If you read this verse solely out of the context of the letter, it seems to suddenly run into contradiction with (presumably) Paul’s inhibition in 1 Timothy 2:12 that women ought to keep silent in church, because herein the covering is demanded explicitly as a predicate for proper worship, as Paul says (KJV), “Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?” If women are meant to keep silent in church as the subjects of men, then why is Paul even giving the option of female leadership in the act of voicing prayer?
Matthew Henry exemplifies the common tradition of answering this suggestion when he offers up the explanation that there is some extra kind of inspiration a woman must feel in order to speak in an assembly of men, supposing either that men are not led by the Holy Spirit when they speak, meaning women’s words should in fact be listened to more than men’s, or that men are always led by the Holy Spirit, which Paul himself rejects in numerous occasions when rejecting those who speak falsely.
Henry continues on his attempt to bring together these two contradictory explanations with his contemporary context when he states, “it must be observed that it was a signification either of shame or subjection for persons to be veiled, or covered, in the eastern countries, contrary to the custom of ours, where the being bare-headed betokens subjection, and being covered superiority and dominion.” Even in his claim that this particular passage means women are subject to men, he recognizes that the passage depends heavily on the context of the particular time and place to which the words were said. In that society, women’s heads had to be covered, whereas in ours, men’s heads have to be covered. Does that mean in our society that women are therefore the head of men? A static (i.e. here purposefully reductionistic) reading of the text would suggest that to be the case. But in fact, Paul ends his argument not by siding with one side or the other, but instead by admitting that there is no hard and fast rule (NRSV): “But if anyone is disposed to be contentious–we have no custom, nor do the churches of God.”
Instead, we should take the heading of Matthew Henry and later, Marcus Borg, in “The First Paul,” that “It is wise to remember that, when we are reading letters never intended for us, any problems of understanding are ours and not theirs.”
Borg points out that just a few chapters earlier in 1 Corinthians 7 you see a consistent pattern of reciprocal duties and obligations: that of the husband to the wife, then of the wife to the husband. As Paul writes, this pattern continues on the subject of abstinence, of the salvation of pagan spouses, virginity, and again his particular advice to a life of celibacy. “What is right for one is right for the other; what is wrong for one is wrong for the other. Wife and husband are equal in the family.”
You can see similarly in verse 4 and 5 that Paul presumes equality in worship, as both men and women are noted as those who pray and prophesy in the church. It is within the bounds of that equality that Paul is stepping in with a theological vision.
It is possible that Paul here has an issue caused by women who are following his call to celibacy but without the mutual agreement of their husbands–meaning that they are removing the veil of their marriage in order to pray, causing an inequality in the mural agreement men and women must come to as explained in 1 Corinthians 7:5. In this church, the women, seeking to worship God, are in fact failing in their obligation to love their husbands and thus fail to love God properly. The opposite problem seems to be happening in Ephesians 5, where women are quickly told to serve their husbands, but men are told to literally die for their wives. As Borg puts it, “For wives to obey their husbands as the church does Christ is surely easier than for husbands to sacrifice themselves for their wives as Christ did for the church.”
Borg goes on to explain that that passage in Timothy with which Matthew Henry had such a problem was likely not written by Paul, but instead by a reactionary complimentarian seeking to end the Pauline encouraged equality in the church “because it is clearly reacting to what has been happening.” After Paul encouraged the equality of men and women in the church, a later church leader sought to tamper down the equality Paul assumes in 1 Corinthians with a later admonition against it. 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36 seems to be a later scholarly addition to correspond and reinforce this teaching that in the earliest manuscripts actually appears at the end of the chapter rather than in its current location.
That being said: You could only read the verse as stating that men are the intermediaries between Christ and women if you ignore the context of the verse in Paul’s own vision of the equality of men and women in the church.
Paul has given six reasons for women to wear a head covering in 1 Corinthians 11:
