Some called the women who put on makeup and dyed their hair, deceptive and artificial. Others said women who wore jewels and fine clothes could not be trusted, even by their husbands. But they all agreed: if a man ever encountered one of these unchristian women, and wanted to rape her, it was her fault – not his.
According to a talk at the University of Cambridge, it was in the third century that the Christian idea that “real” beauty is within was first used by influential male writers to try to control how women dressed.
“Many of the ideas that govern how we perceive women’s appearance today have their roots in the middle ages,” said Cambridge scholar Alexandra Zhirnova who is giving her talk on 23 March as part of the Cambridge Festival – a showcase of the research under way at the university.
Zhirnova’s PhD thesis shines a spotlight on the misogynistic attitudes of medieval Christian men towards women’s makeup, clothing and adornments.
“One of the fundamental teachings in Christianity is the need to turn away from materialistic values and focus on spiritual things. But when Christianity becomes integrated into the patriarchal society of late antiquity and the early middle ages, the idea is used as a means of social control over women.”
While the Romans thought it “much more normal” for upper-class women to wear makeup, lots of jewellery, and “very elaborate” hairstyles, Zhirnova said this behaviour was perceived to be in conflict with Christian ideals.
She thinks many early Christian male writers seemed to fear that women could excite a man’s lust using makeup and artfulness: “Women who have this power over men can control them and disrupt the male order of the world.”
Many “very influential” writers of the early church, such as Saint Jerome, Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine, wrote letters and made speeches denouncing women who wore makeup and fine clothing as akin to “prostitutes”, while praising “respectable” women who did not. Yet if, as the Bible suggests, God sees beauty in one’s “inner self”, not “outward adornments”, then it should not matter what a Christian woman wears.
Zhirnova said: “These writers try to use this principle that ‘beauty should be within’ to say enhancements to a woman’s appearance should not be allowed. Women are perceived as ‘dangerous’ visually, to men.”
One of the first Christian authors to object was Tertullian, a Roman born around AD160. Other church fathers – writers of the early church – were persuaded by his theory that women who wore makeup were unnatural and even diabolical. Zhirnova added: “He’s thinking about it in terms of creation. So, God did not make eyeliner, therefore you should not use it. He has this hilarious argument, which is: if God wanted us to have purple wool, he would have given us purple sheep.”
In a fourth-century treatise on modesty, Saint Ambrose, a theologian and bishop of Milan, concurs with Tertullian. “Nothing counterfeit is pleasing,” he writes, adding that a woman’s beauty should be “natural and artless … nothing must be added for the sake of splendour”.
Women who do not follow these edicts are portrayed as regretful. For example, Saint Paula, the first nun in the history of Christianity, learns the teachings of Saint Jerome and starts “washing with tears the face she once disfigured with makeup”.
According to the Venerable Bede, an English monk and scholar, Saint Æthelthryth perceives the neck tumour that ultimately kills her as a punishment from God for wearing an expensive necklace when she was young.
Another idea the church fathers propagate is that women who enhance their appearance in order to attract men are sly and deceitful, and cannot be trusted.
Zhirnova added: “Saint Ambrose, for example, addresses married women who think maybe they should put on makeup for their husbands. His answer is a firm no, because wearing makeup is deceptive and the purpose of enhancing your appearance can only be to attract male attention. Therefore a woman who does that must be sexually promiscuous.”
The church fathers believed that if a woman is prepared to “defile her face”, she is prepared to “defile her chastity”, she said.
Curling your hair with an iron is ‘deceptive’
These arguments are soon transposed even on to women who curl their hair. “In England, in particular, curling your hair with an iron becomes a deceptive, horrible practice that women do to seduce men.”
In her talk, Zhirnova will argue that the way we think about beauty, clothing and modesty today is still intimately tied up with these early Christian ideas. She believes there are ancient medieval roots of rape culture. “A lot of these Christian remarks about appearances are in stories about holy women who reject beautification. And that ties into how do we think about the women who don’t behave that way?”
In one story from the 10th century, the beautiful virgin Saint Wulfhilda is trapped in a room by King Edgar of England, who refuses to accept she doesn’t want to marry him. She escapes through a sewer by discarding her jewellery and expensive dress, demonstrating how little regard she has for her appearance when her chastity is at stake.
“Such stories implicate women who do wear jewellery and makeup,” Zhirnova said. “While they don’t say explicitly that women who are raped must have been elaborately dressed, it is a conclusion that is very easy to draw.”
• This article was amended on 25 March 2024 because an earlier version mistakenly referred to the church fathers as patristics. Patristics is the study of early Christianity and the writings of the church fathers.
