What Happened to Head Covering?
Most Christian women today have never seriously considered wearing a head covering in worship. I certainly hadn’t. If the subject arose at all, it was usually dismissed as a cultural custom from ancient Corinth.
Sometimes the covering was treated as the temporary expression of a timeless principle: headship remains, but the symbol may change. Yet few people could explain what replaced the covering—or why Christians stopped using the symbol Paul actually described.
The Erosion of a Symbol
The practice did not disappear overnight. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western expectations surrounding clothing, hairstyles, modesty, and distinctions between the sexes gradually changed. Hats became less common in everyday life, and women’s uncovered heads became culturally unremarkable.
By the late 1960s, however, the change was no longer merely about fashion. Some feminist organizations explicitly opposed head coverings because they understood them as symbols of women’s subjection.
In 1968, the National Organization for Women adopted the following resolution:
RESOLUTION ON HEAD COVERINGS
1968
“WHEREAS, the wearing of a head covering by women at religious services is a custom in many churches and whereas it is a symbol of subjection within these churches, NOW recommends that all chapters undertake an effort to have all women participate in a ‘national unveiling’ by sending their head coverings to the task force chairman immediately. At the Spring meeting of the Task force on Women in Religion, these veils will then publicly be burned to protest the second class status of women in all churches.”
—NOW Issues Policy Manual, “Resolution on Head Coverings,” PDF p. 86
The resolution is historically significant because NOW did not describe the covering as a meaningless fashion accessory. It identified it as “a symbol of subjection” and called for its public rejection.
The following Easter, fifteen women participated in what became known as the “Easter Bonnet Rebellion” at a Milwaukee Catholic church. Wearing deliberately oversized hats, they approached the communion rail, removed their hats, and received communion bareheaded as a demonstration for women’s rights. Contemporary reporting described the protest as part of a broader challenge to the Church’s treatment of women. (Catholic Advocate, April 17, 1969)
A Change Recorded in Catholic Sources
Roman Catholic documents provide a particularly clear record of this transition. The 1917 Code of Canon Law required women to cover during worship:
“Men, in a church or outside a church, while they are assisting at sacred rites, shall be bare-headed … women, however, shall have a covered head and be modestly dressed, especially when they approach the table of the Lord.”
—1917 Code of Canon Law, canon 1262 §2, English translation, p. 380
By 1976, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith described that requirement very differently:
“But it must be noted that these ordinances, probably inspired by the customs of the period, concern scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance, such as the obligation imposed upon women to wear a veil on their head (1 Cor 11:2–16); such requirements no longer have a normative value.”
—Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Inter Insigniores (1976)
The 1983 Code did not include the former head-covering requirement. Instead, canon 6 stated:
“When this Code takes force, the following are abrogated: 1/ the Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1917.”
—1983 Code of Canon Law, canon 6 §1
These Catholic documents do not settle how Protestants should interpret 1 Corinthians 11. They do, however, provide a dated record of how a longstanding Christian practice went from being formally required to being described as nonnormative and then omitted from canon law.
It would be too simple to say that feminism alone caused Christian women to abandon head coverings. Changes in fashion, church culture, biblical interpretation, and attitudes toward authority all played a part. Nevertheless, feminist opposition was one identifiable influence—and one that explicitly recognized and rejected the symbolism of the covering.
Within a remarkably short period, a practice familiar to generations of Christian women became strange. Eventually, what felt unfamiliar began to feel unbiblical, even though the words of 1 Corinthians 11 had not changed.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” —Romans 12:2
In what ways have cultural movements shaped what feels normal—or abnormal—to you in worship?
When evaluating a Christian practice, are you beginning with Scripture or with the customs you inherited?
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