The importance of beauty

Is beauty, in evolutionary terms, of any importance?  I
doubt that good-looking people had, in primitive times, a better
chance of surviving.  Beauty and health do not go hand in hand.
Ugly, beautiful, or in between, we all obey the same natural
laws.  We will live a long and healthy life if we drew a winning
number in the genetic lottery, and followed a healthy lifestyle;
or have a short disease-filled life if we were born under an
unlucky star.  It’s a matter of luck, and I can’t see what beauty
got to do with it.  How can it?

Beauty is a matter of genetic; put in a more down-to-earth
way, it’s a matter of luck.  The right bone structure will give
you a beautiful face.  Let the genetic wheel take one more lucky
turn, and you will have a stunning figure.  You could become a
model, or at the very least be very attractive to the opposite
sex.  However, few people get such a good hand.  Most of us are
average-looking; and yet, we will go on to enjoy good health, and
in this day and age live to 80 and beyond.

Perhaps it has an impact on happiness?  Beautiful people are
not more or less happy than the rest of us.  If there is any
impact, I suspect it’s limited.

Career-wise?  Yes, it does.  Looks can get you the right
job.  It can bring you promotions.  However, when everything is
said and done, beauty will open doors for you, what happens after
that depends on you.

Then why are we so besotted by good looks?  Because of our
animal nature, we are attracted by all that glitter.  There is,
however, one logical reason, we are more stimulated by an
attractive member of the opposite sex.  But here again there is a
catch.  After a few years we get tired of the same partner.  It’s
his qualities that keeps you going.  The fact that at the onset
he was so handsome becomes over time less and less important.
All of which brings us to our next topic:  Beauty is ephemeral.

Beauty and age

Age comes upon us like a thief in the night.  It robs us of
our looks, our health, our vigor.  Above all, it robs us of our
dignity.  Our faces are marked by the blows of life and its
pains.

Like a raging torrent, time will sweep away all physical
beauty.  We can then go on to focus on what’s really important,
our minds.  Conversely, we can lament on what’s lost and will
never come back.  In other words, we can engage in a futile
exercise.  If that’s all we did, there wouldn’t be a problem.
But we can become destructive.

A man will look at his wife and ask himself the question:
“What happened to the beautiful young lass that took my breath
away?”  A woman will ask:  “Is it possible that I once almost
swooned over that man?”

There is resentment, and from a lifetime of observation, it
has been my experience that women are more bitter when they
encounter the ravages of time.  They are also angry over the fact
that their partner has “let himself go.”  All of which makes me
wonder from where the notion that men put more emphasis on looks
than women do came from.

Women appreciate beauty in both sexes

They have to.  They have to keep their eyes open for a
suitable mate, and they constantly have to evaluate the
competition.

Therefore, nature gave them – among many others – that
special gift.

Source

Sexual Chemistry.  Why Men and Women Act As They Do
William F. Allman
Reader’s Digest (December ’93)
Condensed from News and World Report
Washington D.C.
July 1993

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