If a Sister's Hair Is Woven, or Plaited or Matted in Cornrows but Not Cut, is She Covered?
1) Direct answer
Yes. If her own hair is uncut, she is covered. Braiding, plaiting, or cornrows do not remove the covering. But she should keep it modest and avoid adding false hair or making a show of it.
2) Scriptural explanation
- The Bible says, “Her hair is given her for a covering” (1 Corinthians 11:15). The covering God recognizes is a woman’s own hair.
- Paul warns against outward display: “not with braided hair… but with good works” and “not the plaiting of the hair” as an adornment (1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Peter 3:3). The point is modesty and a meek spirit, not elaborate styling that draws attention.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- The covering is not a cloth; it is the hair God gave her. If it’s uncut, she is covered.
- Cutting removes the sign of authority; styling does not.
- Simple braids for neatness can be modest; showy, elaborate plaits that advertise the flesh are not.
- Adding artificial hair, wigs, or weaves is not the God-given covering and turns it into outward adornment.
4) Reinforcing statement
Keep the hair God gave, uncut and modest. That’s the covering Scripture honors.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Make the valley full of ditches
53-0609E §18
The next old, Indian woman, they had an awful time getting her quiet. She had two broomsticks, or some kind of sticks, and they had rags wrapped around the top for crutches. She looked to be about seventy-five, or eighty years old. She had long plaits hanging down, and leather plaited in her hair. And she was to be the next one in the line, but they were crowding and pushing so at that platform, they got a bunch of Indians, and stood them up there to keep them down. And so, there was a young Indian boy jumped over...
The Seal of God
54-0514 §41
Looky here. It used to be, a long time ago... And you holiness people, it was wrong for you women to cut your hair. What become right about it, when the Bible said that if any woman cuts her hair, her husband has a right to give her a divorce. Plain teaching, but that's the Bible. And you women get out here and cut your yards with overalls on and with men's garments. And the Bible said... Almighty God said, "A woman that'll put on a garment that pertains to a man, it's an abomination and filthy in the sight of God....
Moses' Commission
50-0110 §38
And there she went back again. I seen a young lady about sixteen years old, and she was just a running just as hard as she could. And she had a big ribbon tied on her hair, on a double plait hanging on her back. She had on a checkered dress, and she was running real fast. And I looked, and there was a big yellow dog a chasing her. I said, "I see a young lady with a checkered dress..." Begin to tell just what I was seeing, looking in front of me. I said, "She goes up on the porch. I see a lady a take her in, run the...
The Harvest Time
64-1212 §78
That's one of the words, for the Bible said it's wrong for a woman to cut her hair. That's right. If she does how's she going to get in? See? Just ask, any preacher will tell you the Word says that. See, "she dishonors her head," she dishonors her husband. She should be divorced. That's exactly right. "For she that will cut her hair, let her also be shorn off, shaven." See, if she wants to do that. Not with just bobbed, God don't want it that way. That's that Mr. In-between. Don't fool with it. Either cut it all of...
And knoweth it not
65-0815 §60
Now, look, I want to ask you something. Why can't that woman see it? Why can't she? As far as living in adultery physically, to her husband, she's not guilty; she has nothing to confess. She's as clean as she was the day she was born; no man has touched her. I'm speaking parallel now, to the woman to the church. She's as clean as she was born. Well, that's exactly what the church is. As she was born, but she was born in sin, shaped in iniquity. See what I mean? Now, you tell her that it is wrong for her to cut her...