Cheryl Schatz

The other issue that I was pushing Mark on was the question of whether the head covering for the woman was a symbol of honor towards the man or only shame based.

I brought out the fact that even in our day and age, the head covering for the woman is still shame based and is required to be worn so as not to expose the head hair which is considered a shame to the woman’s husband if seen in public. The head covering has no historical meaning to honor. So when Mark was trying to say that the woman wearing the head covering was honoring her husband, this has no basis in reality.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Let’s say that a wife has a bad day and she is grumpy with her husband all day. Let’s say that at the end of the day she tells him that her actions have still shown him honor. He questions her in what way she has shown him honor. She says that she put on clothes that day before she went to work.

Is the wife putting on clothes a symbol of honor? It isn’t and her husband would look at her with amazement that she would even claim such a thing. The fact is that his wife appearing in public without clothes would shame him, but her wearing clothes in public is not considered an act of honor. The history of the covering is not honor based but shame based.

So while I kept on pushing Mark to answer about Christ’s shame, he kept avoiding the issue and only focused on the husband’s shame as if Christ’s shame is not important to understand. I contend that if we truly understand what shames Christ about the head covering, then we will be in a position to understand what Paul is getting at.

Paul’s point is that we want to honor our head, not shame our head. While the cultural issue of the day brought shame onto a husband if his wife’s hair was seen in public, this cultural shame has largely been discarded in “Christianized” countries. So how does a woman honor her husband in Paul’s mind? She reflects his glory. When a woman is using her gifts and serving God in prayer and serving the body in prophesying, she reflects the man’s glory as a full complement to him. What she does in ministry should be seen as a source of pride to him, not a source of shame, as she reflects her unity in humanity with the man.