Hair & Dress in Imperial Russia

Thu Oct 16 19:04:08 UTC 2008

Paul a sexist? As opposed to whom? You must be joking. We're talking  
about a Jew who 2000 years ago founded Christianity as an organized  
religion in the Eastern Mediterranean. Surely he was as progressive  
and enlightened as any other guy at that time and in that area.
Just a small remark on "doksa andros". Let's not forget that if we're  
looking for sources of inspiration for Paul's phraseology, we have to  
look at his Scripture, i.e. the Old Testament, and there I would say  
the closest expression is in Proverbs 12.4, which Paul surely knew in  
the original (for our evangelical friends: I do not mean KJV)  
אֵשֶׁת־חַיִל עֲטֶרֶת בַּעְלָהּ - 'A  
virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.' , LXX: γυνὴ  
ἀνδρεία στέφανος τῷ ἀνδρὶ αὐτῆς. Now  
'atereth lit. 'crown', but figuratively also 'ornament, honour,  
glory'  appears several times in the OT in conjunction with and  
sometimes as synonym of תִּפְאָרֶת tif'ereth, which is  
glossed  as 'ornamentum, decus, gloria', and is very readily rendered  
by doksa. Cf,  Exodus 28:2 לְכָבֹוד  
וּלְתִפְאָרֶת εἰς τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν.  
Could this have been the source of inspiration?

Moshe Taube

On Oct 16, 2008, at 8:26 AM, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
> Slavianskie drevnosti is indeed an important and rich source, and  
> does have the limitations mentioned by Will Ryan.  The reference to  
> Corinthians is quite interesting, and adds some historical and  
> cross-cultural perspective.  Paul is thoroughly sexist: a man is  
> but the image and glory of God ("obraz i slava Bozhiia" in the  
> Synodal trans of texts going back to "eikon kai doksa Theou"),  
> while a woman is but the glory of a man ("slava muzha" rendering  
> "doksa andros").  Probably "doksa" is better rendered  
> "reflection" (Oxford NRSV).  So a woman is but the reflection of a  
> reflection.  What a woman has, however, in addition to her  
> "glory"/"reflection" is her "authority on her head" ("znak vlasti  
> nad neiu," rendering the "eksousian" she should have on her head) -  
> i.e., her hair.  NRSV gives "a woman ought to have a symbol of  
> authority on her head" (I Cor. 11:10), meaning roughly, she ought  
> to have the freedom of choice regarding her head.  So Paul seems to  
> want to have it both ways: women should be subordinate to men, but  
> they are equal too.  The passage is obscure, and fascinating.  The  
> OXFORD BIBLE COMMENTARY (2001, pp. 1125-1126) provides some  
> insights, as well as the relevant historical literature on head- 
> covering in the Graeco-Roman world.  Apparently worship in Corinth  
> was, shall we say, pretty free and easy, and this provoked Paul.   
> Later Tertullian chimed in with a piece on the veiling of virgins.
>
> The reason for going into this is that the biblical text has (for  
> me) the same ambivalent feel about the hair on a woman's head which  
> is expressed in those sad Russian peasant prenuptial bath songs.   
> In the "bania" the bride-to-be laments the loss of her  
> "krasota" (stress on first syllable) and her "volia."  These are  
> not merely "beauty" and "freedom," but items of headgear which will  
> be lost when the girl effectively enters into a relationship of  
> "nevolia" with the husband who will have the right to abuse her for  
> the rest of her life.  See my SLAVE SOUL OF RUSSIA (1995, 193-201).
>
> Regards to the list,
>
> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
> UC Davis
>
> http://Rancour-Laferriere.com
>
>
>
> On Oct 15, 2008, at 1:02 PM, William Ryan wrote:
>
>> I have only just seen this, but since I have been cited I would  
>> recommend looking first at the 4-page entry 'volosy' in  
>> Slavianskie drevnosti, vol. 1, Moscow, 1995. The only problem with  
>> it is that it is anthropological and not historical in emphasis -  
>> but there is a great deal about hair and magic, and short sections  
>> on unbound and uncovered hair. You will find some references to  
>> hair and magic in my own history of Russian  magic, The Bathhouse  
>> at Midnight, PSUP, 1999, see index under 'hair' (or the rather  
>> better index in the Russian version: Bania v polnoch', NLO,  
>> Moscow, 2006). The trouble with folk beliefs is that most are  
>> recorded in the nineteenth century and later and it is usually  
>> difficult to say much about their history. Even so, many beliefs  
>> and practices recorded in the nineteenth century are likely to  
>> have been prevalent in the eighteenth century also, or even earlier.
>> The Pauline injunctions (1 Corinthians 11:4-16) on covering hair,  
>> and the Russian custom of cutting off the long hair of brides at  
>> their wedding, would have been significant, and indeed affect the  
>> kind of head covering which women wore.
>> Will Ryan
>>
>>
>> Allison Leigh-Perlman wrote:
>>> Can anyone recommend some good source material regarding the  
>>> covering of female hair and its 'magical' qualities in 18th- 
>>> century Russia or earlier?  I'm also interested in histories of  
>>> costume/dress of the same time period.  Any recommendations would  
>>> be greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>> Allison Leigh-Perlman
>>>
>>> Graduate Assistant Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum
>>> Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
>>>
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