Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 11:5

"But every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonoreth her head; for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven." — 1 Corinthians 11:5 (ASV)

But every woman that prayeth . . . From the hypothetical case of the man praying or preaching with covered head (which was mentioned first for the sake of introducing the antithesis), the Apostle now comes to the actual case he has to address, namely, the woman uncovering her head.

At first sight, the permission implied here for a woman to pray and teach in public may seem at variance with the teaching in 1 Corinthians 14:34, where she is commanded to observe silence, and the instruction in 1 Timothy 2:12, that women should not teach. In these passages, however, it is the public meeting of the whole Church that is referred to, and in such meetings the women were to be silent—but the meetings spoken of here, though public as distinct from the private devotions of individuals, were probably only smaller gatherings such as are indicated in Romans 14:5; Colossians 4:5; Philemon 1:2.

It has been suggested by some writers that the command in 1 Corinthians 14:34 does forbid the practice which is here assumed to be allowable only for the sake of argument. But surely St. Paul would not have occupied himself and his readers here with the elaborate and merely forensic discussion of the conditions under which certain functions were to be performed, which he would subsequently condemn as not allowable under any restriction whatever?

Dishonoureth her head. Both among Jews and Greeks, a woman's long tresses were her glory. Only in times of mourning (Deuteronomy 21:12), or when convicted of shameful sin, was a woman to have her hair cut short.

Here, again, the word head must be taken in its double significance. A woman with an uncovered head dishonors her own head by making it thus, in the sight of others, the symbol of a shame that is not truly hers; and as her husband is typically her head, she dishonors him also.