More on hats

The Blackbirds have been talking about hats (thanks for the tip, Rev. BTB--your girls look great, as always).

Here's the scaffolding for characterization if I were going to write it into a book:

--Husband wants wife to wear dresses and a hat or other head covering to church. First, he thinks she looks nice this way. Second, he thinks it would set a good example. What example? Well, looking nice--decent--which a lot of females obviously don't understand. And frankly, there's that whole 1 Cor. 11 business which on the one hand we say is to be interpreted culturally and on the other hand says "every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head." Come on. Anyway, she looks nice in a dress and hat. Churchy. Husband observes wifely balking on these topics. Well, he's not a tyrant. She's the one who has to get everyone to church by herself every week. But, ok: what's the big deal? Would it kill her?

--Wife imagines walking across parking lot trying to keep hat from blowing away while holding heavy baby and hand of toddler. Wife imagines having yet another item on the list of "weird things Pastor's wife does" maintained by church members. Wife prefers not to draw attention to herself by means of fashion since she is extremely unfashionable. Wife does not want to spend money on hat--which will become hats since she would need at least one winter hat and one summer hat. Where is she supposed to keep all these blasted hats? Wife just wants to be warm in the winter for crying out loud. Wife knows husband thinks she complains all the time when in fact she never does succumb to that urge she feels four times a week to hold explosive and exhaustive informative session for his benefit. But then . . . he wants her to wear a hat and a dress. And what does that mean, anyway, "every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head"? Wife wants to be a good wife and a good Christian.

(She's eventually going to get a hat. Not sure how long it will take. It doesn't come up again in the book anyway; this is just a verisimilitudinous narrative excursus. Also the book does not exist.)

Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? Does nature itself teach us this? I think most of us have missed it. Is this indicative of the depravity of our culture? Probably, considering what we know of our culture. My sense of natural law has certainly failed me before.

Maybe if you told her she looked skinny in hats?