Beauty Isn't All That Matters In Life

The Herald (Harare)

OPINION
11 August 2007
Posted to the web 13 August 2007

Albert Nhamoyebonde
Harare

NEWSWEEK magazine once devoted one issue a few years ago to the biology of beauty. Whereas a perfect face and body have always defined beauty, researchers agree that there is a universal sense of beauty in all cultures.

Arthur Danto, an art critic, says: "Beauty is beauty across all cultural divisions."

In Mauritania, a girl or woman is considered beautiful if she is fat and well-rounded. It is reported that mothers force-feed their girl children to become fat so that men find them attractive.

A survey was carried out some years ago about what men in different continents of the world regarded as a beautiful woman. European men went for the face while African men preferred the more rounded hip and bottom. Is it any wonder the latest fashion is to wear tight-fitting skirts and trousers to emphasise the bottom?

Why then is this obsession with beauty?

Researchers have reported that beauty is used by women to catch men with better resources to guarantee a better life for their children.

But one researcher quoted in Newsweek said: "Beauty isn't all that matters in life; most of us manage to attract mates and bear offspring despite our physical imperfections. And qualities we find alluring say nothing about people's moral worth."

This brings me to an incident that happened many years ago. A friend, who was blind, asked me to go with him to see a girl he was dating. On the way he told me that she was beautiful. How could he know she was beautiful when he could not see? I wondered. But he was right.

The girl was beautiful in the physical sense but my friend later explained that she had a wonderful heart and when he touched her hand he could feel her lovely spirit. They later got married.
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Tears of happiness flowed down the faces of some of the guests but the newly weds were just full of smiles. It was the best wedding I have ever attended.

There is something beautiful in all of us men and women. Others may just have a lovely face or well-rounded hips and bottom but deep down, it is our moral worthiness that shines like a beacon of light to illuminate how beautiful we are.

Our weakness for "biological quality" is the cause of endless pain and injustice, according to one scientist Ray Thornhill of the University of New Mexico, USA.