"for there is no respect of persons with God." ~ Romans 2:11
"but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors." ~ James 2:9
In Greek mythology, Paris was called to judge which of three goddesses, Aphrodite, Hera, and Pallas Athene was the fairest. Eris, the goddess of discord, started the trouble when she appeared at a wedding and threw down a golden apple inscribed with the words "For the Fairest." The result of this action was a disrupted wedding and later a war, as Paris abducted Helen to Troy. The gods were unable to make the decision of who was the fairest and Paris' task was not easy. Hera offered him wealth and power to pick her, and Athene promised honor and glory. The ultimate bribe, however, came from Aphrodite, who guaranteed him the most beautiful woman on earth for his wife - Helen. Needless to say, Paris ended this beauty contest in favor of Aphrodite.
Like the ancient Greeks, we moderns ascribe a high value to beauty and like them, we have been unable to determine the concept of beauty itself. Almost everyone is involved in the pursuit of beauty. Its significance for the individual can be judged by the time spent in the gym and in front of the mirror. To a great extent, advertising tells us who we are and who we should be. It tells us that the most important thing about women is how we look. We are surrounded with the image of the ideal female beauty so we all learn exactly how important it is for a woman to be beautiful and precisely what that will take. Technology has progressed so much that we are now able to retouch images and present us with ideals that are unrealistic, inhuman, and impossible to achieve. This "perfect beauty" is just an illusion yet young and old alike try to achieve this unachievable standard that our culture has imposed upon us. This has been happening throughout history and women have done some horrible things to themselves in order to fit into their culture's ideal of "beauty."
All throughout the olden days, women put their health at risk with many of their homemade cosmetics. In some cultures, for example, women used arsenic, lead, mercury, and even leeches to give themselves the pale appearance that was deemed beautiful in that point in time.
Japanese women in the 3rd century lacquered their teeth black with a blend of iron filings, oak apples, and sake or tea. Roman and Greek women reportedly soaked in bathes of crocodile feces and mud to achieve soft skin. The Greek physician Galen, who made the first cold cream, notes that "ladies dedicated to luxury" preferred a crocodile dung mask. The moulding of the skull and the practice of head flattening was common among Mayan society. The head was flattened by putting a newborn infant's head between 2 wooden boards, creating a mousetrap-like cradle that was held in place with bindings. The baby's soft skull slowly moulded to the cultural beauty ideal of flatness and after a few years, the boards were removed permanently. Elongated heads have also been as popular as flattened heads -- a Congo woman with an elongated head would be thought of as very beautiful by her people. A Chad woman would have had her lips supported and stretched by metal rings since early childhood and in adulthood, her stretched lips would express the ultimate beauty.
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| Georgian woman |
Women of the Georgian High Society (England 1740-1830) looked beautiful in their satins and silks
but they hardly ever washed themselves. Because sanitation was still quite uncommon, they preferred to douse their clothes, bodies, and belongings in toilet waters and perfumes. They wore scented pomanders and carried small perfume bottles about in their person. False hair was commonly used and it took a long time to dress their hair exceedingly high. They expected it to last at least a week, preferably longer, and often slept sitting to keep the style in place. Since hygiene was poor, lice in their hair and everlasting headaches became a fact of life. They had false teeth, hair, bosoms, calves, and induced large eyes which they made to falsely dilate by using belladonna taken from the deadly nightshade plant. They were a walking deception.
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| victorian corset |
Sometime later, Victorian women had to endure much pain and suffering because of an article of dress called the "corset." They "trained" their waist over a period of a few years by gradual increments of the lacing. Some went so far that they could only breathe with the top part of their lungs. This caused the bottom part of their lungs to fill with mucus and symptoms of this included a slight but persistent cough and heavy breathing that caused a heaving appearance of the bosom. It would take about a year of not wearing a corset for the internal organs to settle back to their normal positions.
Perhaps the most horrible of all these evils was foot binding. In China, until about a century ago, small dainty feet were considered beautiful. The desire to be be beautiful went so far as to break and bind the feet of their baby girls with meters of cloth to stop them from growing so they would resemble a "three-inch golden lotus" at a time when normal big feet were considered alien to feudal virtues. The process was started before the arch of the foot had a chance to develop fully, usually between the ages of two and five. To enable the size of the feet to be reduced, the toes on each foot were curled under and pressed with a great force downwards and squeezed into the sole of the foot until the toes broke. The broken toes were held tightly against the sole of the foot while the foot was then drawn down straight with the leg, causing the arch to be forcibly broken. This was all carried out without the use of any method of pain relief and was thus extremely painful for the girl being bound. The actual binding of the feet was then
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| chinese women's shoes |
begun -- the bandages were repeatedly wound in a figure-eight movement, starting at the inside of the foot at the instep, then carried over the toes, under the foot, and around the heal, the freshly broken toes being pressed tightly into the sole of the foot. When the binding was completed, the girl was required to stand on her freshly broken and bound feet to further crush them into shape. The girl's broken feet required a great deal of care and attention and would be unbound regularly. Whilst
unbound, the girl's feet were often beaten, especially on the soles, to ensure that her feet remained broken and flexible. This unbinding and rebinding ritual was repeated as often as possible. For the rich at least once daily, but, for poor peasants two or three times a week.
The most common problem with bound feet was infection. Despite the amount of care taken in regularly trimming the toenails, they would often in-grow, becoming infected and causing injuries to the toes. Sometimes for this reason the girl's toenails would be peeled back and removed altogether. If the infection in the feet and toes entered the bones, it could cause them to soften, which could result in toes dropping off — occasionally, this was seen as a positive, as the feet could then be bound even more tightly. Girls whose toes were more fleshy would sometimes have shards of glass or pieces of broken tiles inserted within the binding next to her feet and between her toes to cause injury and introduce infection deliberately. Disease inevitably followed infection, meaning that death from septic shock could result from foot-binding, but a surviving girl was more at risk for medical problems as she grew older.
The standards of beauty have changed over time, based on changing cultural values. What is considered beautiful in the eyes of one race may be thought absolutely shocking in the next. The question that comes to mind is "why?" Why do women suffer so for the sake of beauty? Why do they do just about anything and everything to fit into their culture's idea of beauty? Could it be because we react more favorably to physically attractive people (according to our understanding of attractiveness)?
Studies do show that attractive people have distinct advantages in their communities. In our society, attractive children are more popular among classmates and teachers alike. Teachers give a higher evaluation to the work of more attractive children, and attractive applicants have a better chance of getting jobs and receiving higher salaries. In court, attractive people are found guilty less often and when found guilty, receive less severe sentences. This is showing favoritism and it's
so easy to fall into judging others solely on their outward appearance, treating them according to that.
It's so easy to just look outwardly and be partial, putting everyone into some kind of category and ranking ourselves based on our looks, wardrobe, and material possessions. All of these things are of no consequence to God and of no significance at all. He is absolutely and totally impartial in His dealings with humanity.
And that is how we should be also.
(part two of the reposting the somethings I wrote about beauty when I was 11.)
