Categories: just-life
Date: 11 January 2007 22:54:52
I have always been under the impression that as everyone is different, if you were to ask someone what makes a woman beautiful you would get a wide and varied set of answers. Her beautiful eyes, the way her hair flows... ahmem... other attributes...
Of course, trust someone to go off and do an actual study by studying references from poetry, prose, literature from all over the world, dating all the way back to 1300BC and Rameses the Great;
"My love is unique; no one can rival her, for she is the most beautiful woman alive . . . Gold is nothing compared to her arms, and her fingers are like the lotus flowers. Her buttocks are full, but her waist is narrow. Just by passing, she has stolen away my heart" - Rameses the Great to Queen Nefertari (c 1300-1250BC) written on her tomb
Dr Devendra Singh, University of Texas at Austin, and I'm sure a small army of research students trawled through three hundred and fifty THOUSAND pieces of work, checking how many times eight certain attributes were mentioned. And the most popularm by far....???
A well definded waist line. Beating all others (breasts, legs, thighs plumpness, hips, buttocks and slimness) it is this that, historically, has been mentioned most in descriptions of beauty.
"Beautiful women . . . in the palace of Chu, there were none who did not admire their slender waist" - Xu Ling (507-83)
There does follow a whole series of reasons as to why this might be the case, most seem to be along the lines of
oestrogen levels in puberty and therefore have something to do with health and fertility.
"That which her slender waist confined Shall now my joyful temples bind; No monarch but would give his crown His arms might do what this has done” - Edmund Waller On: a Girdle
I have a different theory. If you can bear with me for a moment if it seems like I'm going off on a tangent. Cars, like women, are very popular with men. I am led to believe that there is even a channel devoted to just these two topics. Cars can be divieded into two camps; cars that are square and lumpy and cars that are sleek and curvey. Unsurprisenly the more popular cars are those that fall into the later section. And my point is that it's the same with people.
If we were to compare a square and lumpy person and a sleek and curvey person. John Prescot and Marilyn Munroe. I am fairly certain as to which of these two the majority of people might prefer. Yes, Mr Prescot is curvey I suppose you could say but not very sleek.....
Ultimately though, I'm going to go with the cliché that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. That and I'm willing to bet that if they'd included the option 'be able to cook like my mum' that would have won hands down!!!
hehehehe (o;
And for anyone who was interested in how the hockey game mentioned below finish, well, wow.... St Louis went a goal down nineteen seconds into the second period but came back, again to finish with a 3-2 victory!!! Go St Louis!!! The round up is here and they have the video clips of the great goal scored by Keith Tkachuk. Amazing. I just hope my Leafs can do that well again the Sabres tonight (not going to hold my breath).