PHYSICAL BEAUTY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 18 September 1926, Page 11

PHYSICAL BEAUTY

tt AVE you' ever regarded the costume of a North American chief? There you see a fine man finely garbed; he is decked out in all the panoply of animals’ claws and birds’ plumage. Regard next his favourite squaw, and the contrast is most striking. She is sometini es wrapped -in a blanket, and sometimes not even that useful article hides her beauty of form from the vulgar gaze. Suggest to a chief of a Bantu tribe that the profusion of jewellery which adorns his person and ;which gives him such keen -pleasure would be more suitable to a woman,than a mere man, and lie will probably order some of his tribesmen to guard you carefully lest you take further leave of ’ your senses. It is a fact,that natural man invariably deems personal adornment as his exclusive prerogative, writes Oscar Smiles in the Melbourne Argus, and it is his firm belief that the more brilliantly he can array himself the more likelihood there is of his finding; favour in female eyes. His belief, is. not ill-founded, for the primitive woman’s desire'is hot for . a man who will admire her, but rather- for one, whom she can herself admire. And the. remarkable thing about it all is that men speak so strongly and longly about the .many advantages of civilisation. , .

The point which I am endeavouring to make is this, that it is a fact, a decided l.f curious fact, that civilisation brings, about an almost complete reversal in the conception of beauty, with the result that it conies to be admired and looked for in. woman instead of in man. Indeed, among the civilised races beauty is regarded ns distinctiyely a feminine attribute. To speak of a man as being beautiful is not these- days considered exactly fluttering; actually it is considered absolutely Effeminate when used in that manner. ■ To inform a gentleman that he looks pretty or at-

MALE AND FEMALE

REVERSAL OF ANCIENT ORDER.

a tractive will in all probability earn for .. the speaker a stern rebuke. • It is upon the beauty of women that writers and artists alike have lavished all .'their skill. The pretty woman is ; always besieged by an army of admirers, whilst for the most part the plainfaced female is left to herself. Her charms may be -those of intellect and heart, things, which arc unseen, but which are eternal. On the other hand, it would appear that plainness, or even straight-out ugliness, in a man is by no means a Mrawback; in fact,' in eases it is a distinct advantage; for." ; there have been innumerable instances • of the most ill-favoured men..'having proved positively irresistible to women, % and it is quite reasonable to say .that no man goes without a wife because he is not gooil-looking. Another point, “The outward .adornmeat of wearing of gold, and of putting on of apparel,” was not ouce upon a time a feminine prerogative, but it is so now. Ma'n does not sully forth to business euhanccd by an artistic pair of earrings dangling from the hearing organs. • At a great State function he does not even wear a t.iarra or a diamond necklace. The poor male creature cannot ornament liis liat with plumes of various hues, and if lie were to attempt A to lend .variety to the "landscape f by.' wearing a colou-rful sash caught at the side with a posy of artificial flowers from which streamed ribands of curious tints; he would certainly be mobbed by all the small boys,* and denounced by all the big ones, who, by the way, have a good deal in common with the small bovs.

As far as mart is concerned he has* j become sartorially standardised; lie;, must appear in blue, grey, brown, or black; his hat must be of a correspondingly .dull hue; his footwear must be "either, a boot or a shoe, and the col--ours must be either browja or black,