Q&A: Head Covering
Head Covering
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
I’ve long had difficulty defining head covering. If it is considered nakedness, as the Talmud derives from the verse, then why do unmarried women not need to cover their hair?
My thought, as I saw that the Rabbi also leaned this way elsewhere, is that in the past this involved erotic provocation, whereas today that no longer really applies, and so all that remains is the reason of a formal declaration—though it is not clear what its source is if originally the whole reason was modesty. And indeed, unmarried women also used to practice head covering for reasons of modesty, until it was no longer considered a modesty issue, and the unmarried stopped while married women continued. It is well known that there is also a contradiction about this in the Shulchan Arukh and Maimonides. Is this historically correct?
In the passage in tractate Ketubot it is explicit that the Talmud derives that this is Torah-level, and most commentators (except Terumat HaDeshen) explain that the intent is that it is a Torah prohibition. I do not understand them at all. All we really see is that in the time of the Torah all women used to go with head coverings, and therefore removing it is part of the humiliation of the suspected adulteress. From where does a Torah prohibition suddenly emerge?
Answer
Hello.
These are indeed not simple questions. It is theoretically possible that there is nakedness in the case of married women that is not forbidden in the case of unmarried women.
I do not know what the historical reality was, and I assume it changed across periods and places.
Your difficulty is with the Talmud, not with the medieval authorities (Rishonim). On the face of it, these are the two explanations in Rashi, but on closer look it seems to me that according to both explanations this is a Torah prohibition, since that is what emerges from the Talmud itself.
It is quite possible that this is a logical inference that was merely attached to the verse.
Discussion on Answer
I wrote that perhaps there is nakedness depending on the situation. That is indeed not the accepted approach, and so I only raised it as a possibility.
I didn’t understand what kind of nakedness exists in married women and not in unmarried women, even theoretically. Nakedness, by definition, is a part of the body that a woman generally covers, and the distinctions depend on place—each place according to what is "generally" done there. So even if married women generally cover their hair, it still doesn’t make sense to call it nakedness as long as all unmarried women do not cover their hair, since both of these groups fall under one category: "women." And to say, even theoretically, that married women and unmarried women are two separate groups with respect to the concept of nakedness seems strange to me. What is this? Does a woman who gets married "become another person"??
And accordingly, if we do not accept the distinction between unmarried and married women, then the difficulty is with the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and not with the Talmud, because the latter can be explained as you explained—that this is a rationale, Torah-level, from the laws of modesty according to the norms of their time, applying to all women, whether unmarried or married. But according to those medieval authorities who derive from here a Torah prohibition, this is difficult for me, because they distinguish between unmarried and married women, and if so then necessarily this is not a matter of modesty laws, but merely the usual practice of married women to go with their heads covered. If so, where does the Torah prohibition come from?
According to Rashi’s first explanation, "to disgrace her," one indeed sees a Torah prohibition, and the difficulty remains as above: what is different about married women versus unmarried women? But according to Rashi’s second explanation, that distinction is possible, yet I do not see any source for a Torah prohibition. (And your explanation fits very well with Rashi’s second explanation.)