Why do men have beards?

Question

Why did men evolve to have hair on their face and women haven't? I understand men have testosterone, but what is the evolutionary explanation?

Either way why is it women have no beard?

Answer 1

Do not let people tell you not to ask why questions in biology; evolutionary biology thrives on such questions. What ever else testosterone is, it is a very ancient, well conserved hormone. Some call it " the hormone of desire ", but it has many facets of use. It, in the instance you are asking about, facial hair, is only one of a suite of competitive traits the male human is endowed with. Such as, weight, height, ect. It can be differentiated to the other sex, though not in our species. Hyenas maintain a matriarchal dominance hierarchy and the females compete, in a limited fashion, for males. The female testosterone load is quite superior to the males.

Answer 2

I cannot tell you WHY (mainly because "why?" isn't an accepted question in biology - it can never be answered, basically), but I can tell you this:
Facial (and body) hair are considered secondary gender characteristics (also under this category: larger skeletal structure in men, bigger muscles in men, and more). These are things that differ between men and women, but have no effect on their sexual ability, fertility or any other function of the reproduction system.
We do not understand completely why these characteristics exist, but they do (in most of the animals on this planet that have two genders), so they probably have a "reason" to exist - some biological advantage that made them preferable over other options in the past - which made the ones that had them reproduce more, and the others to slowly disappear in the course of evolution.

Answer 3

Facial hair is a secondary sex characteristic in human males. Most men develop facial hair in puberty. Many women also have some facial hair, especially after menopause, though typically much less than men.

"There are two kinds of people in this world that go around beardless—boys and women, and I am neither one."
—Greek saying

Answer 4

It is thought that the mutation which caused us to loose body hair happened about 72,000 years ago. Before that our ancestors were covered with hair much like modern chimps. The reason it is thought to be that long ago comes from comparing the genes of head lice versus body lice. When the genes are compared and a relatively constant rate of mutation is assumed. It leads us to conclude that the two lice populations diverged about that time.
Shortly after we lost our body hair the mutations which increased skin pigmentation swept through the population leading to the modern races.

Answer 5

Well as a man with a beard I can tell you, it's coz i cant be arsed to shave..............it's that simple.

Women have facial hair just not as thick, although i did once see a German girl who looked like father Christmas lol.

We have been married 10 years now lmao

Answer 6

I was gonna say because half of them are too lazy to shave LOL
Women do get hair on their faces, that is what electroysis is for to permanently remove it. Believe me women do get hair on their faces later in life.

Answer 7

Because some of us Women like them

Answer 8

We all have the same amount of facial hair - men and women.

For the majority of women, these hairs are so fine and small that you can barely see them.

In men, their facial hair becomes thicker and grows relatively fast.

Answer 9

It's actually the other way around, women have lost their facial hair and men have retained it.

Answer 10

I don't know why but men are just more hairy must be in their genes,Marlene good question.