Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Those who concede this much ought to reconsider the standing of the very word — what "woman" means, from the earliest letters of the sacred record. For they will find that it is a name of sex, not a grade within sex, since God surnamed Eve "woman" and "female" while she had not yet known a man. [Female as the sex in general, woman as the specific grade of that sex.] So, since Eve, still unmarried, already bore the name "woman," that name became common property of the virgin too. Nor is it strange that the apostle, moved by that same Spirit by which the whole of divine Scripture — including that passage in Genesis — was composed, used the same word, setting down "woman" in a sense that fits the precedent of the unmarried, virgin Eve. [2] And the rest of the argument agrees. For by the very fact that he did not name "virgins" separately — as he does elsewhere when he teaches about marrying — he sufficiently declares that his statement covers every woman and the whole sex, with no distinction drawn between "woman" and "virgin," a word he never uses at all. For the one who elsewhere knows how to distinguish — where a difference in fact is called for, and he does distinguish, designating each kind by its own name — when he does not distinguish, by not naming both, means no difference to be understood. [3] What of this: that in the Greek in which the apostle wrote his letters, the custom is to call women gynaikas rather than to use theleiai, "females"? So if this word is the one regularly used for the name of the sex — being the translation-equivalent of "female" — then in saying gynaika he named the sex. And in the sex, the virgin too is included. [4] But there is also an explicit statement: "Every woman," he says, "praying or prophesying with head uncovered disgraces her head." What is "every woman" but every age, every rank, every condition? By saying "every," he excludes no woman, just as with "man" he excludes no man and no requirement of veiling — for likewise he says "every man." So then, just as in the male sex, under the name "man," even an unmarried lad must go bareheaded, so likewise within the female sex, under the name "woman," the virgin too is commanded to cover her head. Equally in both sexes, let the younger age follow the discipline of the older — or let virgin males also be veiled, if virgin females are not veiled, since they too are not held to it by name. Let there be one rule for man and unmarried youth, if there is a different one for woman and virgin. [5] Indeed, he says the covering is owed on the angels' account, since it was because of the daughters of men that those angels departed from God. Who then would argue that only married women — women already done with virginity — are objects of desire, unless it is not permitted for virgins too to excel in beauty and attract lovers? No — let us rather see that it was not virgins alone whom they desired, since Scripture says "the daughters of men," when it could have said, indifferently, "the wives of men" or "women." [6] Even the phrase "and they took to themselves as wives" points to this — for those are "taken as wives" who are available, so to speak; of those not available it would have spoken differently. So both the widowed and the virgins were available. Thus, by naming "daughters" generally, Scripture blended the species within the genus. [7] Likewise, when he says that nature herself teaches that women ought to be veiled, since she has assigned hair to women as a covering and an adornment, is not that same covering and that same honor of the head assigned to virgins as well? If cropping her hair brings a wife shame, that same shame falls no less on a virgin. [8] In those, then, for whom one condition of the head is reckoned, one discipline of the head is required as well — even for those virgins whom childhood still shields; for from the first, the female was named "woman." And indeed Israel already keeps this practice. Yet even had Israel never kept it, our own rule, being fuller and more complete, would still hold the authority to reach further, laying the veil upon virgins as well. Let that age be excused which does not yet recognize its own sex — let it hold the privilege of innocence, for Eve and Adam too, as soon as it happened that they came to know, at once covered what they had come to recognize — but certainly for those in whom childhood has already given way, age ought to be as generous to discipline as it is to nature; for to women both bodily members and functions are then assigned. No one is a virgin from the moment she is able to marry, since her age has already, so to speak, married her own husband — namely, time itself. [9] "But suppose some woman has vowed herself to God." Even so, from that point she transforms her hair and turns her whole bearing toward that of women. Let her then assert the whole and provide the whole of what belongs to virginity; what she hides for God's sake, let her plainly keep in shadow. It is in our interest to commend to God's awareness alone what is exercised by God's grace, lest what we hope for from God we instead collect as payment from man. Why do you strip bare before God what you cover before men? Will your reserve be greater out in the street than inside the church? "If it is God's grace, and you have received it, why do you boast," he says, "as though you had not received it?" Why do you judge otherwise by the display of yourself? Or does your glory elsewhere invite others to good? And yet you yourself risk losing it, if you boast, and you drive others toward the same dangers. What is assumed out of a longing for glory is easily struck down. Cover yourself, virgin, since a virgin is what you are — a blush is owed from you. Being a virgin, refuse to let many eyes rest on you. Let no one gaze in wonder at your countenance; let no one detect the pretense you are keeping. You do well to feign yourself married, if you veil your head. Indeed, you do not even seem to lie, for you have married Christ. To him you have handed over your flesh: act according to the discipline proper to your husband. If he commands other men's wives to be veiled, how much more, surely, his own. [10] "But let no one think that the practice established by one's predecessor should be disturbed." Many yield their own good sense and their firmness to another's custom. Even if unmarried women cannot be compelled to be veiled, still those who choose to be should certainly not be forbidden — women who cannot even deny that they are virgins should be content to make free with their reputation in the safety of their own conscience before God alone. But about those who are called betrothed, I can, beyond my own small measure, declare and affirm with confidence that they should be veiled from the day on which they trembled at the first touch of a man's body, at his kiss and his hand — for in these acts everything in them has already, so to speak, been married beforehand: age through maturity, flesh through age, spirit through consciousness, modesty through the experience of the kiss, hope through expectation, and mind through will. And Rebecca supplies us a sufficient model — the moment her betrothed was pointed out to her, she covered her head for marriage on the strength of that mere recognition.