Does the Bible say that women shouldn't wear pants?

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The wearing of pants by women is simply part of the general uglification of society that is destroying beauty everywhere and bringing ugliness into every area of life: ugly clothing, ugly footwear, ugly buildings, ugly automobiles, ugly art, ugly entertainment, ugly ‘music’, ugly morals, etc., etc.

You might consider that pants aren’t suited to the female anatomy; most women look dreadful in pants, and the ones who don’t look more sexually provocative than they would if wearing a modest dress.

And why should women want to look and dress like men anyway? Where has their pride in their appearance gone to?
 
Yes, it is immoral for women to wear pants… according to the Bible (it does not say it in those exact words, of course, since it wasn’t being done at that time and therefore couldn’t have been condemned–unless the authors sat down and condemned every single possibility of sin, which would be impossible, anyway.)

We know from the Old Testament that cross dressing is immoral. We know that it is immoral for men to wear women’s clothes and women to wear men’s clothes: “A woman shall not be clothed with man’s apparel neither shall a man use woman’s apparel: for he that doeth these things is abominable before God.” (Deut. 22:5) That much is clearly established. The debate is in how to define what is women’s clothes and what is men’s clothes.

It seems clear to me that this conclusion is correct, as this was the constant teaching and belief even of secular society up until the 1900s. Moreover, the Cardinals and others in the Church wrote against such a practice, even in the 1960s, when women wearing men’s clothes (pants) was common-place. (olrl.org/virtues/pants.shtml)

Now, many will allege that the society’s opinion is what dictates what is men and women’s clothes, yet this is just as ridiculous as saying that the majority society opinion dictates what it modest. Society’s opinion does not control what is and is not moral. Moreover, when exactly did it become moral to wear pants for women, if dictated by society? When over half of the people agreed that was OK? If so, how could someone know when exactly this happens? And if this is the means by which it becomes moral, then we have a problem. In order for something to become moral, it is necessary to be IMmoral for a certain period of time. This sounds like the 30 years reasoning behind abuses in the Novus Ordo. “As long as you are disobedient for 30 years, it becomes obedience.” What kind of logic is that? It presupposes that it is moral to be disobedient for that period of time or at least that it is moral to follow a practice that came as a result of constant disobedience (e.g. receiving Holy Communion in the hand).

If pants could have always been worn by women morally, why was it that when the cultures of the civilized world were Catholic, this was forbidden, and some people were put to death for doing so—by the Catholic government, no less? And is it not pretty strange that in the times of modernism, immorality, indifference, and the women’s lib movement this was introduced as OK? It seems very clear to me: when the culture was clearly Catholic, such behaviour was not permitted, but once secularized, the Catholics were either too ashamed to too indifferent to speak up. Of course, this was not true of all, as we see by the letter from the Cardinal in 1960.

Others will say that if a manufacturer makes something that is cut to fit a man, it is for men, and if a manufacturer makes something cut to fit a woman, it is from women. That is illogical, though, because if that is true, then if a designer (or if someone sewed it himself) made a dress/skirt cut to fit a man, then it would be moral for him to wear it. How obsurd that is! Others will contest that wearing something that “looks feminine” is OK for women (as if there could be a more subjective definition), yet the example I often use to show the absurdity of such a statement is that if someone made a dress with footballs on it, would that make it masculine enough for a man to wear it?

And if there is such a thing as women’s clothes (dress/skirt), how is it that NOTHING is considered intrinsically men’s clothes (e.g. pants)? That is another illogical proposition.

(please continue to next post)
 
Another objection I have heard is that the Old Law is no longer binding upon us; hence although Deut. condemned cross-dressing, it is OK today. That is not true. Now, there are three parts or facets of the Old Law: the moral, the judicial, and the ceremonial. The judicial precepts have to do with the running of the government (e.g. punishments, as well as abstinence laws, fasts, etc.). The ceremonial precepts have to do with their sacrifices and worship. As Catholics we are obliged to hold fast to the moral precepts of the Old Law, since Holy Mother Church clearly teaches that morality does not change. Abortion is wrong today; it was wrong in the past; it will always be wrong, since morality CANNOT change. Christ Himself said (St. Matthew v. 17): “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” In such cases, it is necessary to follow the Old Law (in morality). It is sometimes immoral and sinful to follow the Old Law (the other two precepts). Holy Mother Church says in the Council of Florence: “It [the Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that every creature of God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because according to the word of the Lord not what goes into the mouth defiles a person, and because the difference in the Mosaic law between clean and unclean foods belongs to ceremonial practices, which have passed away and lost their efficacy with the coming of the gospel.” Here we see how such practices, especially the abstinence, is no longer valid and has lost its efficacy with the coming of the Gospel. Moreover, the same holy Synod proclaims: “It [the Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal prescriptions of the old Testament or the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, because they were instituted to signify something in the future, although they were adequate for the divine cult of that age, once our lord Jesus Christ who was signified by them had come, came to an end and the sacraments of the new Testament had their beginning. Whoever, after the passion, places his hope in the legal prescriptions and submits himself to them as necessary for salvation and as if faith in Christ without them could not save, SINS MORTALLY. It does not deny that from Christ’s passion until the promulgation of the gospel they could have been retained, provided they were in no way believed to be necessary for salvation. But it asserts that AFTER the promulgation of the gospel they cannot be observed without loss of eternal salvation. Therefore it denounces all who after that time observe CIRCUMCISION, the sabbath and other legal prescriptions as strangers to the faith of Christ and unable to share in eternal salvation, unless they recoil at some time from these errors. Therefore it strictly orders all who glory in the name of Christian, not to practise circumcision either before or after baptism, since WHETHER OR NOT THEY PLACE THEIR HOPE IN IT, it cannot possibly be observed without LOSS of eternal salvation.” This passage is very clear: the ceremonial and judicial precepts are not binding, and following the Old Law, specifically CIRCUMCISION (which few Catholics know) and the Sabbath, is a MORTAL sin.

God bless.
 
Both men and women wore the same type of clothing for millennia. . .loincloths in Egypt, tunics in Roman, robes of various types, kimono in Japan, etc. The main differences, again for millennia, were subtle. . .a certain decoration which would be considered “feminine” or “masculine”, the way a kimono was folded, length of the robe, etc.

In Europe in the Middle Ages in the 14th century we began to see the use of tights (now considered solely women’s wear, with the exception of certain male superheroes). . .for MEN.

Jackets for men became shorter and shorter in the 15th century. Breeches appeared in the 16th century. Pantaloons. . .what we now consider regulation “pants” for men appeared in the early 19th century (the “Regency” period in Great Britain). OTOH, we have the decidedly masculine, and indeed staunchly Catholic Jacobean Scots who wore, and wear, the kilt. . .and NOT pants.

Amelia’s “Bloomers”. . .a wide legged pant for women, appeared within a generation. However, it was not until the 1930s that women began wearing a “masculine” type of pants here in the U.S. and then abroad, even to places like China where pants and tunic became a unisex uniform.

So. . .who is more “traditional”. . .the Scot in kilts, the man in pants, or the woman in skirts? Should we be advising men to return to tunics? After all, if one allows that customs in dress may change, with men changing from tunics to pants over 1800 years, then customs in women’s dress should be allowed to change as well. . .
 
It bothers me when men wear socks with sandals…very ugly. Why don’t they care more about their appearance?

It bothers me when I see a man’s beer belly peeking out from under his “Large” wifebeater tank top, when he really is an XXL.
Why doesn’t he have more modesty?

And don’t even get me STARTED on the number of men I’ve seen with plumber but!
 
There is no dress code in our parish. Some come in sweaters, blue jeans and sneakers. Some in the summer come in a T shirt and shorts and sneakers. Some come in a pull over, blue jeans. They just dress for church like they do around the house. Nobody cares how they dress when they come to church or mass.
 
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Hermione:
Hello everyone,

A website I visited recently mentioned this passage:

It then argued that women should not wear pants, and those who do are disobeying God’s Will. Does the Church say anything about this?

They also referenced another Bible passage (forgot which 😦 ) and said that women serving in the armed forces are “abominations.” What does the Church say about women in the armed forces?

Thanks 🙂
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Did anyone wear pants, when the bible was written? :hmmm:
 
I am familiar with the passage referred to so I won’t post any verses, but God, Elohim, made male and female. He wants us to be different because of our roles in the family.

I believe His desire is for us not to appear different than what He intended us to be, but I do not think He looks down on a woman who dresses fashionably in a suit whether it is skirt and blazer or jacket, etc. But can you honestly imagine a man in a dress or similar going to work?

I think God wants us to abstain from all appearances of evil. If what we wear could be contrued as something other than what He made us, it would be wrong.

I hope this helps.
 
Did anyone wear pants, when the bible was written
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Who knows? Perhaps someone wore a crude version back in the ice age. What else could we call fur strapped to a leg with leather straps? 😉

I can’t agree with the extremes: priestly frock looks a bit like a dress, but when it originated, pretty much everyone wore a robe. It’s just robes were different for men and women, but none had legs. Plus, everyone can tell frock from dress and everyone knows priests are male only. You know, frock is the ultimate male garment. 😃

Same is for kilts. In their culture, they were kilts because they are men, not even despite they are. There is no cross-dressing here. Even if a culture knows no separate dress for men and women, one gender doesn’t spefically dress as the other in wearing what it wears, right? Well, we even have unisex choir robes. It’s just the front tends to look different, but the robe is the same. 😉

As for male roles in the society, I would be careful. In my humble opinion, there’s nothing wrong with women in male jobs and high ranks shouldn’t be limited to men if women could do the particular job. Who says a woman can’t be a good soldier and a commander? Even if she will wear the same uniform as everyone and be called “sir”. After all, the army isn’t about picking people up or anything. Sometimes she might well have a good reason to pass herself as a man. The idea is, she isn’t engaging in a sexual perversion which would lead her to trespassing against God’s plan for the two genders.

It’s not just St. Jeanne d’Arc. Any noblewoman who got on horse in armour and took the sword to pound the greedy enemies of her husband into a bloody pulp while he was on a crusade did right, not wrong. And believe me, it wasn’t just one or two.

But I have issues with people stressing their opposite-gender-side instead of reconciling themselves with their gender. A girl who wears a gun to work and flies a stealth bomber isn’t probably what is meant here, but a militant feminist likely is.

Note: A feminist is not a daemon, no matter the external appearance of one. She’s just a poor woman who hasn’t found a real man yet. 😃 😉
 
When our Catholic school finally adopted an optional alternative to the girls’ jumper style uniform and allowed them to wear dress pants like the boys, I was greatly relieved. The pants were much more modest, especially for our younger girls who loved to climb the jungle gym.
 
The pants were much more modest, especially for our younger girls who loved to climb the jungle gym.
The sad thing is some folks will wonder why you’re letting girls play on the jungle gym
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I write as one who has a post-graduate degree in Theology gained after studying in a Roman Catholic - Anglican - Uniting Church combined college, and one for whom this passage has personal significance. Among those to whom I have spoken in doing my research is at least one Jew whose comments I have included.

The God of the Jews and the God of the Christians is the same God, but we are supposed to acknowledge what is clear from the Hebrew Scriptures as well as from the New Testament, that God is unconditionally loving of everyone.

To address the query about Deuteronomy 22:5 directly, the passage was written in a period when there were many wars. There were men who didn’t want to be part of the war and would dress as women to avoid being sent, and there were women who wanted to, and, to get around the ban on women fighting, made themselves out to be men. At the time there was little difference between the outer garments worn by men and those worn by women, except for colour and decoration. To the Hebrews of the time this passage was meant to make them think more than twice before trying to pass themselves off as a member of the opposite sex to avoid, or be involved in, conflicts. Given that men already wore skirts/dresses it could hardly be an indictment against them doing so. Cross-dressing (ie making out you’re of the opposite sex, not just wearing something usually worn by them) was banned in the Hebrew camp as one way in which the people could retain their distinctiveness from the surrounding tribes. The phrase “is an abomination before the Lord your God” was used on several occasions by the writers/editors of some big chunks of what we call the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) to reflect a theological stance against a particular action. What’s more in this case, the Hebrew of Deuteronomy 22:30 refers to a man discovering his father’s skirt and has no reference to abomination. (English translations rightly try to give us the meaning of the euphamism rather than the actual words). If we are to take Deuteronomy 22:5 literally then it can also be claimed that, according to that verse, every woman who has ever worn trousers/slacks is an abomination before God. I think there would be very few uncondemned women! Whereas there isn’t a single man in the whole of the bible who didn’t wear skirts every day, trousers were invented for men, and were exclusively menswear throughout the world until about 60 years ago. For those who want to exclude the women and slacks issue from this passage by claiming slacks are womenswear it’s sobering to remember that that wasn’t the case until quite recently. The early pioneering women had to wear trousers designed, made, and sold for men, and were subject to the same passage of scripture being thrown at them. I wonder if anyone has apologised for calling them abominations before God in the same way as I wonder if anyone will, in a few years, apologise to the increasingly large number of men who wear skirts as menswear for taking this passage out of context and trying to label us abominations.

My friend commented:
A few years ago, our lay-led study group (a “Chavurah”) studied the 613 mitzvot/commandments or “essential behaviours” extracted from the Torah. As one of my special interests, I undertook the research of the prohibitions regarding wearing the clothing of the opposite sex. These mitzvot were written to help us keep our distinctiveness as a people, since many of the surrounding cultures had “cross-dressing” rituals, which the leaders of that time thought we should not imitate. The rationale for a great number of the 613 mitzvot was based on practical, political considerations.

As Steven rightly pointed out, there is no absolute prohibition on the wearing of dresses or skirts, because everybody wore them. When people talk about prohibiting specific articles of clothing, they too often forget that the centre of gravity here is constantly shifting.

Shalom,

If we’re going to take passages such as Deuteronomy 22:5 literally, and binding on all of us for all time, then we should also require unmarried women who have been raped to marry their rapist with no opportunity for divorce (Deut 22:28-29). The number of such instructions which we no longer hold as binding should be a clear indication that telling women it’s wrong to wear clothes made for men is selective acceptance of scripture, and therefore dangerous ground. The same, of course, applies to men wearing clothes originally designed for women.

Peace be with you,
Steven
 
Dear Chevalier,

I take issue with your proposal that women would make good soldiers or commanders. Women don’t have the physical capabilities that men do. My son just went through boot camp and the best pt (physical training) scores were 100 points below the men’s. The pack my son carried was 100 lbs. during one training exercise. At graduation, we heard the scores called out. The women marines have to wear tennis shoes during boot camp, because there were too many hip fractures when wearing combat boots. Each female has her own DI (drill instructor) cajoling and encouraging her, “Come on, you can do it.” Wheras the men are being killed (figuratively). A friend who graduated from West Point (male) in the last all male class, told me how the physical standards were lowered for the females.
Once with our homeschool group, visited the airport fire station. The female firefighter described what happens when a fire breaks out in an airplane on the runway with passengers in it. Each firefighter has to carry a huge oygen tank plus equipment totalling 100 lbs. Then they have to be able to carry out a 200 lb. unconscious person. At the end of it all, the female firefighter (obviously trying to recruit more women) asked one of the little 3 year-old girls, "Susie, wouldn’t you like to be a firefighter when you grow up? The little girl shook her head no, and the woman firefighter undaunted pressed her again, “Are you sure you wouldn’t?” The girl said no. The fire fighter wouldn’t stop. The little girl ran to her mom for comfort still refusing to accede. The mother had to ask the firefighter to stop asking her girl the same question. I thought it was rather embarassing for the woman firefighter to tell everyone how incapable she really was to do the job she was being paid to do. If I am in an airplane on fire, I’d prefer and have a better chance of being rescued, if only big men were firefighters!
Pants are definitely for men. It is not optimal for women’s physical health to wear them. I read a recommendation by a gynecologist bemoaning the current fashions for women and its ill effect on their health in the Family Foundations magazine.
Read "Dressing with Dignity’, by Colleen Hammond, a former beauty queen, model, and Weather Station girl, when the new edition comes out from Tan Books. Just read what a marketing study found out in a survey of men about what part of women’s anatomy they look at when a woman wears pants. I wear only dresses or skirts out of the conviction that it is the only suitable, dignified, and feminine attire there is. The Catholic Girl Scouts of Europe(KPE) wear long, swingy, A-line skirts for their camp-outs. Also, for many Moslems, wearing the scarf is the most important aspect of feminine modesty. I’ve seen many a teenage girl wearing pants (not loose either), but with the head scarf.
Our former youth group director took an informal survey of the guys around her and discovered they almost all prefered women to wear pants because they can see their figure better and these were pretty educated Catholic guys!
I think it is time for Catholic women to show by their dress that they are not objects to be ogled at! It is time for a revolution! I’m not going to dress in order to attract men!
 
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Exporter:
When Saint Joan d’Arc donned men’s clothing for battle , including armour, she gave the detractors “ammunition” for burning her at the stake.

In fact one of the charges against her was the wearing of men’s clothes.
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It’s always been recognized that in case of necessity it is OK to wear “men’s clothing”
 
According to the website:

catholicplanet.com/women/dress.htm

"when the Virgin Mary appears in apparitions, she is always wearing a dress, never pants. All of the images and statues of her throughout the history of the Church present her wearing a dress, never pants. "

Also:
“Clothing should not be too revealing or too tight.” and “we should all be modest both in clothing and in behavior.” I saw a photo of a Papal Mass where the female lector was naked from the waist up. I believe that in most Protestant Churches women are clothed from the waist up, especially when a Protestant elder or bishop is present. I don’t know why Catholicism has a different rule and that at Papal Masses women lectors are allowed to be completely nude from the waist up. Wouldn’t this mean that Protestantism is in accord with the ideas of basic modesty for women, whereas Catholicism is not correct on this issue?
 
I think that as long as women are keeping modesty in mind that the individual will make the right decision in regards to wearing pants and dresses. My individual choice is mainly dresses, not because of any desire not to blur gender roles, I just think that wearing long dresses are easier to conform to modesty issues. In our culture trousers are no longer just for men and I have seen some women in dresses that look very immodest. Now I can come up with a bunch of logical reasons why I, personally, prefer longer dresses but I’ve seen women who look both feminine and modest in pants suits.

With my six year old daughter, who likes to stand on her head, and doesn’t mind showing her underpants to the world, I have opted for pants or shorts under her playdresses.:o
 
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ppcpilot:
All of this is in the Old Testament…what about St. Paul’s teachings about women not speaking in church, and covering their heads, etc…is this something that has been ‘loosed’ by the Church?
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I read somewhere-sorry don’t remember where-that the average married woman of Corinthian was very much dominated by the males of their family. Christianity offered these women comparitive freedom and when they would attend a service, they would grow noisy. In this particular area women were not allowed out of the house without a male escort, so the service became a social activity for some of these women. Paul, in a nice, diplomatic way, was telling them to shut up.The same Paul, speaks rather positively about women prophesizing, so he must not have had a problem with women talking or even having some semblance of power. We have to look not just at the bible as a whole but the historical background of each book.
 
When slacks as they were then called more or less became quite a fashion statement, which Mum thought was dreadful, I knew a Convent where you could not visit in slacks. Nowadays these nuns wear slacks often. Someone said in another post I think it was referring to St. Paul and woment covering their heads that it is a cultural thing. That rang true to me. I think there is some truth in the statement “evil is in the eye of the beholder”. Once I have heard it was immodest for a woman even to show her ankles . . . boy has culture changed!

Love me jeans and slacks!
 
Please read the following book:

“Immodesty: Satan’s Virtue”
by Rita Davidson
(Little Flower Family Apostolate, $16.95)
to see why women are called to wear modest dresses and give up their jeans and other pants.
 
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