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The fashion for hair length has changed over time, even in recent decades there've been changes, for instance the trend for men to wear long hair in the early 70s or shorter styles for women in the 50s. Anyway, despite these changes, it seems this pattern has been the convention in the West for at least 150-200 years. In the Medieval era and Renaissance it seems a lot of men wore long hair (e.g. Shakespeare). I wonder if it also has something to do with the Jewish custom, since does not Paul say that women should keep their hair long (and covered btw) and men keep it short?
This trend is now almost universal, from China to the US, although in Africa in particular not as much since Africans tend to have a different kind of hair that grows out unless you straighten it.
I'm wondering when this convention started and why?
far as i know practically since the dawn of time. good question. I'll have to look into that
No that doesn't seem to be the case. In many traditional cultures, take native Americans, men also wore their hair long. AFAIK I'm not aware of a culture where men grow it long and women short, although that probably exists, but I have a feeling in the majority of cultures that have ever existed there was no custom for men to have short hair and women long. It was probably either both long or both short or both medium.
What's strange is the custom of dressing and coiffing little boys like girls. I've seen photos of male relatives/ancestors in their childhood, and they had long hair with curls, and were dressed in the same clothes as girl toddlers were. I couldn't believe they were photos of boys, when I first saw them. These were from around the late 1800's to the early 1900's sometime.
okay like i said im not a multicultural person. I dont pay any attention to the french, spanish, indian, african, or whatever type people do. No offense. My blinders take me from Modern day American back to british, then to Roman, then to Biblical era.
What's strange is the custom of dressing and coiffing little boys like girls. I've seen photos of male relatives/ancestors in their childhood, and they had long hair with curls, and were dressed in the same clothes as girl toddlers were. I couldn't believe they were photos of boys, when I first saw them. These were from around the late 1800's to the early 1900's sometime.
Yes it might be strange to us, but that was the custom of today. I'm sure someone as culturally aware as you Ruth would know that of course. In a way it's just as strange to think of that as strange. In fact, if you go back to say the 18th century, a lot of men, especially nobles, wore makeup, long hair, high heels etc.
This appears to be incorrect. For instance, take a look at French King Louis XIV:
And at his great-grandson and successor, French King Louis XV:
You can also take a look at Louis XIV's father, French King Louis XIII:
Small sample set of royalty is not representative. Men by virtue of doing - on average - more consistently strenuous work (and potentially threatening work if wearing long hair) throughout history likely kept their hair shorter than women due to:
1 Safety concerns,
2 Reducing hair as a potential weakness to be used against them in a fight
3 Having better ability to keep it clean and free of disease type issues (Lice) especially when water in many regions of world was not plentiful for activity like hair washing.
4 Style was unimportant except to upper classes
Women historically were encouraged to keep long hair to convey 'modesty' [head covering] et al. Also, historically women were in many cultures adornment chattel etc... so treatment and caring for hair was akin to keeping them as 'pretty' as possible and in some circumstances as a way of differentiating themselves for male attention.
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