How would you account for women asked to cover their heads in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16? Why is such a misogynistic statement not removed from the Holy Bible yet? Does the church support this statement?

This is a thought-provoking question and one which is especially relevant in our society today.

In the first place, we cannot add or remove passages from the Bible. Even though the Bible may contain passages which are difficult to understand or which don’t necessarily apply to our current day, we still believe that the Bible is divinely inspired and must be treated with reverence. Still, that leaves us with the question of what to do with passages such as these. Is Paul’s mandate for women to wear head coverings “divinely inspired?”

To answer this, it’s absolutely critical that we understand that the passages of the Bible always occur in a particular context. That’s also why we don’t want to add or remove things from the Bible–because context is key! Knowing who the author is, who the author’s original audience was, the original intent of the message, and the world in which the author and the audience lived is crucial for understanding the passage’s meaning for us today.

In the case of 1 Corinthians, St. Paul (the author) is writing a letter to the Christian community at Corinth around 52-57 AD. 1 Corinthians is a long letter which Paul wrote to address many issues in the church at Corinth, which was a thriving port city in Greece. Paul wrote the letter because he had heard many accounts of disorder, divisions, and misconduct in the community. In fact, the situation at Corinth was becoming pretty bad and a little embarrassing for the wider Church. People were fighting over teachings, didn’t know what to do about certain pagan practices, and were even arguing and getting drunk at the celebration of the Eucharist. Paul took up writing the letter to put the community’s scandalous behavior to rest–but in a loving and constructive way. The first concern of the letter, therefore, is to address these conflicts and moral matters and give some instruction. In other words, 1 Corinthians is a pastoral letter.

The part of the letter in question, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, specifically concerns the behavior of women when the community is gathered for prayer or for the Eucharist. To begin with, Paul acknowledges that both men and women can (and should) be praying and prophesying together (in itself a radical claim for the day). The verses that follow would seem to imply that Paul considers women inferior, but this is not the case. Look carefully at verses 11 and 12: “ Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God.” Clearly, Paul is not saying that women are of lesser value than men. What is this then about head coverings?

While Paul’s exact intended meaning is still debated, the verses which precede about man being the “head” of the woman seem to be a sort of nascent theology of the body that is not so much concerned with the authority of man over woman, but rather the reason why a head covering is seen as something dignified. Paul’s point of view is that a woman’s own biology makes her long hair something dignified, as a kind of natural “veil” over her head. His argument is something like this: “Men have naturally shorter hair, so it’s natural that their heads remain uncovered. Women have naturally longer hair, so it’s natural that their heads be covered.” You can make of that argument what you will–but it is important to note that he doesn’t intend wearing veils as a universal mandate or a moral dictate. Paul sees veils as something dignified and promoting modesty, and therefore as something which will encourage proper respect in the community between men and women. Again, recall the context of Paul’s letter: he is trying to resolve conflicts and put to rest disorderly behavior. Apparently there were issues in the community of women getting together and acting in an unruly manner, talking over each other, interrupting others, and upsetting the prayer of the community. The issue occurs in-between several others, like what to do about food from pagan rituals and avoiding improper conduct (like drunkenness, arguing, and other sins) at the celebration of the Eucharist. Paul is overall trying to give recommendations for orderly conduct; he is not putting women down or putting men above women, but urging the community to follow the norms and customs of the day for keeping orderly conduct. The intention here is not to put women down or to make a universal mandate for veils, but to promote harmony between men and women in the community by encouraging men and women alike to act respectfully, modestly, and charitably to one another.

For many centuries, veils were seen as part of the standard for a woman’s modesty in church. In our own time, this is generally not the case any more. Standards of appropriate attire change over time; what is of greatest concern for the Church is that clothing (for both men and women) not be immodest, since this is a disrespect to the sacred. There are certain communities of women in different regions of the world that still prefer to wear veils to church, and they are absolutely free to do so. Even in many Western countries, there are some Catholic communities who see the veil as something which promotes both a woman’s dignity and modesty. However, veils are not required. If you feel personally opposed to wearing a veil, you are under no moral obligation to wear one to church. Standards for modesty at Paul’s time preferred veils, but not so in our own time.