Struggling With Modesty: To Women

Modesty is framed as mere assistance to “weak” men

That is, after all, what usually triggers this debate. A man complains about women these days showing too much skin and causing their brothers in Christ to stumble in that ongoing battle against lust you hear so much about. A woman’s modesty is then proclaimed as the solution to a man’s problem. And to make matters worse, it’s an alien problem to boot. Sex is precisely where men and women are the most different, and men struggle with their lust differently than women do with their own. There’s no direct experience to make his struggle more tangible.

But while that may be what the modesty *debate* is about, it’s not what *modesty* is about. In other words, while immodesty really does hurt men, the meaning and purpose behind your modesty isn’t helping men be chaste–that’s just a good and righteous side-effect.

When the Bible teaches women about modesty, it’s always as a fundamental part of feminine beauty. In 1 Timothy, Paul says, “Women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness–with good works.” Peter says essentially the same thing:  “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.”

Did you catch the implication in these? Modesty isn’t just a way that you adorn yourselves. Modesty is something that you adorn yourselves with. It is itself a facet of your beauty–not a restriction on it or a restraint of it, but woven into its very nature.

The same can be seen when Scripture approaches it from the other direction and addresses immodesty. In Proverbs 7, Solomon describes a women dressed like a prostitute, and her immodest outward appearance hides death and decay just beneath the surface. He puts it more succinctly in Proverbs 11: “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.” Your beauty is as precious gold, but putting it on the pig doesn’t make the pig better; it just makes the gold worse.

The point is that a woman’s beauty is precious in God’s sight. But that also means it’s too valuable to spread about indiscriminately. When beauty is treated that way, it ceases to be beautiful. When one is a child, she wishes every day were Christmas. When one raises a child, she teaches them that celebrating Christmas everyday would strip it of what makes the celebration special. Immodesty debases feminine beauty in a similar way.

And this, by the way, is not a result of the Fall, but part of God’s perfect design from before sin or clothes ever existed. Physically speaking, modesty is apparent in the differences between men and women of which neither were ashamed in the beginning. Likewise, when Paul talks about long hair on women, he calls it both their glory and a covering in the same breath. This he attributes to “nature itself,” not to sin or depravity.

At its core, modesty is respect for your own God-given beauty. Yes, it also helps men remain chaste, and that should concern you–read Luke 17 and consider whether you really want to be on the wrong end of Jesus’ words. Even so, modesty remains the beating heart of the imperishable beauty with which God designed you in the first place.

No woman likes men telling her how to dress

There’s an important distinction here that men and women alike overlook: the difference between telling a woman to be modest and teaching a woman how to be modest. Men assume they’re doing the former, but women often assume he’s doing the latter. That’s a problem because men can’t really do the latter.

There are men in your life who have every right to pass on God’s commands to be modest to you. Some men, like your father, your pastor, or your husband have a responsibility to do so. They would be negligent if they remained silent.

At the same time, men can’t really teach you how to do this. This isn’t because we’re not allowed, but because we’re not competent. We don’t understand women’s fashion and we don’t want to understand it. Practically speaking, men can only point out times when lines of modesty are crossed. But telling someone how not to do something, isn’t the same as telling them how. It’s profoundly frustrating when mere restrictions are delivered as though they were sufficient instruction.

But the primary failure here doesn’t actually belong to men. It belongs to older Christian women. In Titus 2:3-5, Paul writes:  “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”

I think it’s safe to say that this hasn’t been happening a whole lot in the West over the past few generations. Sometimes older women refused to teach these skills because Satan deceived them into thinking they were oppressive. Sometimes young women refused to listen and grew up to be older women who couldn’t teach. The results are generations severed from one-another and precious experience and practical wisdom lying in a ditch along the way.

But if that’s the problem, what is the solution? Well, practical wisdom didn’t just drop from the sky–it was cultivated by women over time. That means women need to re-cultivate it over time and rediscover the practicalities of being modest. That said, women will need to work *with* men on this, because while “that’s too far” isn’t super helpful, it’s often still valid.

Which leads to another reason God’s call to modesty can be so grating…

How are women supposed to be both modest and feminine/attractive at the same time?

This is more fallout from that lack of know-how from the previous point. And while the issue doesn’t seem as common as the previous two, I’m mentioning it because I’ve heard it expressed by women from time to time. To be sure, women certainly don’t only (or maybe even often) dress with men in mind. But sometimes they do–particularly during stages of life when you’re trying to be attractive for a potential or current spouse. Sometimes this issue is going to matter.

Once again, men can’t really teach any know-how or practical wisdom on this one. Nevertheless, I’m addressing it because men have sometimes muddied the waters by expressing some unclear, conflicting, and confusing expectations. So I do want to try to offer a little clarity.

First off, Western men aren’t Muslim. We don’t want burqas, and that’s not what modesty brings to mind. It is not wrong to wear clothes that let people know you are shaped like a woman. But we live in a society which (falsely) teaches that men and women are identical except for biology. Accordingly, many women think–whether consciously or unconsciously–that they need to put as much biology on display as possible to make their femininity apparent. Popular style follows suit.

That’s not the case–from a male perspective, anyway. To be blunt, long hair and dresses demonstrate femininity to men more effectively than displaying deep cleavage of one kind or another. The latter might be more expedient for arousal, but since this is for Christian women, you know you should reserve being deliberately arousing for your husbands. You know the various terms for women who do otherwise, and so does any man worth marrying. Don’t be that.

As far as being attractive to a potential husband is concerned, the note you’re trying to hit is making him interested in finding out more. It shouldn’t be putting everything on display so he can decide if he wants to help himself.

Now, all this is very subjective. And its’ not like men even agree on things like knee-length vs ankle-length, how tight is too tight, etc. So while ignoring men’s complaints altogether isn’t the right path, neither can you follow them all.

That’s why, again, those details are the things women will need to relearn from collective experience. What results in godly attention/relationships? What doesn’t? That’s a messy process fraught with mistakes. But you are free to make those kinds of mistakes because God’s call to modesty remains, and there’s nothing for it but to do your best and lean on Christ’s forgiveness.