In ancient China, a man's beard could not be shaved at will, and it was also an important symbol to evaluate a man's appearance and status. Many ancient celebrities had beards. A thick slender beard. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Guan Yu's appearance is described as nine feet long and two feet long, with a beard and dignified appearance. A two-foot beard is equivalent to about 48 cm, which can almost reach the position of the stomach, and such a long beard has made Guan Yu handsome and brave. Therefore, in the aesthetic concept of the ancients, the position of beard is very important. The ancients loved to grow beards, first of all influenced by Confucian culture.
In Confucian filial piety, parents have bitter skin and cannot be harmed. Therefore, in the concept of the ancients, beards were gifts given to them by their parents, and shaving beards was a sign of unfilial.
In the ancient society dominated by patriarchal clan system, the psychological pressure of unfilial is much greater than we thought. In ancient times, there was a kind of punishment called forbearance. The punishment is to change your beard and hair. If this kind of punishment is implemented now, it will certainly have no punitive effect. But in ancient times, shaving the beard and hair of a prisoner was equivalent to carving two words of unfilial on the prisoner's face, which was extremely humiliating and psychological punishment for the prisoner. Secondly, beard, as the second characteristic to distinguish men from women, was also regarded as an important symbol of status in the ancient times when men were superior to women. For example, ancient emperors always had a dragon face in order to distinguish them from mortals, and the most striking feature of the dragon face was a beautiful and domineering beard.
In Zuo Zhuan, Zhou Lingwang was born with a beard. In Sima Qian's historical materials, when describing the appearance of Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, he also said that he had a quasi-long face and a beautiful beard. Moreover, in the assessment of ancient officials, there is also a special appearance inspection, and beard change is one of the key criteria for inspection. It is not enough to have a handsome appearance, but also a good-looking beard to be appreciated by the prosecutor.
Because the ancients generally had the habit of growing beards, beards gradually evolved into an important criterion for the ancients to judge men's looks. Having a beautiful beard is considered as a sign of a man's brilliance.
From this, many idioms describing handsome guys are derived, such as plain face and picturesque eyes. Moreover, Chinese medicine also believes that the kidney is the essence of the body, and the beauty lies in the hair. The thick beard also represents the health and vitality of the body, so the beard has gradually become a symbol. Longevity All the immortals in Taoism, a traditional religion in China, basically have long beards to describe their immortal faces and bones. It can be seen that beard played an important role in men in ancient China.