When I began attending Chinese church gatherings several years ago, I noticed that many senior female members worn a small scarf on their heads. I didn’t know what that headgear was for but dared not ask them. That would be a quite silly question.

It was till I read Corinthians 1 when I understood the custom. They just followed the holy script.

But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved.
Corinthians 1, 11:5

According to Paul, the logic behind this custom is this: God is the head of man, and man is the head of woman. So woman should respect her husband by covering her head, thus indirectly worshipping the God.

However, when I had a chance to see how Americans worship the God, it surprised me that the American women didn’t wear anything on their heads at all. This was bizarre. It seemed to me that the Chinese church (at least some groups) in the US was more conservative than the American church. Maybe they were fundamentalist groups.

In the Bible, the custom of wearing headscarf bears a really long history—way back to the genesis period. For example, in Genesis 24:65 when Rebecca saw Issac, she “took her veil and covered herself.” Even in the Israel, it is very common to see modern Jewish women having their heads covered.

Any tradition is not invented out of blue. How could Jewish women cover their heads in the first place? Again, as they always say, the answer is in the Book!

In the beginning of Genesis chapter 6, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose. …and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. ” This is interesting because this is the first (?) place in the Bible saying that God had sons and that they were lusty. They took human daughters as their wives without facing any consequences. This is a dangling story in the Genesis because the Bible never mentions it before and after.

Scholars have long suspected that there were some missing pieces there. Serious Christian scholars all know that some books were left out when the current Bible were formed in the 5th century. The detailed account of this story was indeed discussed in the Gospel of James and Gospel of Magdalene. Those books, and people who believe them, belong to Gnosticism.

In those books, story was told that because God disliked his sons’ taking human daughters, he instructed human daughters to cover their heads so that God’s sons who were flying in the sky wouldn’t see them, thus would not be tempted by them.

Anyway, head covering is not a big deal, and in fact, it is universal. Traditionally, unmarried Chinese women were not allowed to leave home, and all brides have to cover their heads during the wedding. This kind of head covering exists in almost all cultures.

The head covering custom is very likely due to strict moral reasons. For example, men usually believe that virginity is a virtue. So the society regulates that unmarried women should stay at home, not expose themselves in public, not touch or be touched by other men, and to extend the logic a little bit more, not be seen by other men. Head covering was then invented, and is still practiced in Muslim society even today.