Should women cut their hair?

[goldenchild17]

Biblical and Church answer?

To what degree and all that.

1 Cor 11:5-16

[color=blue]"But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved. For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil. A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; nor was man created for woman, but woman for man; for this reason a woman should have a sign of authority 6 on her head, because of the angels. Woman is not independent of man or man of woman in the Lord. For just as woman came from man, so man is born of woman; but all things are from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him, whereas if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given (her) for a covering? [b]But if anyone is inclined to be argumentative, we do not have such a custom, nor do the churches of God[/b]."[/color]

Does this last part suggest that the Church does not find this to be something important enough to discuss?

Just wondering because the question was brought up to me.

[phatcatholic]

which translation are you using? the RSV-CE translates vs. 16 as:

"If any one is disposed to be contentious, we recognize no other practice, nor do the churches of God."

in this case he would not be denying what he has previously set forth (which is what your translation seems to suggest) but instead affirming it. my navarre commentary on the verse has this to say:[list][b]13-16.[/b] Lastly, St Paul appeals to custom. Given that in both the Jewish and the Greek worlds it was customary for women to appear in public in special attire, with all the mor reason should Christian women dress in a special way at public worship. The Apostle must have in mind the danger--more proximate in the case of women--of acting with a certain vanity or frivolity. He is arguing in favor of that good taste, even in matters of external deportment, which so dignifies women.
[/list]i hope that helps

pax christi,
phatcatholic

[goldenchild17]

That was the NAB I was using... Anyways yeah that helps. Are there any more passages dealing with the subject in the NT?

[phatcatholic]

i'm away from my books now. you should check the footnotes and cross-references from the NAB.

[StColette]

Those verses always got me especially

"Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him"

When most of the appearances of Christ to visionaries such as Sister Faustina show him having long hair. I always wondered about that verse. If it more or less was speaking about the culture and fashion of the time in that area.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='goldenchild17' date='Jun 29 2005, 08:43 PM']That was the NAB I was using...  Anyways yeah that helps.  [right][snapback]627988[/snapback][/right]
[/quote]
The NAB isn't really the best translation. The RSV-CE is a better one, and I would recommend it over the NAB any time.

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='StColette' date='Jun 30 2005, 11:03 AM']Those verses always got me especially

"Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him"

When most of the appearances of Christ to visionaries such as Sister Faustina show him having long hair. I always wondered about that verse. If it more or less was speaking about the culture and fashion of the time in that area.
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[/quote]
me too. im very confused by all of it.

ive always been a little antsy about the whole... woman was created for the glory of man thing too. just me.

[goldenchild17]

I understand the NAB isn't a very good translation. But I looked up the Douay-Rheims also and this is what it said:

I Cor. 11:16 [color=blue] "But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the Church of God." [/color]

[Apotheoun]

What Paul is saying is that one must not be contentious about this tradition, because -- reformulated positively -- the Churches of God know of no other practice. In other words, hold to the tradition and do it what you have been taught.

[daugher-of-Mary]

so it was an issue of not causing scandal?

[phatcatholic]

This from Tertullian is interesting:[list][url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/SOURCES/APPAREL.TXT"]The Apparel of Women[/url]

[b]CHAPTER 4[/b]

(2) We use the word dress when we refer to what they call womanly grace, whereas make-up is more fittingly called womanly disgrace. Articles of dress are considered gold and silver and jewels and clothes, whereas make-up consists in the care of hair and of the skin and of those parts of the body which attract the eye. On one we level the accusation of ambition; on the other, that of prostitution. I say that now, O handmaid of God, that you may well know what, out of all these, is proper for your behavior, since you are judged by different principles, namely, those of humility and chastity.
. . . .
[b]CHAPTER 6[/b]

(1) I see some women dye their hair blonde by using saffron. They are even ashamed of their country, sorry that they were not born in Germany or in Gaul! Thus, as far as their hair is concerned, they give up their country. It is hardly a good omen for them that they wish their hair to be flame-colored and mistake for beauty something which merely stains them.

(2) As a matter of fact, the strength of these bleaches really does harm to the hair, and the constant application of even any natural moist ubstance will bring ruin to the head itself, just as the warmth of the sun, while desirable for giving life and dryness to the hair, if overdone is hurtful. How can they achieve beauty when they are doing themselves harm; how can they make something attractive by means of filth? Shall a Christian woman heap saffron on her hair as upon an altar? For, surely, anything that is normally burned in honor of an unclean spirit, may be considered as a sacrifice to idols, unless it is applied for honest and necessary and wholesome uses for which all of God's creatures were provided.

(3) But the Lord has said: 'Which of you can make a white hair black or out of a black a white?' Thus do they refute the word of the Lord. 'Behold,' they say, 'out of white or black we make it blonde, which is surely more attractive.' Why, you will even find people who are ashamed of having lived to old age and try to make their hair black when it is white. Are you not ashamed of such folly? Trying to keep it a secret that you have reached that age for which you longed and prayed, sighing for youth which was a time of sin, missing the chance to show some true maturity! I hope that the daughters of Wisdom will avoid such foolishness. The harder we work to conceal our age the more we reveal it.

(4) Or does your eternal life depend on the youthful appearance of your hair? Is that the incorruptibility which we have to put on for the reign that is to come--the incorruptibility promised by the kingdom that will be free from sin? Well, indeed, you speed toward the Lord, well you make haste to be free from this most wicked world, you who find it unpleasant to approach your own end!
. . . .
[b]CHAPTER 7[/b]

(1) What profit, again, do you derive for your salvation from all the labor spent in arranging your hair? Why can you not leave your hair alone, instead of at one time tying it up, at another letting it hang loose, now cultivating it, now thinning it out? Some women prefer to tie it up in little curls, while others let it fall down wild and disheveled--a hardly commendable kind of simplicity. Besides, some of you affix to your heads I know not what monstrosities of sewn and woven wigs, now in the form of a cap as if it were a casing for the head and a covering for the crown, now in the form of a chignon at the back of the neck.

(2) I am surprised that there is no open defiance of the Lord's precepts one of which declares that no one can add anything to his stature. You, however, do add something to your weight anyway by wearing some kind of head-dresses or piling shield-bosses upon your necks! If you are not ashamed of your outrageous behavior, then be at least ashamed of covering yourselves with filth, in the fear that you may be putting on a holy and Christian head the cast-offs of hair of some stranger who was perhaps unclean, perhaps guilty and destined for hell. In fact, why do you not banish all this slavery to beauty from your own free head? It will do you no good to seem beautiful; you are wasting your time looking for the cleverest manufacturers of wigs. God commands women to be veiled. I imagine He does so lest the heads of some of them should be seen!
. . . .
[b]CHAPTER 8[/b]

(2) Now, since, by a defect of nature, there is inborn in men because of women (just as in women because of men) the desire to please, the male sex also has its own peculiar trickeries for enhancing their appearance: for instance, cutting the beard a bit too sharply, trimming it too neatly, shaving around the mouth, arranging and dyeing our hair, darkening the first signs of gray hair, disguising the down on the whole body with some female ointments, smoothing off the rest of the body by means of some gritty powder, then always taking occasion to look in a mirror, gazing anxiously into it. Are not all of these things quite idle and hostile to modesty once we have known God, have put aside the desire to please others and forsworn all lasciviousness?
. . . .
[b]CHAPTER 10[/b]

(4) I will grant you that God foresaw all these things and that He has permitted them, and that Isaias does not object to any purple garments, permits the wearing of an ornament shaped like a bunch of grapes in the hair, and finds no fault with crescent-shaped necklaces. Still, let us not flatter ourselves, as the pagans are accustomed to do, that God is merely the Creator of the world and thereafter pays no attention to the works He has created.
[/list]quick!! hide from Tertullian!!

Edited July 1, 2005 by phatcatholic

[franciscanheart]

thats cool reading and all but please cover up the BO - it makes me ill. [i really liked the part about bleached hair - i guess more so because i have never done anything chemical to my hair like that]

[phatcatholic]

[daugher-of-Mary]

Wow. That was really cool, but it also made me giggle. I wonder what Tertullian would say about dyed and spiked with wood-glue hair, mullets, or dredlocks

[philothea]

Whew. So I don't have to get rid of the ornament shaped like a bunch of grapes, then...?

(I like those excerpts!)

[phatcatholic]

[quote name='philothea' date='Jul 2 2005, 11:14 PM']Whew.  So I don't have to get rid of the ornament shaped like a bunch of grapes, then...?

(I like those excerpts!)
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yea, thank God! i thought i was going to have to throw mine away too......

[DeeDee]

What about those guys in the bible who took the Nazarite vow, like Samson and some others. Oh, I think Samson's mama did that for him, haha

[StColette]

Deedee I just wanted to say I'm glad to see that you're still around