On the Veiling of Virgins

BUT WHAT WE PASSED OVER ABOVE: for the sake of the discussion that followed, so that we would not break its coherence, we will now answer. For when we argued over the apostle's absolute definition, that every woman must be understood to mean a woman of every age, the opposite side could reply that, in that case, a virgin ought to be veiled from birth, from the very beginning of her life.

BUT IT IS NOT SO: Rather, it is from the time when she begins to be aware of herself, and to awaken to the sense of her own nature, and to emerge from the virgin's state, and to experience that new sensation which belongs to the succeeding age. For the founders of the race, Adam and Eve, went naked as long as they were without intelligence. But after they tasted of the tree of recognition, they were first aware of nothing more than their cause for shame. So each of them marked awareness of their own sex by a covering. But even if she is to be veiled because of the angels, then surely the age from which the law of the veil will come into operation will be the age from which the daughters of men were able to invite concupiscence of their persons, and to experience marriage. For a virgin ceases to be a virgin from the time it becomes possible for her not to be one. And so, among Israel, it is unlawful to give one to a husband except after the attestation by blood of her maturity. Before this sign, her nature is unripe. Therefore, if she is a virgin as long as she is unripe, she ceases to be a virgin when she is perceived to be ripe. As one who is not a virgin, she is now under the law, just as she is under marriage. And the betrothed certainly have the example of Rebecca. When she was being led, herself still unknown, to an unknown betrothed, as soon as she learned that the one she had seen from afar was the man, she did not wait for the grasp of the hand, or the meeting of the kiss, or the interchange of salutation. Instead, confessing what she had felt, namely, that she had already been wedded in spirit, she then and there denied herself to be a virgin by veiling herself. O woman already belonging to Christ's discipline! For she showed that marriage also, as fornication is, is transacted by gaze and mind. Only even a Rebecca some still veil. But as for the rest, that is, those who are not betrothed, let the delay of their parents, whether caused by narrow means or by scrupulosity, look to them. Let the vow of continence itself look to them. In no respect does such delay concern an age that is already running its own assigned course, and paying its own dues to maturity. Another secret mother, Nature, and another hidden father, Time, have wedded their daughter to their own laws. Behold, your virgin daughter is already wedded: her soul by expectancy, her flesh by transformation, and you are preparing a second husband for her! Her voice is already changed, her limbs fully formed, her shame clothing itself everywhere, the months paying their tributes. And do you deny her to be a woman, when you say that she is undergoing womanly experiences? If the contact of a man makes a woman, then let there be no covering except after actual experience of marriage. No, even among the heathens the betrothed are led veiled to the husband. But if they are veiled at betrothal because then, both in body and in spirit, they have mingled with a male, through the kiss and the right hands, by which means they first in spirit unsealed their modesty, through the common pledge of conscience by which they mutually pledged their whole confusion, how much more will time veil them? Without time they cannot be espoused. And by whose urgency, even without espousals, they cease to be virgins. Even the heathens observe time, so that, in obedience to the law of nature, they may give to the different ages their proper rights. For they send their females to their duties from the age of twelve years, and the male two years later, deciding puberty by years, not by espousals or marriages. One is called a housewife, though still a virgin, and another a house-father, though still a boy. But among us, not even natural laws are observed, as if the God of nature were some other than ours!