This is DEEP, so you may want to read these following paragraphs several times SLOWLY.:)

First of all, if you read the I Corinthians 11 passage, you will understand that a woman's long hair (which flows down to gloriously COVER both her had and her body) symbolized the fact that she was made to be man's helpmeet, and thus is under his COVERING of authority and protection. ("Her hair is given to her for a conering", as stated clearly in I Cor. 11: 15.) The fact that woman's long covering of hair is glorious, testifies from nature that it is a glorious thing that woman was created to be under her husband.

So, is the woman's long hair the only covering that she is currently required to wear? Paul states in 1 Corinthians 11:6: "For if the woman be not covered, let her ALSO be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered", thus indicating that an additional covering (besides the long hair) on her head IS also being mentioned as a requirement in this verse. (i.e. If the "be not covered" in this verse means "have not long hair", as some would have it to mean, then a literal interpretation of the verse would be: "For if the woman does not have long hair, then let her long hair also be cut off", which doesn't quite make sense because if she doesn't have long hair to begin with, it means that she has already cut it short.) So we see this verse seems to indicate that there must be an additional cloth covering besides the covering of woman's long hair...But if it truly IS required that a woman wear a cloth veiling on her head, in addition to her long hair, then WHY is it required?

(Just a quick note, first, to those who interpret the woman's covering spoken of in the 1 Corinthians passage as being the "covering" of her husband, [instead of the "covering" also being the "covering" of a literal cloth veiling]: In our extensive research of the historical writings of the early church fathers, etc., not once did we come across that particular interpretation. With this in mind, we delved into the passage and came to a position which seems to harmonize all of scripture, and which also is supported by many of the historical writings. The position is as follows.):

First of all, we must realize that the women in the Bible wore cloth headcoverings long before the Apostle Paul showed up to write 1 Corinthians 11. In fact, throughout Paul's exhortation for the Corinthian women to cover their heads, it seems almost as though he expects his audience to already be familiar with certain Biblical principles regarding the subject. (i.e. He doesn't go into as much elaboration as he obviously could have.) Often it is beneficial to search the entire Bible to find the answers to such difficult passages. Initially, we need to discover the reason why the woman's hair is constantly being brought into the headcovering issue. After all, why didn't God just say, "women cover your heads with a cloth headcovering as a 'New Testament sign' of being under submission to your husbands?" Why did he even need to bring hair (which had been around for centuries) into the picture to establish his point? Perhaps the answers are briefly hinted at in Isaiah 47: 1-3, Genesis 2:12, 2:25, & 3:21. (Before making a judgement regarding these particular verses, please hear the following interpretaion out completely and judge whether or not scripture supports it.): "Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon...Take the millstones, and grind meal: UNCOVER THE LOCKS, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. Thy NAKEDNESS shall be UNCOVERED, yea, they SHAME shall be seen..." To understand why it is a shame for our nakedness to be uncovered, we must first go to Genesis. Before Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, it is written of them: "....And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed"....AFTER Adam and Eve had sinned, they suddenly sensed that they were naked, so they hastily constructed themselves aprons of leaves and ran and hid. God found and asked them a rhetorical question, "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" THEN..."Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." The question is, "Why did God cause Adam and Eve to feel shame over their nakedness after they had sinned? Why did He cause them to feel a need to cover themselves? " Perhaps it's because He wanted them to realize that by sinning, they had brought SHAME to their own bodies. They were no longer "covered" and "protected" by their own personal righteousness. And they were literally doomed without that protective covering of righteousness! However, praise the Lord, He promised to make a way whereby men might still be saved. He promised to send a Redeemer, the Son of God Himself, and by embracing His sacrifice on the cross for us, we may now be spiritually COVERED with the righteousness of Christ. Because of Adam's fall we are no longer covered in our own works of righteousness, but we can now be covered in Jesus' righteousness. ("I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness." - Is. 61:10) Surely the material clothing of both men and women is symbolic of the covering of Christ's righteousness that we may now be covered with. And surely by uncovering our bodies, aren't we "stating" (whether intentionally or non-intentionally ) that our bodies are sufficient to make it to heaven apart from the covering of Christ's righteousness? Is is proper for sinful man to shamelessly run around uncovered in public? Does he not need clothing to "REDEEM honor" to his naked body? And surely when coming into the presence of God in prayer and worship we should be particularly careful to not shamelessly UNCOVER our nakedness, for if it were not for the COVERING of his shed blood we would not even HAVE the privilege of coming to Him in prayer and worship! (Ex.20:26) (Also, is it not a precious testimony to the holy angels, and a very disturbing testimony to the unholy angels when our bodies are properly covered? After all, did they not together witness the creation of man, the fall of man, and the redemption of man?) Matthew Henry, in his commentary on Genesis 3:21, states (regarding the coats of skin that God clothed Adam and Eve with): "These coats of skin had a significancy. The beasts whose skins they were must be slain, slain before their eyes, to show them what death is, and ...that they may see that they themselves were beasts, mortal and dying. It is suppoed that they were slain, not for food, but for sacrifice, to typify the great sacrifice, which, in the latter end of the world, should be offered once for all. Thus the first thing that died was a sacrifice, or Christ in a figure, who is therefore said to be the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. These sacrifices were divided between God and man, in token of reconciliation: the flesh was offered to God, a whole burnt-offering; the skins were given to man for clothing, signifying that, Jesus Christ having offered himself to God a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour, we are to clothe ourselves with his righeousness as with a garment, that the shame of our nakedness may not appear. Adam and Eve made for themselves aprons of fig-leaves, a covering too narrow for them to wrap themselves in. Such are all the rags of our own righteousness. But God made them coats of skins; large, and strong, and durable, and fit for them; such is the righteousness of christ. Therefore put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

But back to the headcovering issue...Could it just be possible that woman's own natural covering of long hair has been brought into shame due to her spiritual fall...just as her body has been brought into shame (as Is. 47 seems to indicate)? To explain...Before the fall, it was a glorious thing for man to have woman created from his rib, and given unto him to be his helpmeet. She was under his protctive authority in a beautiful and shameless way, and (as we have already demonstrated above), woman's glorious long hair symbolizes this beautiful "covering" truth However, because of woman's fall, a shameful aspect has now been added to the beautiful authority structure. Let us illustrate: First of all, both man and woman were created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27) in the sense that He created them as intelligent beings with souls. However man himself was specially created in the IMAGE of God in the sense that he was given glorious authority that "PICTURED" God's glorious authority (1Cor. 11:7). As being in this special position of authority, man brought shame to himself as "king" when he sinned. In other words, to the greater extent, he bore his own shame. However, the woman (man's "glorious possession") brought shame not only to herself in sinning, but also to her husband simply because she BELONGED to him (just as a child might, by his actions, bring shame, not only to himself, but also to the parents to whom he belongs.) Just as woman's glory brought glory to her husband, so also did her shame become his shame in an ACUTE sense. True, in a certain sense, the man belongs also to the woman just as the woman belongs to the man (as 1 Corinthians makes very clear, lest men get heady about their position in the authority structure.) Nevertheless, the fact remains that woman was created for man in a special way, and thus belongs to him in a special way. (A child does not bear the shame of his sinful parent in the same acute sense that a parent bears the shame of his sinful child, simply because the child "belongs" to the parent in a deeper sense than the parent "belongs" to the child.) Thus, when woman sinned, she brought shame not only upon herself, but also upon her husband, who was supposed to be her special, protective COVERING. She brought shame upon her "covering"! In other words, specifically because the woman is the glory of the man (in being his helpmeet who came from him [i.e. Adam's rib]), the woman automatically brought shame to her "covering" (her husband) when she sinned, and in bringing shame upon her husband, who was her "covering", she also bought shame to the beauty of the symbolic covering of hair (which symbolized the PREVIOUS beauty of her shameless relationship to her husband). The PICTURE of the relationship is now marred...desecrated...not quite so beautiful as it was before...Woman literally became shamed in her glorious position as a result of her sin. This is proven in the following verse: In Genesis it is written: "Unto the woman (God) said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall RULE over thee." The woman is now especially dependant upon her husband, and is bound to obey him in everything (wherein submitting to him does not require her to literally sin against God), even though the man whom she is required to obey, is also a sinner, and what a struggle it will be to obey his (sometimes unreasonable) wishes and whims in spite of the flaws and inconsistencies she sees in his own character.) Therefore, being UNDER her husband, (which was previvously only a BEAUTIFUL concept), has now, because of sin, been "turned against" her to often plague her. Because of this, shame has been necessarily brought to the BEAUTY of the symbolic covering of her hair.

True, the wearing of long hair still symbolizes the glorious aspect of woman's position in the chain of authority (the creation aspect, and for this reason it remains glorious), but due to the now shameful aspect of woman's imposed submission (the "result of sin" aspect), surely an additional cloth covering (symbolizing the righteousness of Christ) is now needed to cover the woman's glorious hair which has been brought into shame by sin, just as her body has been brought into shame by sin. Thus, a woman's long cloth headcovering not only symbolizes her submission to man, as sinner (by corresponding long hair in the form of a HEADcovering).It also symblizes her need of the covering of the righteousness of the blood of Christ, wherewith she can go directly to the throne of God in prayer. As sinner to Redeemer. As humble receiver of salvation to the Giver of it. 1 Cor. 11: 3-5 says: "But I would have you know, that..the HEAD of the woman is the man;...every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her HEAD ( i.e. her "head" being her husband?): for that is even all one as if she were shaven." In other words, if a woman is without her cloth covering to symbolize the redemptive covering of Jesus' righteousness, then it is the same as if she were without a glorious covering at all, because her long hair has been brought into shame and is no longer a sufficient glorious covering. It is all one as if she were "shaven", because woman's glory is "cut off" when she exposes glory which is also her shame. If a cloth covering is not there to both correspond to and cover her natural covering of hair, thus "redeeming" glory to its now SHAMED significance, then, (because she belong to him), she is also bringing further dishonour to her husband. Verse 6 of 1 Cor. says, "For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: (i.e. let her natural glory be shorn off) but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered". In other words, is it not shameful in the eyes of God for a woman to boldly uncover her own unworthy glory in His Holy Presence? It was this glorious natural covering of long hair which Eve shamed by bringing disgrace to herself and to her husband (who was her "head") by sinning. If the woman will boldly expose her unworthy glory, then should she not also have the glory of her hair cut off as a shameful judgement?

To sum it up, then, a woman should have long hair because she "belongs to man and is under him from creation", but she should also wear a cloth headcovering which corresponds to that hair on her head, because as a now sinful and shamed woman (who has brought disgrace to the beauty of her symbolic covering of hair), she is now under man's authority in a shamed sense, and thus is in need of an additional covering of "Christ's righteousness" wherewith she might boldy come before the throne of grace, and wherewith she might not bring further disgrace to her husband (for without a cloth covering, she exposes her SHAMED natural covering of hair, which also becomes HIS shame because she belongs to him).

Also, as a further observation, this time regarding the man: According to 1Corinthians 11, our natural instinct does not teach that it is desperately shameful for a man's head to be void of hair [in the same way that the instinct of nature informs us regarding bald women]. [i.e. a bald man may look mildly odd, but a bald woman will look disgusting.] Man is, under normal circumstances, to be shorn or shaven, as Scripture indicates. Nature does not require a man to wear a covering of long hair in the same way that it requires it of a woman simply because man IS the one whom God has placed in authority over woman. Man does not need a symbolic covering of being "under authority", whether it be a natural covering (of "glorious" long hair) or a physical cloth covering (to redeem glory to such long hair's shamed significance. ) 1 Cor. 11:3-5 says, "But I would have you know that the HEAD of every man is Christ...Every man praying or prohesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his HEAD (i.e. his head being Christ?)". In other words, because man was made to specially picture (image) Christ's authority by being a covering to woman, it would be a dishonour to Christ for man to descecrate that image of Christ by covering his head. Of course, we do find exceptions in the Bible where a man will be found righteously covering his head and /or growing his hair out long, like a woman's. Exod. 28; 40-41 God commands, "And for Aaron's sons thou shalt make coats, and thou shalt make for them girdles, and bonnets shalt thou make for them, for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt put them upon Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him; and shalt anoint them, and consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office." Also, consider the judge, Samson, who was instructed to never cut his hair. [He was under a special Nazarite vow from his birth. - Judges 13:5] As we see from the context of these commands, God often requires an abnormal outward sign to "mark" certain people in order to signify that they are "sanctified" (i.e. set apart for a certain purpose). So let us not get confused by what might seem at first glance to be a contradiction. It is not a contradiction; it is an exception to the rule. Consider the prophet Isaiah who was instructed by God to remain completely naked for 3 years (Isaiah 20). God had a SPECIAL purpose for requiring him to do this. It was a special exception.