When Jack Straw the other day encountered a Muslim woman, face veiled in niqab, it spelt in his mind the last straw for white-dominated multiculturalism in Britain.
Surely and soon enough the post-9/11 discourse centring on the ostensibly uncomplicated opposition between the benign forces of ‘modernity’ on one hand and of medievalist ‘orthodoxy’ on the other received fresh impetus. What doubt could there be that it was unambiguously the Muslim community that was obstinately obstructing the march of reason, nowhere more apparent than in the way they brainwash their womenfolk. Never mind that to this day most men, white or not, tend to be ‘modern’ when it comes to other women and ‘medieval’ in relation to their own!
There are of course those who raise questions. For instance, if the essence of ‘modernity’ resides in the march of reason and the regime of inalienable human rights, how self-evidently do the claimants of ‘modernity’ pass the test. Were one to cast an objective and non-racist eye on the record of the fair-skinned agents of world history since the Enlightenment, a pretty picture may not emerge. Nor indeed, were one to consider the record of religions, may the Church score a great deal higher than barbarisms of the non-Christian kind.
The strong possibility then is that ‘modernity’ may, after all, find a referent only in the march of technology and money-circulation; and who doesn’t know to what ends these continue to be deployed by the proponents of ‘modernity.’
Furthermore, whereas it may seem on the face of it that women other than the Muslim ones exercise a wider range of life-choices, including sartorial ones, please let us not pretend that male-dominated power-structures among Jews, Christians, even Hindus have thought any differently about their women than have Muslim patriarchs. Upon scrutiny it may turn out that, in theory, there is rather little that sets them apart, although differential aspects of community histories in various regions and epochs have perhaps contributed to degrees of freedom or unfreedom which then are peddled as ontological judgements.
Having placed those queries on record, let us return to the subject of women’s hair and apparel. A remarkable uniformity of injunction and purpose meets us here through the history of culture. First the Judaic past:
“It is not like the daughters of Israel to walk out with heads uncovered”.
And “cursed be the man who lets the hair of his wife be seen.”
Again,
“During the Tannaitic period the Jewish woman’s failure to cover her head was considered an affront to her modesty.”
The subject of ‘modesty’ as we know crops up everywhere; and, as we also know, Frederick Engels in 1884 was to make a definitive linkage between this overbearing concern with women’s sexuality and the emergence of private property. More of that later. For now the ingenuous precursor of that argument is cutely contained in this further gem from ancient Rabbinical teaching on the subject:
“A woman who exposes her hair for self-adornment brings poverty.”(1)
Next, this from the redoubtable St.Paul, as we enter the evangelical Christian era:
“Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man. . .”
“Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonours his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head.”
Should you ask why, a more explicit answer is provided:
“A man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God, but a woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.”
Were you still in some confusion, here is the clincher:
“The head covering is a symbol of woman’s subjection to the man and to God.”(2)
As is well-known, what may be called Hinduism is a vast and diverse set of practices drawn from an equally vast and diverse spectrum of texts, beginning from Vedic times (usually placed back to 1500 B.C.) with no single text occupying an undisputed canonical position. Yet, barring a few traditions —chiefly the Shivaite cults— there is a fairly constant refrain that the chief duty of the woman is to her man, and chastity her highest virtue. Indeed, as in the case of Ram’'s consort, Sita, even the highest of women could risk abandonment no matter how guiltless if a sufficiently strong suspicion was floated.
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