Saturday, December 01, 2007

I should know better.

Anyone who reflected for more than a minute would realize that this makes no sense:
There is logic to the veil scheme: Men will be satisfied with their wives as long as they have no other women to compare them to, and women should accept the suppression so that each one can maintain her grip on her husband. It requires everyone to live a life of visual deprivation, so that no one sees anything that might make him want what he does not have. You are never challenged to resist temptations, and to make it easy to avoid sexual pleasures, you have to give up all the visual pleasures that could easily be yours.
And that's not what Tertullian's arguing in the first place.

Relatedly, I was not previously aware that part of the justification for Christian women wearing the veil was because they might tempt not just men, but angels. Helen of Troy, eat your heart out. Here's an essay by some guy arguing that Catholic women still have to be veiled in church.
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