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Life

01st Jun 2019

Men with beards make better long-term partners, a study has found

Interesting.

Laura Holland

Interesting.

When we’re looking for the perfect long term partner or spouse you would think it wouldn’t always revolve around their type of hair. Looks do play a part but it’s usually their personality that ensures a lengthy relationship.

But it turns out there is one feature in men which could mean they’re the better option for a long-term relationship and that is if they have a beard.

A study published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology has found that men with beards make better long-term partners.

According to The Debrief, they spoke with 8,250 women and asked them to rate photos of men for the physical attractiveness on the basis of seeing them in short-term or long-term relationships.

They manipulated the images so that they altered the facial hair, beard length and other facial features and then asked the women to begin rating the men. In terms of facial hair they varied the images from clean-shaven, light stubble, heavy stubble and full beards to appear more or less masculine.

The results showed a significant connection between beardedness and masculinity on attractiveness ratings.

Furthermore, “masculine faces are judged as more attractive for short-term relationships over less masculine faces, whereas beards are judged as more attractive than clean-shaven faces for long-term relationships.”