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.
In another work on Roman women Olson points out that “paintings of public life in the praedium of Julia Felix at Pompeii also show women in the forum with unveiled heads” ( Dress and the Roman Woman: Self-Presentation and Society p. 15). HERE FOR EXAMPLE.
Commenting upon Roman women of
Augustus’ time in his Roman Women, J. P.V. D Balsdon
says that "it was a matter of indifference whether women pulled the paella
up over the head or not" (p. 252).
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
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.
" The feminine
coiffure was such a feature of the toilette that a lady needed little further
head covering ... Sometimes they wore veils or draped the folds of the paella
over the head” (The Encyclopaedia of World Costume Doreen Yarwood p. 341).
These images are from the Boston University webpage.
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]). Unfortunately I have mislaid my
copy of Thompson's article, but in 1952 Gladys R. Davidson catalogued numerous
artefacts from first and second century Corinth and these included depictions
of women both with and without head coverings
(Corinth: results of excavations Conducted by the American School of
Classical Studies at Athens Volume XII the Minor Objects).
The images HERE
are from her work.
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. I need to emphasise again that in
my view Paul's instructions in 1 Cor 11:2-16 are grounded upon creation order,
just as his instructions in 1 Tim 2:8ff are grounded upon creation order. Given
my position I find appeals to first century custom unconvincing. If it is true
(as some contend) that it was considered disgraceful for a woman to speak in a
public assembly in first century Ephesus,
this does not alter the fact that Paul's instructions in 1 Tim 2 are grounded
upon the creation event and creation order.
However because discussion of 1 Cor 11:2-16 invariably involves appeals
to culture we have given some attention to this matter.