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The concept of beauty is universal

Beauty is a property associated with human beings. This could even be considered as a feature. Beauty is not only related to human beings. Beauty can also be associated with locations, certain concepts, certain things, etc. This property or characteristic called beauty makes other people happy. Anything beautiful is a joy for others to see.

The word beauty was originally taken from the Greek language. According to the Greek interpretation, the meaning of the word was: according to the hour. This has philosophical implications as it implies that everything beautiful has to belong to its time. So anyone who is trying to look too young or old for his actual age cannot be considered beautiful!

Now the concept of beauty is universal. But the way people from one geographic location analyze beauty may be different from the perception of beauty seen by someone from a different geographic location. These are the cultural differences of beauty. A beautiful person in American culture may not be the same as in African culture. A simple example is the weight of the person. In Western culture, beauty is synonymous with thinness. But in many parts of Africa and Asia, being fat is considered beautiful. This could be understood in the case of Stone Age man, as a fat person would have a much better chance of surviving a famine. When hunting was the main source of income, having a really fat wife would have been the equivalent of riding a Lamborghini in today’s world.

Even today in Mauritania, a country in Africa, girls are fattened to such an extent that they are at risk of getting sick at a very young age. As very fat girls are the only ones who marry easily there, it is a common practice there to force feed girls to extreme levels.

Most societies considered being fat to be beautiful until a century ago. The concept of slim beauty is a very recent phenomenon.

The common saying is that, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This phrase defines the subjective nature of beauty in all its extension. As is the case with body weight explained above, people from different cultures tend to see beauty from different points of view.

When it comes to religion, they give more weight to the inner beauty of the person. This generally refers to the person’s character rather than their appearance.

Beauty also has mathematical properties. Beautiful things are usually symmetrical and proportional. The Greeks believed that the proportion of the features of any beautiful person should be according to the golden ratio. Modern studies have shown that the Greeks’ ideas of beauty were correct.

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