Your eyelashes serve a purpose in that they prevent debris from
entering your eyes. However, unlike the lashes, most body hair
does not appear to serve any health function. According to
theories of evolution, body hair is a remnant of our days as
hairy apes. The alteration of the body in attempts to make it
more pleasing in order to attract a mate is universal. What
differs across time and cultures is definitions of what is
beautiful and what is done to the body to achieve the standard.
Looking at Darwin's quote, if women with less body hair
represented the standard of beauty among our ancestors, then
they were more likely to acquire a mate. In acquiring a mate,
they would produce offspring who would have similar traits. If
this cycle was repeated over enough generations, then both male
and female offspring would have far less body hair than their
ancestors. In addition, female offspring would have less hair
than their male counterparts because secondary sexual
characteristics, such as the growth of body hair