ever seen). Among such groups, hair wouldn't be a major factor regarding the appearance of aging, and there would be no need to cut it.
Or another example, look at China of a long time ago, where the style was for men to shave the top part of their heads and leave the rest long, also looking a lot like a man would when he's going bald. That's a variation of the same solution brought up in western cultures.
I think there may be something to that.
Historically, though, the Roman army were possibly amongst the first in western culture to have short hair. This was reinforced by St Paul, as reported in Corinthians, and then it went downhill from there.
Those are good enough reasons in themselves to want to look like a 'barbarian'!
Just a note on the word "barbarian". Both Greek and Latin have words that are the roots to our English word "barbarian". The Latin is "barbarus", and it meant foreigner. It's root means "bearded, or hairy".
Barbarians unite!
Robert--your friendly neighborhood Latin teacher
"Only in recent times, women who want positions of power may feel obligated to cut their hair to appear more powerful, if only in reaction to the tradition of short hair on men which came about as described above."
This does make sense, I often see women in power positions and have short hair. I've never seen a woman in such a position with long hair. I always thought that such a woman just want to come over more "manly" because powerful positions are a thing of men not women.
Did you also notice that all women abbove age about 60 have short hair? Maybe because it gets to thin? This theory seems to make sense overall.
To have long hair men or women is also luxury, it is not easy to get it and not all are fortunate to have it.
While there were times in history, Roman soldiers for example, when men wore short hair, it didn't really start for the whole world in earnest until the requirement for world war one soldiers to wear their hair short. Then world war two reinforced it. And it's taken us all this time to try to get out of it.
"As i walked on by i thought 'you know, if they didn't cut their hair they would look similar to i. Long hair is a more natural state of their appearance...so why do they find it so weird?'."
Yes, I think too long hair is a natural style and short is sort of "controlled" or "artificial"...I was always wondering why so many people bother to go all the time to the barber to keep it short, its much more natural to have it long...but maybe society teaches you to be not to be natural.
I used to be a slave to the hair salon/barber. Back when I had a flattop I used to have every THREE weeks for a maintenace cut. Ideally every TWO weeks for optimal looks. If I dared let it go four weeks it looked like crap.
Getting my hair cut that often was expensive, what with the frequent hair cuts (every two to three weeks), the tip, taking time to go there, the extra cost of good quality gel, time to style it (which I got pretty good at after a while).
Compared to now, it's been ages since my last haircut. Thankfully the messy look is in (perhaps since so many guys are growing their hair out during the awkward stage, good exuse for messy hair). It's such a relief not to have to worry about making my next hair appointment! And my hair doesn't look all that bad either!
You have also think about the salon/barber themselves too. They're in the business to make money. They want you to keep coming back to them.
I could see a lot of them losing business if a person decided to let their hair grow longer.
Poking about in one of my long hair reference books I noticed men have often had a range of fashionable style options including both short and long hair in the same time period. As for why haircuts came about a few suggestions are given in Richard's Corson's "Fashions in Hair: The First Five Thousand Years." As an early example, in Ancient Egypt the men had shaven heads thought to be for several reasons: religion, keeping clean in a hot climate, to keep lice and vermin homeless, and fashion. The fancy hairstyles were easier to achieve and keep up with wigs than on growing hair, just as European men found much later on in history. The long hair look can be in but at the same time men may be going short to get that look.
More recently, and I suspect for long ago, haircuts have been seen as a sign of prosperity due to the upkeep they require. Although anybody with long hair knows it can take a lot of time effort to maintain beautiful hair and that patience is a desirable quality, for the average person it is the haircut that will be a more obvious sign of some sort of effort.
Elizabeth
I asked the same question a while ago.
No one could give an accurate answer. That`s because there are many factors ex Bureaucracy, for reasons of practicability for instance miners going to work, religion, etc
Many people today have absolutely no sense of history and think that the conservative short hair uniform was the "traditional" men's hair style, until the hippies came along in the 1960s.
Actually, the opposite is more nearly true. For much of history, until about the late nineteenth century or so, men wore long hair. Indeed, at one time the British army mandated long hair arranged into a queue and had regulations as to how long it was to be and how it was to be fixed. This regulation lasted well after the queue had fallen out of fashion among the civilian population. So, the association of military men with crew/buzz cuts is a fairly recent thing....the First World War, as another poster pointed out.
Hello Tracy,
A recent comment of yours regarding the practice of binding the ponytail with a ribbon came to mind as I browsed through the book "The History of Hair" by Robin Bryer. Reading around that page with the ribbon style got me some more information about the military and hair.
According to Bryer it was in 1801 that General Wilkinson of the American army ordered every soldier's hair would be "cropped, without exception of persons". A neat tidbit is that one man did get an exemption to keep his hair based on the dubious claim of ill health chalked up as a face saving excuse by Beyer.
While formerly long hair was a requirement of the British army to be met by growth, a wig, or add on ponytail, by 1808 the British army actively enforced the removal of all ponytails in a mass cutting where each soldier cut off the tail of the person in front of him.
A final item of interest here is the mention made of the bow tie. It was apparently invented to hold on a black pouch in back that would contain the ponytail of stylish men such as King George III. The look was used on real long hair but meant to imitate a wig where the bag would be needed to keep the wig's powder off the uniform. Breyer finishes, "This is the origin of the formal bow tie that men wear today. How many realise that, in doing so, they would have you believe that they have a pigtail hanging down their back in a bag ?"
So, the bow tie is a symbol of long hair. :-)
Elizabeth, who now has a great argument should my long haired sweetie not want to dress up in a tuxedo, "Bill, do it to promote long hair." ;-)
A final item of interest here is the mention made of the bow tie. It was apparently invented to hold on a black pouch in back that would contain the ponytail of stylish men such as King George III. The look was used on real long hair but meant to imitate a wig where the bag would be needed to keep the wig's powder off the uniform. Breyer finishes, "This is the origin of the formal bow tie that men wear today. How many realise that, in doing so, they would have you believe that they have a pigtail hanging down their back in a bag?"
Fascinating! Thanks for the lesson :)