h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can someone explain why women wear jewellery? It seems to be the most futile idea in existence. I mean, what's more beautiful - a woman or an ugly shaped piece of metal? Yet women retain this weird idea that covering their perfectly-formed selves with weird shiny shapes somehow improves their appearance, rather than detracting from it.

Q: Why do women wear make-up and perfume?

A: Because they're ugly and they smell.

H.

Is that sarcasm or a joke, or even your real assumption? (The option of an assumption is open, because I suppose many men, perhaps all men, will never have seen women without makeup and perfume, so we can't really know whether they truly are ugly and smelly without it. I bet pregnant women swallow it so their daughters don't have to face the world uncovered.)

It is another puzzling question. You can see why the Pickwickians thought women were 'a curiosity to be observed, and perhaps studied (but never meddled with)'.

As far as I'm aware, the origin of women wearing jewellery was as means to show off wealth...usually of the husband/father.

Today.....because we can and because we like to.......and also to show off....(a rather basic human instinct)

It is neither futile nor incomprehensible. If you find something beautiful, then why not use it to enhance your own image? It also indicates to others the sort of things which the wearer likes, aiding in the choice of freinds/partners....after all, you are hardly likely to want to go out with someone who had remarkedly different tastes and sensibilites to you, are you?

That narrows it down a bit then

you really don't have any idea?

'most men haven't seen women [without it]...' oh, then they've only ever watched films and never been outside. If you believe that every single woman will not venture out without a faceful o' muck and a spray here and there, then the answer to my first (rhetorical) question is, apparently, no.
'I bet pregnant women swallow the stuff...' is that sarcasm, a joke, or even your real assumption? It IS dangerous when eaten, y'know. Especially if you use ancient concoctions like white lead- ah, wait, we've moved on from there.
If women did not like to dress up I would be out of a job. Shiny things are pretty, learn from the magpie. Gorgeous fabrics are lovely to be swathed in, beads to be strung about and digits adorned with weird (or classical, organic) shiny (or matte) bits of metal.
Should we therefore not cover up our lovely selves with clothes, either? ah, but they are essential for decency (depending on your location, historical period- check out those 18th century visible upper-class nipples!- and climate). A warped sense of such basic decency (Comstock, I believe) used to state that navels were not to be shown- on screen, since you would never see them in real life aside from the boudoir- and so were covered with some type of bauble. So jewellery can also preserve modesty.
Would you request your female partner to go unadorned? If she refused, would you make her?