One little hair patch, the moustache, is a kind of threat device, but belongs in this discussion because of its special power to reveal and conceal.
When one thinks of the moustache of the pre-hirsute era, Clark Gable with his "pencil stripe" comes to mind, or Thomas E. Dewey, or maybe even Adolf Hitler. All these, and most that one sees on the street today, are measly bits compared to the full potential of the pendant, uncut moustaches of middle-aged males. Combined with a beard, they cloak the whole lower face in a mat of thick hair - a half mask or veil. One may catch a glimpse of the pink lower lip, but never of the upper lip.
What a strange ornament the moustache is! Explanations of it in the past have been notably feeble. Some have proposed that hairy upper lips evolved to keep the mouth warm, others have suggested that it may have provided a hair screen to keep insects away from the lips of primitive man.
An interesting twist in the history of moustaches in Western societies is their prevalence among the military - though beards have been generally verboten there. The British army at one time even prohibited its men from shaving the upper lip. In the early bloom of the Anabaptist movement (which later fled Europe and eventually migrated to the United States and Canada), moustaches were so commonly associated with militarism that church doctrine prohibited moustaches among the brethren. The Mennonites and Hutterites, subsects of Anabaptism, to this day do not allow hairy upper lips, though they wear full beards and have traditionalized other elements of dress from the mid- to late 1800's. It is peculiar, on the surface, that the military, who normally try in every other way to erase individual variation among the ranks, should push the moustache custom - which, because of individual hair color variation and growth, adds individuality. It is also noteworthy that during the clean-shaven-upper-lip days of the 1950's, the strongest remaining outpost of the moustache was among the military top brass, who tended to be career soldiers.
The moustache is rare among vertebrates and even primates. However, there are some primate species which do have moustache-like hair growths. Pictured from left to right above are the Patas monkey, Allen’s monkey, Imperial monkey, Orangutans, Man
Moustaches in the 1800's created some hardware and cosmetics that we wouldn't have without them. There were special mugs made with little bars across the rim, called "moustache lifters." And, of course, moustache wax for those who pulled the moustache to the side in a "Handlebar" effect. With the hair revival in the West, some old French firms are doing a booming business exporting moustache wax in a variety of colors.
A beautiful handlebar moustache is worn by the South American Imperial monkey, but other than that most primates have poorly developed ones. Some orangs and Patas monkeys have a wisp of hair on the upper lip just above each side of the mouth, reminding us of the cartoon version of the Mexican bandido. The Celebes ape has a light-colored try at a "walrus" style. Western man must have the best developed moustache of any primate. But why is it there?
Most of our personal communication is with the mouth. We are most familiar with its sounds, less so with its large visual element. Word meanings are emphasized with mouth positions and can be changed considerably by changes in the visual signal: "Smile when you say that, Buddy." There is also a lot of lip communication without words. Such signals are rather basic to social interaction - a flash of friendship, an opening for social intercourse, a tight-lipped seriousness, the purse of disbelief, the sneer, and so on through a rather complex repertoire.
Optimum strategy of how much information we should reveal or conceal varies with the situation and with social position. Women and children are generally more expressive than men, and more effeminate males are more expressive than those who would be thought of as "locker-room boys." Or is our understanding of femininity and masculinity merely defined by gestures of expressiveness - facial mobility, especially the eyes and mouth, and body movement? In order to promote the dominant image one must not reveal the weak, whining lip of the subordinate. One way is to reduce all emotion - to keep a straight face, a stiff upper lip.
Moustaches - that is, the untrimmed variety - fan sideways and down over the upper lip, blotting out virtually all visual communication by the mouth. They fan out around the edges of the mouth, hiding or at least buffering the signal value of cheek wrinkles and the position of the mouth's corner. An adult male with a full uncut beard and moustache truly wears a mask of stoicism. The stoic face is reversed among males in most societies. The constant "flat" signal transmission in the face of fear, anxiety, tension, or pain promotes an unswerving, persevering, secure image - the image of a high dominant, someone on top of it all.
It's less intimidating to talk to someone behind a screen or over the phone where you can't see his expressions and he can't see yours. We can edit our words better than we can our facial muscle movements. Children learn early to tell oral falsehoods, but mothers also learn to look them straight in the face and ask again, watching the facial patterns for the red story.
As in the case of hair-growth in general, it is ironic that the hippie-mod trends of the late 60's have become symbolized by moustaches (especially the "Fu Manchu" style) and beards, because the lifestyle these trends projected was frank, open, and intimate. But the moustache and beard were better symbols of the mid-1950's, when the lifestyle of social strategy was "play it cool". It may appear a rather arbitrary decision whether to wear a moustache or not, but there is a lot more behind the moustache than appears on the surface. It can be symbolic of either the subscription to or deviation from cultural norms. It changes social posture in a way that traces back to a time when men met with gnashing teeth and strange oaths. It is a reversal to another time, which we shall label "The Montana Face."