Sex Differentiation in Hair in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain
Chen,Pei-Ching (University of Exeter)
Ex Historia, Vol. 3 (2011)
Abstract
This article will explore the role of hair as a marker of sex difference by scrutinising how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Q&A books, anatomical, surgical and gynaecological manuals, treatises on hair, and classic works on evolutionary theory explained differences between the sexes in the length of head hair, in the presence or absence of the beard, and in the distribution of bodily hair. It will investigate when a change from employing humoral to biological explanations to clarify sexual differences in hair took place, in order to examine whether, after the decline of the 
Galenic medicine, physiological accounts were able to immediately explain why women had longer head hair and why only men had beards. Similar to the medical exploration of male and female genitals, discussions about the differences between the sexes in the hair on the head and facial hair shifted from employing humoral to biological explanations.
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