Beauty

There is a common phrase: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But different eyes may need different lenses. Some eyes may not need any lenses. Would such variations affect perception?

That the perception of beauty is inborn, with certain similar features exhibiting universal recognition, is intriguing. Is perception, then, a socio-cultural construct?

From where I come from, for instance, there are tales and ethnic mythologies constructed around beautiful girls who have a gap between their milk teeth.I am using the term "myth" in a very broad and deep sense. Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski sees myths as characters of extant social institutions. They are anything but allegories of physical processes. In various African folklore, we have beautiful village girls escaping unhurt when the ogres strike. Many a times,it is the boy who spears the ogre. The order of patriarchy may explain why.

But let us also think about other forms of beauty - like the one exhibited by the Egyptian Nefertiti, the clean-shaved epitome of feminine beauty in the Egyptian mythology (the beautiful-perfect-woman has come, being the meaning of her name) who lived and mysteriously disappeared more than 3,500 years ago. What about the ancient Greek sculpture of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty? Both were not gap-toothed but beautiful.

A gap-toothed girl from the Kenyan highlands who exhibits features of beauty that makes her a "village belle" may not feature in an American beauty pageant or appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated magazine. I am not sure she would interest music video companies, unless for other purposes but beauty.

But we can look at it this way, too. As I understand, there are social constructs built on top of "hard-wired" constructs. So, e.g., one culture may prize gap-toothed women, and another despise gap-toothed women; however, men in both would look for symmetry of features and other signs of good health (an asymetrical face would possibly mean a bone malformation - a sign of an ailment or genetic mutation not desirable in a child-bearing woman). This might lead us to another question: Does physical attraction - assuming beautiful women attract men - trigger child bearing psychological circuits?

Other studies show a tendency of women to be sexually attracted to square-jawed muscular men, but to want less square-jawed men to be the parent of their children (quick evolutionary psychology explanation: the square-jawed man can get any female he desires and thus would not stay around as a a parent; the less square-jawed man gets the promise of sex and care in return of sticking around to help with the kids!)