Women in Public

Part Two - Helpful Materials

Rex Banks

Clearly it will be helpful to know something of the relevant Roman customs of the first century.

Aristocratic women are regularly depicted bareheaded. The images here (left to right) are of Livia, (born c 59 BC) Julia Domna (2nd cen AD) and Agrippina the Younger (died AD 59). These women were powerful influential figures. Livia was the wife of Octavian and mother of emperor Tiberius. Julia Domna was the wife of emperor Severus and mother of emperors Geta and Caracalla. Agrippina was the great grand daughter of Augustus and the mother of Nero.

" As for the palla, the vast majority of female portrait busts we possess show the woman with an unveiled head (probably in order to display her elaborate hairstyle to the viewer). It is difficult to see how most of these architectural hairstyles could have withstood a mantle being laid on top – it would have crushed the rows of curls and braids" (Kelly Olson, Matrona and Whore: Clothing and Definition in Roman Antiquity Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World edited by Christopher A. Faraone, Laura K. McClure p. 190).

It is significant that respectable aristocratic Roman women are shown in public and private situations both with and without a headdress of some kind. Olson says:

"Even in the procession depicted on the Aria Pacis where we would expect to find all the women with the palla drawn up over their heads some are veiled and some are not: apparently it was a decision left up to the woman" (ibid).

The Aria Pacis (Altar of Peace) was commissioned by the Senate in 13 BC.  Aristocratic dress is very clearly shown in the frieze. The woman depicted on the left may be Antonia the younger. Like the males around her, in this public procession she is bareheaded except for a laurel wreath. Olson adds:

"And although mentioned a few times in the literary sources, except for busts of Vestal Virgins and some representations of women sacrificing, there are not many portraits extant in which the woman’s hair is tied in fillets. It is clear that not every woman wore them or perhaps they wore them only on religious or ceremonial occasions. Again it is hard to see what place fillets could occupy on the head if the woman chose to wear an elaborate hairstyle” (ibid).

The same picture emerges when we look at non-aristocratic women in public scenes from everyday life.  In the scenes below a bareheaded Roman matron served by a bareheaded woman selects a goose in a meat market (left). In the next scene a bareheaded woman from mid-2nd century AD runs a shop selling snails, rabbits etc. The third scene, taken from a book depicting Roman life between 100 B.C. and 200 AD, shows a bareheaded woman serving wine to a tavern patron (What Life Was Like When Rome Ruled The World Time Life Books p. 82). The picture from Pompeii (right) depicts women working alongside a man in a dye shop.

Next to a statue of a bareheaded woman from Rome pictured in Women in the Classical World we read:

"On a statue of a matron...from the time of Augustus (27B.C.E.-14C.E.) we can see the stola (an over garment worn over the dress-Rex)....rarely depicted except apparently to honor ladies of a later era for their old fashioned virtues. The stola and certainly the vittae (headband-Rex) seem to have gone out of fashion by the time this statue was made" (Fantham et al p. 232).

  Gill has:

“One of the best known (images of husbands and wives) is the portrait of a couple from a house at Pompeii. (Left - Rex) The painting, found on the back wall of a small exedra opening off the atrium probably shows the master of the house; the atrium, as we know from ancient sources, was the place to display the ancestral portraits ... Pompeii was located near Naples but it was a typical Roman city. Destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD it is a snapshot of life in a first century Roman city This image of the middle years of the first century AD, shows that women could be presented with uncovered hair alongside an image of their husband.  This public image may be compared with the pair of bronze busts, probably husband and wife, displayed in the ala of the atrium.”

Right is the funerary relief of Antistia Plutia, wife of Antistius Sarculo (c 10BC - 30AD).

During the reign of Augustus (27BC - 14AD) hairstyles became more elaborate and during the reign of the Flavian emperors (69 - 96) more elaborate still.

It’s no exaggeration to say that for women of wealth “feminine coiffure” was a “feature.” Listen to Ovid (43BC -17AD)

“We’re captivated by elegance: don’t ignore your hair: beauty’s granted or denied by a hand’s touch. There isn’t only one style: choose what suits each one … An oval-shaped head suggests a plain parting …A round face asks for a small knot on the top, leaving the forehead free, showing the ears. One girl should throw her hair over both shoulders: Another tied up behind … Blown tresses suit this girl, loosely scattered: that one’s encircled by tight-bound hair. (Every) new day adds another new style. And tangled hair suits many girls” (Art of Love Bk 3 Part 3).

Thus:

“(In) a Roman context such as Corinth the evidence suggests that there was no necessary social shame as such associated with a woman not covering her head” (The Woman Ought to Have Control over her Head because of the Angels – Gospel and Gender: a Trinitarian engagement with being male and female in Christ – Douglas Atchison Campbell p 48).

This appears to have been true of wealthy women who followed Ovid’s advice and of women who served in taverns and markets (above).

Greek

It is helpful to keep in mind that in AD 77 the city of Corinth was again devastated, this time by an earthquake. Rome rebuilt the city and it is this new city that Pausanias writes about in his Description of Greece. Winter points out that Pausanias "does not provide hard evidence of the culture (of Corinth) of the mid first century" (p 16) which was the city known to Paul. Thompson explains:

“For over a century and a half after its founding, Italian influence is illustrated by the overwhelming predominance of Latin as the language used for writing public announcements in stone (Kent 1966:18).”

However the city rebuilt after AD 77 developed along different lines from the one which it replaced.   

“As time passed, with the influence of Greek neighbours and pro-Greek attitudes of the emperor Hadrian, (emperor 117 -138 Rex) the Greek language was increasingly used” (Thompson p. 100).

Hadrian set out to re Hellenize Corinth. Thus:

“In addition to the re adoption of Greek as the language of public inscriptions, Corinthian coinage of the second century has a marked tendency to feature traditional Corinthian gods and cults” (Describing Greece William Hutton p. 148).

Nevertheless we need to say a word about Greek custom of the day. In my view Paul's letters to the Corinthians suggest that the brethren at Corinth were indeed influenced by Greek thought. Oepke says of the Greek situation:

"It used to be asserted by theologians that (in 1 Cor 11:2-16 [Rex]) Paul was simply endorsing the unwritten law of Hellenic and Hellenistic feeling for what was proper. But this view is untenable. To be sure, the veil was not unknown in Greece. It was worn partly as adornment and partly on such special occasions as match-making and marriage...and the worship of chthonic deities (in the form of a garment drawn over the head.) But it is quite wrong that Greek women were under some kind of compulsion to wear a veil in public" (TDNT vol 3 p. 562).

(Chthonic worship is the worship of the dead).

So according to Oepke the view that "used to be asserted by theologians" is "untenable."  Recognising this, many who are wedded to the custom position have had to search for some other first century practice to explain Paul's words, and this has seen the rise of the so called “hairstyle” position. W. Harold Mare states:

“James B. Hurley notes that in contrast ancient pottery shows Greek women in public without head coverings. (Did Paul Require Veils or the Silence of Women? A Consideration of 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36, WTJ vol.35 [Winter, 1973] No. 2, p 194). In Corinth, the women may well have gone to public meetings without veils” (Expositors Bible Commentary 1st  Corinthians p. 255).

As we will see (Replacing Old Custom Arguments  with New Custom Argument) having become convinced that Paul's instructions do not conform to first century custom Hurley embraced the "hairstyle" position in an attempt to explain 1 Cor 11:2-16 in terms of some other local custom. In fact despite insurmountable problems with the  "hairstyle" position many are now defending it because they realise that Paul's instructions in 1 Cor 11 do not reflect head covering practices among women of the period. For example Philip B Payne of Fuller Theological Seminary author of Man and Woman One in Christ and a leading egalitarian scholar has written:

"What head covering was disgraceful for women? Virtually all depictions of Greek women, not only in formal portraits and busts, but also in the vase paintings and other depictions of daily life, show respectable women with their hair done upon on their heads, not hanging loose. There is virtually no evidence that veiling was a custom or that the lack of a shawl in daily life or in worship was generally regarded as disgraceful. The interpretation that Paul was requiring a shawl in daily life to avoid disgrace does not fit what we know of Greek culture" (Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, No 3 2006 Wild Hair and Gender Equality in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 p. 9).

And

"A wealth of pictorial and literary evidence contradicts the notion that social convention required women to cover their heads with a garment" (p. 11).

In his book The New Testament World in Pictures, William H. Stephens has a section entitled Men and Women, largely devoted to pictures and comments about male and female costume of the period. Next to a picture of a woman with a mantle on her head, Stephens comments:

“Portraits of Eastern women such as Syrian, are shown with head covered … Greek portraits are mixed, with some heads covered and some without” (p. 346 [emphasis mine]).

Commenting upon veiling customs, Keener says that "evidence for this custom in Greek life is “sparse" adding that "the standard citation from Aristophanes is half a millennium earlier, with little later evidence to support it" (p. 27).

David W. J. Gill has:

“Public marble portraits of women at Corinth, presumably members of wealthy and prestigious families are most frequently shown bare-headed. This would suggest that it was socially acceptable in a Roman colony for women to be seen bare-headed in public” (The Importance Of Roman Portraiture For Head-Coverings In 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 Tyndale Bulletin 41:2 NA 1990).

Although I am not a fan of Priscilla Papers, I think the following is correct:

“Beyond this, there is little evidence that Corinthian women really did wear head coverings in order to signify such submission. Morna Hooker cites one contemporaneous example of veils as signs of female submission: ‘According to Jewish custom, a bride went bare-headed until her marriage as a symbol of her freedom; when married, she wore a veil as a sign that she was under the authority of her husband.’  But could Paul really have expected the mixed congregation in Corinth to have caught such an oblique reference to a ‘Jewish custom’? Indeed, would the apostle who preached freedom from the law really have tried to enforce a mere custom on Gentiles?" (Headcoverings and Women’s Roles in the Church Laurie C. Hurshman Priscilla Papers 17:1 Winter 2003 p. 17).

Clearly we need to exercise great care when dealing with commentaries and encyclopaedias which contain outdated information or which uncritically repeat the claims of earlier writers. It is unfortunate that generations of brethren have been influenced by statements like the following:

“Years before and years subsequent to the time this letter was written to the Corinthians at Corinth, it was the custom of women in Corinth, and in some other places, never to appear in public with their heads 'uncovered' or faces 'unveiled'” (C R Nichol God’s Woman p. 120).

 “What was the veil, actually, that was worn in those days? It was a large loose mantle which the woman wrapped around her head and face, leaving only the eyes visible, and sometimes only one eye” (Coffman).

Roman Greek Corinth

It is evident from the above that a good case can be made that in a typical first century Roman Greek city women were free to choose to appear in public covered or uncovered. Now let's focus on the city of Corinth itself.

I have used as a starting point the  article entitled  Hairstyles, Head coverings, and St Paul, Portraits from Roman Corinth by Cynthia L. Thompson which appeared  in the Biblical Archaeologist  vol 51, No 2, June 1988.  I do not share Thompson's understanding of 1 Cor 11:2-16, but the archaeological material which she presents is very interesting. She begins her discussion as follows:

"In 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 Paul recommends appropriate hairstyles and head coverings for men and women.  Discussions of this passage have seldom paid much attention to relevant archaeological evidence. (Emphasis mine). Such evidence, however, can be very helpful in clarifying the historical context in which Paul and his congregation lived.  In this paper I shall present a selection of artefacts from the museum of Corinth excavations, unearthed over the last ninety years, and discuss what these show us about hairstyles and head coverings known to men and women in the city from the late first century BCE through the mid second century C. E" (p. 99).

In my view Thompson, unlike many others, is focusing on the right time the right place, and the right artefacts.  She adds:

 "(It) is not easy to break through the artistic conventions of portraiture and determine the attire characteristics of everyday life.  There were undoubtedly differences in clothing and hairstyle based on class distinctions ... on external circumstances, like weather, and on particular occupations and activities" (pp. 99, 100).

Having given pictorial examples of, and having discussed the artefacts from the Corinthian museum, Thompson states:

“The evidence reviewed suggests that the Christian women of Corinth who felt that they could choose whether or not to cover their heads may well typify Greco-Roman women of the first century CE” (p. 112).

Although disagreeing with Thompson on some points Gill concurs:

"Public marble portraits of women at Corinth, presumably members of wealthy and prestigious families are most frequently shown bare-headed.  This would suggest that it was socially acceptable in a Roman colony for women to be seen bare-headed in public" (p. 251).

Thompson adds:

"Because most of the women’s portraits presented here portray women with uncovered heads, one may infer that bare headedness in itself was not a sign of a socially disapproved lifestyle (emphasis mine). These women certainly wished to be seen as respectable. The wall paintings of Pompeii buried in 79 CE suggest that for Hellenistic and Roman women, a veil was a possible choice but not a requirement” (ibid. [emphasis mine]).

Conclusion

In my view in 1 Cor 11:2-16 Paul is discussing male and female attire in the worship setting (see Context). I have argued that Paul's instructions conform to no known first century worship custom. However some contend that Paul is also discussing the appearance of women in all public situations and they argue that his comments simply reflect contemporary attitudes towards women's dress. Supposedly respectable first century women in Corinth wore a covering in public, and it was shameful not to do so. In this section I have argued that this is not the case and that the best available evidence points in the opposite direction.

Commentaries are not always helpful, especially older works. For example Clarke’s Commentary was one of the few available to me as a new Christian. Commenting upon 1 Cor 11:5 he says:

“(It) was a custom, both among the Greeks and Romans, and among the Jews an express law, that no woman should be seen abroad without a veil. This was, and is, a common custom through all the east, and none but public prostitutes go without veils. And if a woman should appear in public without a veil, she would dishonour her head - her husband. And she must appear like to those women who had their hair shorn off as the punishment of whoredom, or adultery.”

We have a more accurate picture today but modern commentaries must also be handled with caution. For example in the Bible Knowledge Commentary we read:

“It cannot be unequivocally asserted but the preponderance of evidence points towards the head coverings of women as a universal custom in the first century in both Jewish culture ([apocryphal] 3 Maccabees 4.6, Mishnah Ketuboth 7.6 Babylonian Talmud Ketuboth 72a-b) and Greco-Roman culture (Plutarch Moralia 3.232c 4.267b) Apuleius Golden Ass 11.10” (David K. Lowery The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, Volume 1 edited by John F. Walvoord Roy B. Zuck p. 529).

If this is “the preponderance of evidence” available the to the scholars from Dallas Theological Seminary, the custom position is on shaky grounds. Consider the following when evaluating Lowery's evidence:

·         On the Talmudic writings see above.

·         On Plutarch see above.

·         The Golden Ass 11 contains a description of an Isis Procession. In v 10 we read that female initiates wore “transparent veils.” However in our Custom and Worship Mystery Religions we pointed out that at various times both male and female participants in mystery rites are depicted both bareheaded and covered. We cannot be selective.

·         In 3 Maccabees 4.6 we read:

“And young women who had just entered the bridal chamber to share married life exchanged joy for wailing; their myrrh-perfumed hair sprinkled with ashes, and were carried away unveiled, all together raising a lament instead of a wedding song, as they were torn by the harsh treatment of the heathen.”

Wedding garb is not everyday garb. Verse 8 says:

“Their husbands, in the prime of youth, their necks encircled with ropes instead of garlands, spent the remaining days of their marriage festival in lamentations instead of good cheer and youthful revelry, seeing death immediately before them.”

Garlands around the grooms’ necks do not suggest that young men were required to wear such adornment in everyday life. In my view it is not the case that “the preponderance of evidence points towards the head coverings of women as a universal custom in the first century.”

Those who take the custom position must produce evidence that Paul's instructions do indeed reflect the relevant practice. If the available evidence suggests that Paul's instructions do not conform to first century custom, this would further undermine that position. Hence this present discussion of first century custom.  Those who take the custom position need to focus upon first century Roman Greek Corinth, rather than upon Tarsus or North Africa. They need to focus upon material relating to the first century rather than upon custom in Sparta from a millennium earlier. They need to focus upon head covering practices rather than upon the use of burka- type garments. Having reminded us that "Greek and Roman relics available to us cover a time-span which reaches more than a full three centuries to either side of the church of Christ" Hurley says:

"Veiling customs and hair styles can be discovered by simply looking at the heads of the figures portrayed. Such relics make it plain that both Greek and Roman culture knew unveiled women" (p. 257).

This has caused many to rethink their position on 1 Corinthians 11:2-16

“Recent discussions of 1 Cor 11:2-16 have raised the possibility that the real issue was not about covering the head with some kind of draped veil, but rather about hairstyles. This is proposed because in a Roman context such as Corinth the evidence suggests that there was no necessary social shame as such associated with a woman not covering her head” (The Woman Ought to Have Control over her Head because of the Angels – Gospel and Gender: a Trinitarian engagement with being male and female in Christ – Douglas Atchison Campbell p. 48).

Increasingly students of scripture are recognising that the traditional custom position is not supported by the evidence. However rather than abandon their position they are looking for some other custom and this explains the rise of the "hairstyle" position.