There’s more to veils than meets the eye
Perhaps the most expensive dress that a woman might own is worn only once. The classic wedding dress is unlike daily clothing, most notably by incorporating a veil.
At her wedding to Prince Harry, Meghan Markle wore a 15ft silk tulle veil that enveloped the dress, both designed by Clare Waight Keller of Givenchy. It was bordered with flowers, symbolising 53 Commonwealth countries, that took 500 hours to embroider.
The one part of the Duchess of Sussex that the veil did not obscure was her face. Yet a veil it was. The more solemn the occasion in life, the more fossilised are the conventions. Christmas pudding is eaten only at Christmas, and wedding dresses are worn only at weddings. Apart from surface symbolism (such as white dresses standing for virginity), no thorough examination is made of why all the conventions of the occasion apply. Yet they are expensively embraced.
A bridal veil is not simply a sign of ownership by the bridegroom. Veils have much wider meanings. They are, or were until recently, worn at funerals. Who can forget the photographs of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, as she had become, and the Queen at the funeral of George VI? They are darkly veiled.
When she began to meet popes, the Queen sportingly followed the protocol of wearing a big black veil in the mantilla style. It was an arrestingly different fashion of clothing from anything the British were used to her adopting. It certainly did not signify that she was the pope’s property or that she was spiritually married to him, nor that she was a consecrated virgin.
In Orthodox Jewish practice, married women do not show their hair. It may be covered by a scarf or headgear, or by a wig. This is often said to relate to a moral law of modesty, but I think other elements are at work too. Veils are generally of ritual import.
Veils are used in connection with holy things in religious worship. The most sacred function of a veil was at the Holy of Holies in the Jewish Temple. Only the High Priest could pass through it, and then only on the Day of Atonement, to offer sacrifice. For Christians, the Epistle to the Hebrews connects this act with the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross, making specific reference to the veil. I have written about this here before.
This might sound atavistic, but all human rituals, secular or religious, have a way of expressing things in a manner that is not put into words. In any case, veils find their way into Christian worship, covering statues during Lent, or covering holy items such as the chalice carried to the altar for Mass. It is not that seeing the chalice would be wrong in any way, but the object (hallowed by its function) is honoured by the veil.
Changing cultures adapt such signs. Rome’s domestic patron was the goddess Vesta, a virgin, yet called a mother, whose fire was tended at her unique temple in the Forum. Neil Macgregor drew attention to her in his radio series Living with the Gods. Her servants, the Vestal Virgins, like her, wore veils in token of their virginity, a virginity that if lost could lead to their being buried alive.
One Vestal Virgin, accused of losing her virginity, proved her faithfulness by carrying water in a sieve. This tale was picked up symbolically by Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, who was painted in more than one portrait holding a sieve.
Any ritual convention can be put to bad ends, but the use of veils by Muslim women is far from an isolated phenomenon.