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A beard is the hair that grows on the jaw, chin, upper lip, lower lip, cheeks, and neck of humans and some non-human animals. In humans, beards are most common among Puberty and adult males, though some women also develop them.
Attitudes toward beards have varied across history, shaped by Culture and fashion trends. Several religions require or encourage the wearing of beards, while other societies have associated them with masculinity, Masculinity, virtue, beauty, wisdom, strength, fertility, sexual prowess, and high social status. In contrast, in cultures where beards are uncommon or unfashionable, they may be linked with poor hygiene or eccentricity. Beards can also provide environmental benefits, including protection from cold weather and sun exposure.
Evolutionary psychology explanations for the existence of beards include signalling sexual maturity and signalling dominance by the increasing perceived size of jaws; clean-shaved faces are rated less dominant than bearded. Some scholars assert that it is not yet established whether the sexual selection leading to beards is rooted in attractiveness (inter-sexual selection) or dominance (intra-sexual selection). A beard can be explained as an indicator of a male's overall condition. The rate of facial hairiness appears to influence male attractiveness. The presence of a beard makes the male vulnerable in hand-to-hand fights (it provides an easy way to grab and hold the opponent's head), which is costly, so biologists have speculated that there must be other evolutionary benefits that outweigh that drawback. Excess testosterone evidenced by the beard may indicate mild immunosuppression, which may support spermatogenesis.Folstad and Skarsein cited by
Still, beards remained rare among the Romans throughout the Late Republic and the early Principate. In a general way, in Rome at this time, a long beard was considered a mark of slovenliness and squalor. The censors L. Veturius and P. Licinius compelled M. Livius, who had been banished, on his restoration to the city, to be shaved, to lay aside his dirty appearance, and then, but not until then, to come into the Roman Senate. cites Liv.xxvii. 34 The first occasion of shaving was regarded as the beginning of manhood, and the day on which this took place was celebrated as a festival. cites Juv.iii. 186 Usually, this was done when the young Roman assumed the toga virilis. Augustus did it in his twenty-fourth year, Caligula in his twentieth. The hair cut off on such occasions was consecrated to a god. Thus Nero put his into a golden box set with pearls, and dedicated it to Jupiter Capitolinus. cites Suet. Ner.12 The Romans, unlike the Greeks, let their beards grow in time of mourning; so did Augustus for the death of Julius Caesar. cites Dio Cass. xlviii. 34 Other occasions of mourning on which the beard was allowed to grow were appearance as a reus, condemnation, or some public calamity. On the other hand, men of the country areas around Rome in the time of Varro seem not to have shaved except when they came to market every eighth day, so that their usual appearance was most likely a short stubble.Varro asked rhetorically how often the tradesmen of the country shaved between market days, implying (in chronologist E. J. Bickerman's opinion) that this did not happen at all: "quoties priscus homo ac rusticus Romanus inter nundinum barbam radebat?", Varr. ap. Non. 214, 30; 32 : see also E J Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World, London (Thames & Hudson) 1968, at p. 59.
In the the Emperor Hadrian (r. 117 - 138), according to Dio Cassius, was the first emperor to grow a full beard; Plutarch says that he did it to hide scars on his face. This was a period in Rome of widespread imitation of Greek culture, and many other men grew beards in imitation of Hadrian and the Greek fashion. After Hadrian until the reign of Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) all adult emperors appear in busts and coins with beards; but Constantine and his successors until the reign of Phocas (r. 602 - 610), with the exception of Julian the Apostate (r. 361 - 363), are represented as beardless. The wearing of the beard as an imperial fashion was subsequently revived by Phocas at the beginning of the 7th century and this fashion lasted until the end of the Byzantine Empire.
The idea of the philosopher's beard gained traction when in 155 BCE three philosophers arrived in Rome as Greek diplomats: Carneades, head of the Platonic Academy; Critolaus of Aristotle's Lyceum; and the head of the Stoicism, Diogenes of Babylon. "In contrast to their beautifully clean-shaven Italian audience, these three intellectuals all sported magnificent beards." Thus the connection of beards and philosophy caught hold of the Roman public imagination.
The importance of the beard to Roman is best seen by the extreme value that the Stoic philosopher Epictetus placed on it. As historian John Sellars puts it, Epictetus "affirmed the philosopher's beard as something almost sacred...to express the idea that philosophy is no mere intellectual hobby but rather a way of life that, by definition, transforms every aspect of one's behavior, including one's shaving habits. If someone continues to shave in order to look the part of a respectable Roman citizen, it is clear that they have not yet embraced philosophy conceived as a way of life and have not yet escaped the social customs of the majority...the true philosopher will only act according to reason or according to nature, rejecting the arbitrary conventions that guide the behavior of everyone else."
Epictetus saw his beard as an integral part of his identity and held that he would rather be executed than submit to any force demanding he remove it. In his Discourses 1.2.29, he puts forward such a hypothetical confrontation: Come now, Epictetus, shave your beard'. If I am a philosopher, I answer, I will not shave it off. 'Then I will have you beheaded'. If it will do you any good, behead me." The act of shaving "would be to compromise his philosophical ideal of living in accordance with nature and it would be to submit to the unjustified authority of another."
This was not theoretical in the age of Epictetus, for the Emperor Domitian had the hair and beard forcibly shaven off of the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana "as punishment for anti-State activities." This disgraced Apollonius while avoiding making him a martyr like Socrates. Well before his declaration of "death before shaving" Epictetus had been forced to flee Rome when Domitian banished all philosophers from Italy under threat of execution.
Roman philosophers sported different styles of beards to distinguish which school they belonged to. Cynics used long dirty beards to indicate their "strict indifference to all external goods and social customs.” Stoics occasionally trimmed and washed their beards in accordance with their view "that it is acceptable to prefer certain external goods so long as they are never valued above virtue.” Peripatetics took great care of their beards believing in accordance with Aristotle that "external goods and social status were necessary for the good life together with virtue". To a Roman philosopher in this era, having a beard and its condition indicated their commitment to live in accordance with their philosophy.
The Anglo-Saxons on arrival in Great Britain wore beards and continued to do so for a considerable time after. The National Cyclopedia of Useful Knowledge, Vol III, (1847) Charles Knight, London, p. 46. Among the Gaels Celts of Scotland and Ireland, men typically let their facial hair grow into a full beard, and it was often seen as dishonourable for a Gaelic man to have no facial hair. The Topography of Ireland by Giraldus Cambrensis (English translation)Macleod, John, Highlanders: A History of the Gaels (Hodder and Stoughton, 1997) p. 43
Tacitus states that among the Catti, a Germanic people tribe (perhaps the Chatten), a young man was not allowed to shave or cut his hair until he had slain an enemy. The Lombards derived their name from the great length of their beards (Longobards – Long Beards). When Otto the Great said anything serious, he swore by his beard, which covered his breast.
While most noblemen and knights were bearded, the Catholic clergy were generally required to be clean-shaven. This was understood as a symbol of their celibacy.
In pre-Islamic Arabia, Arabian men would apparently shorten their beards and keep big mustachios. Muhammad encouraged his followers to do the opposite, to grow their beards and trim their moustaches, to differ with the non-believers. This style of beard subsequently spread along with Islam during the Muslim expansion in the Middle Ages.
In the 15th century, most European men in both the church and the nobility were clean-shaven. In the 16th-century beards became fashionable, particularly following the Reformation where many rulers, nobles and religious reformers grew long beards to distinguish themselves from the usually clean shaven Catholic clergy. By the mid 16th century most Catholic clergy also adopted beards. Every pope from Clement VII (pope 1523–1534) to Innocent XII (pope 1691–1700) would also sport facial hair. Some other beards of this time were the Spanish spade beard, the English square cut beard, the forked beard, and the stiletto beard. In 1587 Francis Drake claimed, in a figure of speech, to have singed the King of Spain's beard. This trend can be recognised during this period for example amongst monarchs of leading European countries, where the shift can be seen between clean-shaven Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I as well as King of Aragon Ferdinand II of Aragon and their bearded successor Charles V, clean-shaven King of England Henry VII and his bearded successor Henry VIII and clean-shaven King of France Louis XII and his bearded successor Francis I.
During the Chinese Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the ruling Manchu minority were either clean-shaven or at most wore mustaches, in contrast to the Han Chinese majority who still wore beards in keeping with the Confucian ideal.
In the beginning of the 17th century, the size of beards decreased in urban circles of Western Europe with the shape also becoming more pointed. By the middle of the century men usually wore a mustache or a pointed goatee. In the later part of the century, being clean-shaven gradually became more common again amongst the upper classes, so much so that in 1698 Peter the Great of Russia ordered men to shave off their beards, and in 1705 levied a beard tax in order to bring Russian society more in line with contemporary Western Europe. Throughout the 18th century essentially all upper class and most middle class European men would be clean shaven. Beard Tax: Information from. Answers.com. Retrieved on 3 January 2011.
At the end of the eighteenth century, after the French Revolution, attitudes began to turn away from the upper-class fashions of the previous century particularly among the lower classes. During the early-nineteenth century, most men, particularly amongst the nobility and upper classes; went clean-shaven. However, the shifts which had begun during the revolutionary period began to creep their way into first the middle and then the upper classes and this included the gradual return of facial hair. This is seen in the 1810s and 1820s with many men adopting sideburns or side whiskers which gradually grew in size in the ensuing decades. Facial hair also became more common amongst servicemen in Western armies during this period with the 'regimental mustache' becoming a common association with the soldiers of the time.
This was followed by a dramatic shift in the beard's popularity following the Revolutions of 1848, with it becoming markedly more popular.Jacob Middleton, 'Bearded Patriarchs', History Today, Volume: 56 Issue: 2 (February 2006), 26–27. Consequently, beards were adopted by many monarchs, such as Franz Joseph I of Austria (r. 1848 - 1916), Napoleon III of France (r. 1852 - 1870), Alexander II of Russia (r. 1855 - 1881), and William I of Germany (r. 1861 - 1888), as well as many leading statesmen and cultural figures, such as Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Karl Marx, and Giuseppe Verdi. This trend can be also recognised in the United States, where the shift can be seen amongst the presidents during and after the Civil War in the period of 1861 - 1913. Before Abraham Lincoln, no President had a beard; after Lincoln until William Howard Taft, every President except Andrew Johnson and William McKinley had either a beard or a moustache. Since 1913, when Woodrow Wilson became president, all presidents have been clean-shaven to the present day. In 2025, J.D. Vance became the first U.S. Vice President with facial hair since the mustachioed Charles Curtis, who left office in 1933. With Vance's beard forming a part of his image and defining the debate on facial hair in politics for the modern era.
The beard became linked in this period with notions of masculinity and male courage. The resulting popularity has contributed to the stereotypical Victorian male figure in the popular mind, the stern figure clothed in black whose gravitas is added to by a heavy beard.
In China, the revolution of 1911 and subsequent May Fourth Movement of 1919 led the Chinese to view the West as more modern and progressive than themselves. This included the realm of fashion, and Chinese men began shaving their faces and cutting their hair short.
By the early-twentieth century, beards began a slow decline in popularity. Although retained by some prominent figures who were young men in the Victorian period (like Sigmund Freud), most men who retained facial hair during the 1920s and 1930s limited themselves to a moustache or a goatee (such as with Marcel Proust, Albert Einstein, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin). In the United States, meanwhile, popular movies portrayed heroes with clean-shaven faces and "". Concurrently, the psychological mass marketing of Edward Bernays and Madison Avenue was becoming prevalent. The Gillette Safety razor Company was one of these marketers' early clients. The phrase , as a pejorative for stubble, was coined circa 1942 in advertising for Gem Blades, by the American Safety Razor Company, and entered popular usage. These events conspired to popularize short hair and clean-shaven faces as the only acceptable style for decades to come. The few men who wore the beard or portions of the beard during this period were usually either old, Central European, members of a religious sect that required it, or in academia. This case of affairs would last all the way until the late-1960s.
The beard was reintroduced to mainstream society by the counterculture, firstly with the "" in the 1950s, and then with the hippie movement of the mid-1960s. Following the Vietnam War, facial hair exploded in popularity. In the mid-late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, beards were worn by hippies and businessmen alike. Popular musicians like The Beatles, Barry White, The Beach Boys, Jim Morrison (lead singer of The Doors) and the male members of Peter, Paul, and Mary, among many others, wore full beards or mustaches. The trend of seemingly ubiquitous facial hair in American culture subsided by the early-1980s, as political conservatism became dominant. By the end of the 20th century, the closely clipped Giuseppe Verdi beard, often with a matching integrated moustache, had become relatively common. From the 1990s onward, fashion in the United States has generally trended toward either a goatee, Van Dyke, or a closely cropped full beard undercut on the throat. However, clean-shaven remained the most common style overall, in part due to successful advertising campaigns of Gillette. In 2010, the fashionable length approached a "two-day shadow". The 2010s decade also saw the full beard become fashionable again amongst young hipster men and a huge increase in the sales of male grooming products.
Members of the United States government have notably been historically clean-shaven. The last President to wear any type of facial hair was William Howard Taft (1909-13). (1982). 9780895770684, Reader's Digest. ISBN 9780895770684 Vice President JD Vance wears a beard, but he is the first VP to have any since Charles Curtis, (1929-33) who had a mustache. The last member of the United States Supreme Court with a full beard was Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who served on the Court until 1941. Since 2015, a growing number of male political figures have worn beards in office, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and Senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton. JD Vance is also the first member of a presidential ticket to wear facial hair since Thomas Dewey in 1948. However, unlike Dewey, Vance was successfully elected in 2024.
In Greek mythology and art, Zeus and Poseidon are always portrayed with full beards, but Apollo never is. A bearded Hermes was replaced with the more familiar beardless youth in the . Zoroaster, the ancient Iranian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism, is always depicted with a long beard. In Norse mythology and art, Odin and Thor are always portrayed with full beards.
Beards have been associated at different dates with particular Catholic religious orders. In the 1160s Burchardus, abbot of the Bellevaux Abbey in the Franche-Comté, wrote a treatise on beards. Apologiae duae: Gozechini epistola ad Walcherum; Burchardi, ut videtur, Abbatis Bellevallis Apologia de Barbis. Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis LXII. Edited by R.B.C. Huygens, with an introduction on beards in the Middle Ages by Giles Constable (Turnholt: Brepols, 1985). Translation: McAlhany, J. Beards & Baldness in the Middle Ages: Three Texts. (Brooklyn, NY: Leverhill, 2024), pp. 43-115. He regarded beards as appropriate for lay brothers, but not for the priests among the monks. In about 1240, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines described the Knights Templar as an "order of bearded brethren"; and, on the eve of the suppression of the order in 1312, out of nearly 230 knights and brothers questioned by the papal commissioners in Paris, 76 are described as wearing a beard (in some cases specified as "in the style of the Templars"), while another 133 are reported to have shaved their beards, either in renunciation of their vows or in a bid to escape detection. Randle Holme, writing in 1688, associated beards with Templars, Teutonic Order, Austin Friars, and Gregorians. Most Latin Church clergy are now clean-shaven, but Capuchins and some others are bearded. Present Canon law is silent on the matter.
Although most Protestantism regard the beard as a matter of choice, some have taken the lead in fashion by openly encouraging its growth as "a habit most natural, scriptural, manly, and beneficial" (Charles Spurgeon).Spurgeon, C. H., Lectures to My Students, First Series, Lecture 8 (Baker Book House, 1981) p. 134. Amish and Hutterite men shave until they marry, then grow a beard and are never thereafter without one, although it is a particular form of a beard (see Visual markers of marital status). Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of Church history at the University of Oxford, writes: "There is no doubt that Thomas Cranmer mourned the dead king (Henry VIII)", and it was said that he showed his grief by growing a beard. However, MacCulloch also states that during the Reformation Era, many Protestant Reformers decided to grow their beards in order to emphasize their break with the Catholic tradition:
After Joseph Smith, many of the early presidents of the LDS Church, such as Brigham Young and Lorenzo Snow, wore large beards. Since David O. McKay became church president in 1951, most LDS Church leaders have been clean-shaven. The church maintains no formal policy on facial hair for its general membership. However, formal prohibitions against facial hair are currently enforced for young men providing two-year missionary service. Students and staff of the church-sponsored higher education institutions, such as Brigham Young University (BYU), are required to adhere to the Church Educational System Honor Code, which states in part: "Men are expected to be clean-shaven; beards are not acceptable", although male BYU students are permitted to wear a neatly groomed moustache. A beard exemption is granted for "serious skin conditions", and for approved theatrical performances, but until 2015 no exemption was given for any other reason, including religious convictions. In January 2015, BYU clarified that students who want a beard for religious reasons, like Muslims or Sikhs, may be granted permission after applying for an exemption. Reprinted by Deseret News, KSL, and KUTV .
BYU students led a campaign to loosen the beard restrictions in 2014, but it had the opposite effect at Church Educational System schools: some who had previously been granted beard exemptions were found no longer to qualify, and for a brief period the LDS Business College required students with a registered exemption to wear a "beard badge", which was likened to a "badge of shame". Some students also join in with shaming their fellow beard-wearing students, even those with registered exemptions.
The first one is that growing the beard is obligatory and that shaving it is (forbidden) with the main source for this position being this narration: Sahih Bukhari, Book 72, Hadith #781 (USC-MSA), narrated by Ibn ʿUmar: Allah's Apostle said, "Cut the moustaches short and leave the beard (as it is)." man with a beard dyed in henna.]]
The second one, which is the official position of the Shafi'i school, rules that the beard is only (recommended), and shaving the beard is only (disliked), but not (forbidden).
The third one among some contemporary Ulama, such as the Grand Mufti of Egypt Shawki Allam, is that keeping the beard is permissible and that shaving it is also permissible.
The Mishnah interprets this as a prohibition on using a razor on the beard.Talmud, Makot 20a This prohibition is further expanded upon in the Kabbalistic literature."The punishment for this shaving is delineated by the holy Zohar and the books of the Mekubalim, and is considered a great and terrible sin, among the most grievous." – Shaving With a Razor, by Rabbi Meir Gavriel Elbaz, http://halachayomit.co.il/EnglishDefault.asp?HalachaID=2355, dated 4 January 2012. The prohibition carries to modern Judaism to this day, with Rabbinic Judaism traditionally forbidding the use of a razor to shave between the "five corners of the beard"—although there is no uniform consensus on where these five vertices are located. Moses Maimonides criticized the shaving of the beard as being the custom of "idolatrous priests".Maimonides, Moreh 3:37
The Zohar, one of the primary sources of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), attributes Sacred to the beard, specifying that hairs of the beard symbolize channels of subconscious holy energy that flows from above to the human soul. Therefore, most Hasidic Judaism, for whom Kabbalah plays an important role in their religious practice, traditionally do not remove or even trim their beards.
Traditional Jews refrain from shaving, trimming the beard, and haircuts during certain times of the year like Passover, Sukkot, the Counting of the Omer, and the Three Weeks. Cutting the hair is also restricted during the 30-day mourning period after the death of a close relative, known in Hebrew as the Shloshim (thirty).
Isezaki city in Gunma prefecture, Japan, decided to ban beards for male municipal employees on 19 May 2010.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has found requiring shaving to be discriminatory.
The Cincinnati Reds baseball team had a longstanding enforced policy where all players had to be completely clean-shaven (no beards, long sideburns or moustaches). However, this policy was abolished following the sale of the team by Marge Schott in 1999.
Under owner George Steinbrenner, the New York Yankees baseball team had a strict appearance policy that prohibited long hair and facial hair below the lip; the regulation was continued under Hank and Hal Steinbrenner when control of the Yankees was transferred to them after the . Willie Randolph and Joe Girardi, both former Yankee assistant coaches, adopted a similar clean-shaven policy for their ballclubs: the New York Mets and Miami Marlins, respectively. Fredi Gonzalez, who replaced Girardi as the Marlins' manager, dropped that policy when he took over after the 2006 season. Yankees legend Don Mattingly restored said policy upon becoming Marlins manager in 2016, but dropped it immediately after only one season.
The Playoff beard is a tradition common with teams in the National Hockey League, and now in other leagues where players allow their beards to grow from the beginning of the playoff season until the playoffs are over for their team. Even then, players such as Joe Thornton and Brent Burns grew large, bushy beards in the regular season. However, executive Lou Lamoriello became notorious for his enforcement of an appearance policy similar to the Yankees during his front office tenures with the New Jersey Devils, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Islanders. Lamoriello would allow players to grow beards during the playoffs, however.
In 2008, some members of the County Tyrone Gaelic football team vowed not to shave until the end of the season. They went on to win the All-Ireland football championship, some of them sporting impressive beards by that stage. Canadian Rugby Union flanker Adam Kleeberger attracted much media attention before, during, and after the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Kleeberger was known, alongside teammates Jebb Sinclair and Hubert Buydens as one of "the beardoes". Fans in the stands could often be seen wearing fake beards and "fear the beard" became a popular expression during the team's run in the competition. Kleeberger, who became one of Canada's star players in the tournament, later used the publicity surrounding his beard to raise awareness for two causes; Christchurch earthquake relief efforts and prostate cancer. As part of this fundraising, his beard was shaved off by television personality Rick Mercer and aired on national television. The "Fear the Beard" expression was coined by the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder fans and was previously used by Houston Rockets fans to support James Harden.
San Francisco Giants relief pitcher Brian Wilson, who claims not to have shaved since the 2010 All-Star Game, has grown a big beard that has become popular in MLB and with its fans. MLB Fan Cave presented a "Journey Inside Brian Wilson's Beard", which was an interactive screenshot of Wilson's beard, where one can click on different sections to see various fictional activities performed by small "residents" of the beard. The hosts on sports show sometimes wear replica beards, and the Giants gave them away to fans as a promo.
The 2013 Boston Red Sox featured at least 12 players with varying degrees of facial hair, ranging from the closely trimmed beard of slugger David Ortiz to the long shaggy looks of Jonny Gomes and Mike Napoli. The Red Sox used their beards as a marketing tool, offering a Dollar Beard Night, where all fans with beards (real or fake) could buy a ticket for $1.00; and also as means of fostering team camaraderie.
Beards have also become a source of competition between athletes. Examples of athlete "beard-offs" include NBA players DeShawn Stevenson and Drew Gooden in 2008, and WWE wrestler Bryan Danielson and Oakland Athletics outfielder Josh Reddick in 2013.
Many possess a beard. The orangutan also possesses a beard.
Several animals are termed "bearded" as part of their common name. Sometimes a beard of hair on the chin or face is prominent but for some others, "beard" may refer to a pattern or colouring of the pelage reminiscent of a beard.
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