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On the Veiling of Virgins

Chapter XII.--Womanhood Self-Evident, and Not to Be Concealed by Just Leaving the Head Bare.

Recognise the woman, ay, recognise the wedded woman, by the testimonies both of body and of spirit, which she experiences both in conscience and in flesh. These are the earlier tablets of natural espousals and nuptials. Impose a veil externally upon her who has (already) a covering internally. Let her whose lower parts are not bare have her upper likewise covered. Would you know what is the authority which age carries? Set before yourself each (of these two); one prematurely ¹ compressed in woman's garb, and one who, though advanced in maturity, persists in virginity with its appropriate garb: the former will more easily be denied to be a woman than the latter believed a virgin. Such is, then, the honesty of age, that there is no overpowering it even by garb. What of the fact that these (virgins) of ours confess their change of age even by their garb; and, as soon as they have understood themselves to be women, withdraw themselves from virgins, laying aside (beginning with their head itself) their former selves: dye ² their hair; and fasten their hair with more wanton pin; professing manifest womanhood with their hair parted from the front. The next thing is, they consult the looking-glass to aid their beauty, and thin down their over-exacting face with washing, perhaps withal vamp it up with cosmetics, toss their mantle about them with an air, fit tightly the multiform shoe, carry down more ample appliances to the baths. Why should I pursue particulars? But their manifest appliances alone ³ exhibit their perfect womanhood: yet they wish to play the virgin by the sole fact of leaving their head bare--denying by one single feature what they profess by their entire deportment.

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De Virginibus Velandis

XII.

[1] Agnosce et mulierem, agnosce et nuptam de testimoniis et corporis et spiritus, quae patitur et in conscientia et in carne; haec sunt tabellae priores naturalium sponsalium et nuptiarum. Impone velamen extrinsecus habenti tegumen intrinsecus; tegantur etiam superiora, cuius inferiora nuda non sunt. [2] Vis scire, quae sit aetatis auctoritas? Propone utramque, immature compressam in habitu mulieris et quae maturitate progressa in virginitate duret cum suo habitu: facilius illa mulier negabitur, quam ista virgo credetur; tanta est adeo fides aetatis, ut nec habitu obstrui possit. [3] Quid, quod etiam haec nostrae etiam habitu mutationem aetatis confitentur, simulque se mulieres intellexerunt, de virginibus educantur? a capite quidem ipso deponentes quod fuerunt vertunt capillum et acu lasciviore comam sibi inserunt, crinibus a fronte divisis apertam professae mulieritatem; [4] iam et consilium formae a speculo petunt et faciem morosiorem lavacro macerant, forsitan et aliquo eam medicamine interpolent, pallium extrinsecus iactant, calceum stipant multiformem, plus instrumenti ad balneas deferunt. [5] Quid singula persequar? Solae autem manifestae paraturae totam circumferunt mulieritatem, sed virginari volunt sola capitis nuditate, uno habitu negantes, quod toto suggestu profitentur.