The lobule of the human ear has been presumably developed through the
agency of Sexual Selection, as it is an ornament the absence of which is
at once felt. And there are other ways in which this organ has been
gradually brought into harmony with the laws of beauty. Thus the loss of
the hair (of which rudiments are still occasionally present) made
visible the soft skin and the delicate tint of the ear, which, like that
of the cheeks, may be momentarily heightened by a blush, and thus become
an index of emotional expression. A permanently heightened colour of the
ear, however, caused by exposure to extreme cold or by rough treatment,
is almost as great a blemish as a red nose or pallid lips. If boxers are
anxious to deform their ears, no one has a right to object; but children
have a right to ask of their parents and teachers not to redden their
ears permanently by pulling or boxing them. That a delicate and
important sense-organ like the ear should be so frequently chosen as a
place to inflict punishment, shows the necessity of a general diffusion
of hygienic knowledge. It may not be superfluous to add a caution to
lovers, that the ears should never be taken as an osculatory substitute
for the lips or cheeks, as cases are known in medical practice where the
tympanum, and consequently the hearing, has been destroyed by a vigorous
kiss implanted by a foolish lover on his sweetheart’s ears.
An ear to be beautiful should be about twice as long as broad. It should
be attached to the head almost straight, or slightly inclined backwards,
and should almost touch the head with the back of its upper point. Many
poor girls are deformed for life through the ignorance of their mothers,
who allow them to wear their hair or bonnets in such a way as to make
the ears stand out obliquely. As the ears contain no bones, but consist
entirely of cartilages and skin, they can be, more readily even than the
nose, moulded into a fine shape at an early age. As Drs. Brinton and
Napheys remark, “Even when the ear is in part or altogether absent, the
case is not desperate. An ‘artificial ear’ can be made of vulcanised
rubber, or other material, tinted the colour of the flesh, and attached
to the side of the head with such deftness that its character will
escape every ordinary eye.” There is therefore no excuse for having
badly-shaped or wrongly-inclined ears in these days of cosmetic surgery.
In the most beautiful ears the lobe is free, and not attached to the
head in its lower part. Heavy earrings, which have a tendency to unduly
enlarge the lobules, are now tabooed by Fashion; but very small jewels
in the ear may be looked on, like small finger-rings, necklaces, and
bracelets, as unobjectionable from an æsthetic point of view, though
real beauty unadorned is adorned the most.
Formerly Fashion maltreated the poor ears quite as badly as it still
does the waist and the feet. Lubbock remarks that the East Islanders
enlarge their ears till they come down to the shoulders; and Darwin,
after referring to liberties taken with the nose, says that “the ears
are everywhere pierced and similarly ornamented, and with the Botocudos
and Lenguas of South America the hole is gradually so much enlarged that
the lower edge touches the shoulder.”
Among the Greeks, as Becker remarks, "it was considered a dishonour, or
a token of foreign manners, for men to have their ears bored.... Women
and girls, however, not only used earrings, ἐνώτια, ἐλλόβια, ἑλικτῆρες
which are seen perpetually in vases, but also wore numerous articles of
jewellery about the neck, the arms, and on the leg above the ankle."
The ancients, too, had heard of the malformed ears of primitive peoples.
“It is possible,” says Tylor, “that there may be some truth in the
favourite wonder-tale of the old geographers, about the tribes whose
great ears reached down to their shoulders, though the story had to be
stretched a good deal when it was declared they lay down on one ear and
covered themselves with the other for a blanket.”
Such blanket-ears would be the æsthetic equivalent of modern bustles,
crinolettes, and wasp-waists.