Once again, I have to admit I am at a loss to explain this. As far as I can tell it is very contradictory.
Many married, religious Jewish women cover their heads for modesty. They believe that the only person who should see the married woman's hair is her husband. I know other women who cover their heads because they like the fact that it signifies that they are married and their interaction with men is now noticeably more removed than they might have been when they were single.
Many people believe that Jewish law requires married women to cover their hair but as I mentioned in a previous post, this is Judaism and of course, there is another opinion. The whole basis for the law is a phrase in the Torah that refers to a woman who is being disciplined. She has her hair "shaken loose" -- and from that, some people figure she must have previously had it covered. At best, the Torah hints at the hair covering.
I think you can find meaning in a bowl of alphabet soup if you look long and hard enough.
Okay, so back to the wig. Many religious women choose wigs as their head covering of choice. Frankly, I don't blame them. If I was a head-coverer I would probably do that too. Why? Because every woman that I know who wears a wig looks a zillion times better in her wig that she does in her real hair!!! You should see some of these wigs. They cost a lot of money and their owners spend hours taking care of them. They have them coloured, styled and combed out regularly. If you spent that sort of money on something and then you parked it on top of your head, you would expect to take care of it.
Which brings me back to the point. If these women are covering their heads for modesty's sake, doesn't looking better than nature provided defeat the point?
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I beg to differ on one count, although I find the post superbly right on the whole: those wigs look terrible. Not the wigs themselves, actually, but the combination woman-wig is so less good than the natural God-given hairy scalp. They look fake (and not only because they are, but mostly because of the standard, boring and beyond old-fashioned dressing style), they look rigid, lacking life, and then can aid in spotting a religious lady from miles away.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've once heard, religious women shave their head (so not even the husband gets the privilege of enjoying her real hair), and that's "inherited" from back in the old days, when women of the Semitic tribes were raped by hostile nomads. Hair was considered arousing, so it was ordered that all women shave it off. And then it became a remark in the Torah.
Just my two cents. Please keep it on, GREAT BLOG.