Female Modesty

In the school of Rav Anan it was taught: What is the meaning of that which is written: “The hidden of your thighs” (Song of Songs 7:2)? Why are matters of Torah likened to a thigh? It is to tell you that just as the thigh is always concealed, covered by clothes, so too, matters of Torah are optimal when recited in private and not in public.

§ The mishna stated: And who is considered a woman who violates the precepts of Jewish women? One who goes out and her head is uncovered. The Gemara asks: The prohibition against a woman going out with her head uncovered is not merely a custom of Jewish women. Rather, it is by Torah law, as it is written with regard to a woman suspected by her husband of having been unfaithful: “And he shall uncover the head of the woman” (Numbers 5:18). And the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: From here there is a warning to Jewish women not to go out with an uncovered head, since if the Torah states that a woman suspected of adultery must have her head uncovered, this indicates that a married woman must generally cover her head. The Gemara explains: By Torah law,

(4) What is law or customary behavior of Jewish women? It is the custom of modesty that the daughters of Israel have practiced. And these are the things that, if one did one of them, she transgressed the Jewish religion: She goes out to the market, or to an open alley, or in a courtyard through which many pass, and her head is uncovered, and she's not wearing a shawl like all the women, even though her hair is covered with a kerchief; or she spins in the market, and rose or something similar is in front of her face, on her forehead or her cheek, as the promiscuous gentile women do; or she is spinning in the market and shows her arms to people, and she is accustomed thusly (Rashba, #571); or she was flirting with the young men; or she was asking for sex in a loud voice from her husband until the neighbors hear her speaking about sexual matters; or she was cursing the father of her husband in front of her husband, and some say that's it's the same ruling if she cursed even the father of her husband to his face (and thus is seems from the interpretation of Rashi on the Gemara, which is brought by the Beit Yosef), and look below #154, it's the same ruling if she curses her husband to his face (Ramban #102); in every one of these [cases], she goes out without her divorce settlement, if there are witnesses that he warned her about it first and she transgressed his warning. And if there are no witnesses, she must swear that it's as her words. And if he wanted to keep her afterwards, we don't force him to send her away, nonetheless it's a commandment on him that he should send her away. R. Moshe Isserles: And she cannot prevent him from divorcing her, and he can divorce her against her will, and this does not fall under the ban of Rabbeinu Gershom

(2) The hair of a woman that it is her practice (lit. way) to cover it, it is forbidden to read [the Shema] in front of it <rema> even his wife <rema>. But virgins that it is their practice to go with an uncovered head, it is permitted. <rema> And so too is the law with the hairs of women that regularly come out of their barriers and certainly foreign (detached) hair even if it is her practice to cover.