They are
coequal.
Is there, then, no distinction made between the sexes in the text?
Certainly there is. Men were directed to remove their caps or turbans
when they prayed or prophesied in public, while women, on the contrary,
were to remain with their heads covered; that is, to keep veiled when
they prayed or prophesied in public. The latter, it is evident, was
simply a prudential or local arrangement. Throughout the East, and more
especially in heathen countries, it was the custom for women to be
veiled when they made their appearance in public; but immodest women not
unfrequently violated the usage, appearing in public unveiled. In the
state of society then in Corinth, for a Christian woman to have appeared
in public, or to have taken any prominent part in an assembly with her
head uncovered, would have placed her in a false position before
unbelievers, both Jews and Gentiles. That their liberty under the
Gospel, then, might not be made occasion of offense by gainsayers,
against the cause of Christ, that their good should not be evil spoken
of by the profane multitude, the apostle counseled them to submit to the
usages and restraints which the customs of the times and place imposed
on women, wherever the usages or restraints so imposed were not in
themselves sinful. In the same spirit he returned Onesimus to his
master; not that he thereby gave his sanction to slavery, but in this,
as other directions regarding civil affairs, advising submission to the
existing state of things, "that the Gospel be not blamed.
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