Has anyone found long hair to be a disadvantage in fights? I suppose it couuld well be, but then again it is supposed to intimidate other men. It has been said that if a man has good long hair it causes jealousy in other men and they say they don't like it for this reason. It can be a display like a peacock's tail feathers.
This is a brief summary of what short hair on men is all about:
"For much of human history, both men and women had long hair, and men usually had long beards as well. In the 4th century BC Alexander the Great of Macedonia had his soldiers wear short hair and shave off their beards, so that their ememies couldn't grab their hair or beards in battle. The Romans were the first culture where all the men generally wore their hair short and shaved their beards, again for military reasons. After Rome conquered most of Europe and the Mediterranean, short hair came to be associated with what Rome stood for: civilization, "law and order", loyalty to the state, conservatism, military discipline, etc. Long hair was associated with barbarians, women, "effeminate" greek philosophers and wimpy romantics. The Roman senate took a dim view of emperors like Hadrian who "went Greek" by wearing a beard and longer hair.
When the germanic "barbarian" tribes overran the West in the 5th century AD, many of them were already partly Romanized -- i.e. they had converted to Christianity, served in the Roman army and learned to appreciate Roman culture. Although many continued to wear their hair long, the idea of men's short hair standing for civilization, law and discipline was preserved, and has continued to the present day."
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