The Virtue of Modesty and Women’s Dress

by Emily Gossard, O.P.

“Let your modesty be known to all men” – St. Paul (Philippians 4:5)

As I came to a more orthodox understanding of my faith, I realized that my understanding of “modesty” was limited to one basic standard: is my body sufficiently covered? I saw the practice of modesty only in terms of sensuality. To be immodest was to “show too much skin.” I could clearly see how this was against chastity and so the solution to immodesty, I thought, was simply to “cover skin.”

Although this is one part (and an important part) of modesty, it relates more to purity and is a limited understanding of modesty. I suspect there are many of us who tend to think of “modesty” in terms of clothing and matters of purity only. My goal here is to hopefully expose a broader understanding of the virtue of modesty.

In Scripture, St. Paul identifies immodesty as a “work of the flesh” and says those guilty of it will not obtain the kingdom of God:

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.” – Galatians 5:19-21

He goes on to tell us that modesty is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit: 

“But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such there is no law.”

This is because modesty is the virtue which moderates and regulates all of our actions, both interior and exterior. St. Paul is telling us not to act in a manner unbefitting of a follower of Christ, both in our interior and exterior behaviors.

Modesty is a sub-virtue under the virtue of Temperance

Temperance is the virtue which man uses to govern his natural appetites and subdue them according to reason; it controls our yearning for the pleasures which attract us. The hardest appetites for us to control are those for food/drink and sex, thus abstinence and chastity are also sub-virtues under temperance dealing with the most difficult passions to control. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the virtue of modesty has the task of holding in the less violent human passions. Modesty is used to conform to the demands of decency regarding our clothing, speech, bearing, style of living, etc.

Although both Modesty and Chastity (sometimes called Purity) are sub-virtues under the virtue of Temperance, they are different virtues. I point this out to emphasize how often we make the mistake of thinking Modesty and Purity are the same thing. These are two distinct virtues, however, and their relation is that they are both under the umbrella of Temperance.

Chastity involves abstaining from immoral sexual activity.  For those who take a vow of chastity, this means they abstain completely from sexual activity.  For those who are in the married life, they practice the virtue of chastity to moderate the use of sex within right reason.  

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen calls Modesty “a weapon of defense for chastity.”  Modesty, then, is like a weapon we can utilize to help us maintain chastity.

There are four virtues included under modesty: 

• humility

• studiousness

• dress

• behavior

Briefly, we might say that modesty properly directs man’s desire for 1) his own excellence and 2) knowledge, his 3) external dress and his 4) behavior.

How is modesty related to humility? By moderating a man’s desire for pride. Man can have a natural tendency to desire to accomplish great things, so he needs a virtue to keep him from tending immoderately to high goals. The virtue which restrains man’s mind from aiming at things against reason is the virtue of humility.  Humility is based on an honest estimate of one’s own capacities; hence, it enables a man to see what he cannot do and to abstain from trying to do the impossible.

How is modesty related to studiousness? By moderating a man’s desire for knowledge. Man has a desire to know and learn everything, but it is not possible for man to know everything.  This desire must also be moderated according to the rule of reason. Studiousness is the virtue which directs man in a desire to learn the truth. The opposite vice is curiosity, which impels man to have an excessive desire for vain and useless knowledge. This uncontrolled curiosity draws our attention away from our duties and brings needless distraction, wasting our time and energy. Much carelessness and many sins of omission spring from uncontrolled curiosity.  Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene tells us in his great work Divine Intimacy, “One who without necessity desires to see, hear, and taste everything is like a man who leaves the door of his house open to any intruder. The senses are the doors of the soul; we must guard them.”  Therefore, the soul must carefully guard its sight and hearing from vain curiosity, images, and news; for these encumber uselessly.

How is modesty related to dress and behavior?  Modesty directs a man’s external behavior and dress according to right reason.  It is the virtue which gives both men and women self-control in their dress and behavior. It makes us act in a way which fits a human being.  It prevents men and women from behaving in crude and offensive ways in public, and it enables human beings to seek legitimate recreation in a decent way. It also informs us how to dress decently. When St. Teresa of Avila instructed her daughters to “be modest in every action or conversation,” she was talking about their behavior and conversation, advising them to act according to right reason by displaying good manners and restraining from taking anything to an excess.

Louis of Granada on Modesty

Venerable Louis of Granda was a Dominican friar and theologian who lived in the 1500’s. He wrote an excellent book on virtue called The Sinner’s Guide. It’s worth sharing what he says about modesty:

“Every just judge must enforce order and discipline in the kingdom over which he exercises jurisdiction.  Now, the kingdom over which man rules is divided into two distinct parts: the body with all its organs and senses, and the soul with all its affections and powers. Over all of these he must establish the empire of virtue, if he would faithfully perform his duty to himself.”

Fray Louis is speaking of one of the most important aspects of the spiritual life: our soul, with its intellect, must inform and govern the actions of our body. We submit our soul to the direction and guidance of God, and we submit our body to the direction and guidance of our soul. Our body, with its base animal passions, is the inferior part of our existence, while our soul, with its intellect, is the superior part. Our interior soul is meant to rule over our exterior body, with the right reason of an intellect properly informed by God’s truth. When our body rules over our soul, this is a disorder — and we cannot know or find peace living in such discord.

Fray Louis goes on:

“To reform the body and bring it under the dominion of virtue the first thing to be acquired is a modest and decorous bearing.

In other words, if we are going to subdue our body with our higher intellect and rule it with the practice of virtue, we need to subject our body to modest behavior. This is the first step in governing our body.

He continues:

Hence, a servant of God should bear himself with gravity, humility, and sweetness, that all who approach him may profit by his example and be edified by his virtues.  The great Apostle would have us, like fragrant plants, give forth the sweet perfume of piety and filling all about us with the odor of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 2:15).  Such, indeed, should be the effect of the words, the actions, and the bearing of those who serve God, so that none who draw near to them can resist the sweet attraction of sanctity.  This is one of the principal fruits of a modest and recollected deportment.  It is a mute but eloquent teaching which draws men to love virtue and the service of God.”

This is a striking way to look at modesty! As we seek to control our behavior and dress in accord with right reason, we then become “a light shining before all men,” a witness to the Christian faith, to the beauty of virtue, and to the wisdom and order established by God. Modesty is then not only for our own sake, but for that of our neighbors: that they may profit from our modest behavior and be drawn to Christ Himself. St. Francis de Sales said, “A modest demeanor is a silent sermon.” And St. Ambrose said, "How delightful it is to do good to others by your appearance!”

St. Alphonsus Ligouri once related a story of St. Francis of Assisi in which St. Francis said to his companion that he was going out to preach. After walking through the town, with his eyes fixed on the ground, he returned to the convent. His companion asked him when he would preach the sermon. The saint replied, “We have, by the modesty of our looks, given an excellent instruction to all who saw us.”

But beware: just as our clothing and bearing can be an inspiring source of edification for others, so can our lack of modesty be a source of scandal.  Pope Pius XII gave a very stern warning about this very thing when he said: “If a certain kind of dress constitutes a grave and proximate occasion of sin, and endangers the salvation of your soul and others, it is your duty to give it up.” St Augustine also tells us, “Let there be nothing in your carriage, your deportment, or your dress capable of scandalizing your neighbor, but let everything about you be conformable to the purity and sanctity of your profession.”

Fray Louis goes on to highlight a second fruit of modest behavior and dress:

“Another fruit which we derive from this exterior modesty, is a greater facility in preserving the recollection, devotion, and purity of the soul.  The interior and the exterior man are so closely united that good or evil in one is quickly communicated to the other.  For this reason, a composed and modest bearing must contribute to interior recollection and modesty, while a restless exterior must be incompatible with peace of soul.”

In his second point, Fray Louis wants us to ponder how intimately connected our soul is with our body. What affects one will naturally affect the other.  Regarding modesty, we want there to be harmony between our interior and exterior; that is, we want our exterior to reflect in some way what is within us.  As limited and finite human beings, we very often make use of signs, images, gestures, symbols and analogies to explain and express truths that we cannot otherwise comprehend.  This is important to reflect upon, because the clothing we choose to put on our exterior bodies is a symbolic expression of the eternal, divine reality of our interior soul.

St. Alphonsus Ligouri spoke of this in his sermon, The True Spouse of Jesus Christ.  He said that only God knows the human heart; man sees only the exterior, and by this exterior he is either edified or scandalized. He says that it is “by the countenance the interior is known.”  Our exterior dress and behavior say something about us and our interior soul.  Therefore we should pay attention to what we are communicating to others with our clothing and manners.

In a third point on how modesty applies to our manners, Louis tells us that our behavior and dress must fit our profession, or our state in life.  A businessman, a king, a monk, a housewife, a cloistered nun – all are called to different places in life and will naturally have different clothing and behaviors that are specific to their position and duties.  It doesn’t make sense for a woman to wear a ball gown while she’s mopping the floor; nor does it make sense for a king to to wear a bathing suit while he’s addressing the people; nor does it make sense for a monk to wear a business suit while he’s chanting vespers.  This is another key factor to the virtue of modesty: wearing what is appropriate to the situation and circumstance.  By “appropriate” I mean what is reasonable, what makes sense, what is fitting and suitable under the circumstances.

Our Creator Determines Our Purpose

How we clothe the outside of our body reflects something about what is inside us.  The visible exterior is a sign of an invisible reality.  In order to dress truthfully, we have to have knowledge of what is within us.  

From the beginning, God imprinted an image on the nature of woman, and woman cannot change her nature. To understand the truth of what a woman is, we must see the woman as God sees her, because it is He who has created her.  The true and ultimate meaning of something can only be given by the One who designed it and called it out of nothingness into being.  Thus, God’s purpose for woman is the only true purpose of woman.

It is essential that we understand this key reality of our existence. It is the foundation of truth without which we will fall for the lies of the devil who is opposed to the order established by God. Where God has established harmony, it is Satan’s goal to create disharmony. Where God’s order prevails, Satan seeks to create disorder. Today, Satan is assailing a hostile attack on gender, attempting to destroy all distinction between feminine and masculine, and to blur them together to a point where they are indistinguishable.  This is not, and has never been, the purpose of the Creator who made them male and female.  If our worldview lacks a reference to God as the final goal of our lives, then we will attribute a purely worldly meaning to our existence. The ideologies so pervasive today, of feminism and gender identity, is based on an atheistic view of the world and humanity.  By looking around at the current state of society we can clearly see where this false worldview leads to the elimination of differences between the sexes. This "leveling" of the sexes is contrary to the nature of men and women as established by God and denies the physiological reality that the sexes are different. We are living with the degenerate results of this ideology.

Men and women were made different, distinct from one another in their natures, their qualities, their characters, and their missions, by God Himself.  We have no right to change what God has established.  Our duty is to lovingly and humbly submit ourselves to His Wisdom in this matter, not to modify His plans and designs.

The other truth we have to submit ourselves to is that God's values are eternally true.  They are timeless realities that do not change with the passage of time.  Although the world around us – our society, our customs, our fashions, our trends, our technology, our medicine, and whatever else – is constantly and rapidly changing, God and His Truth does not change.

As our Creator, only God can give us the answer to the essential questions about our existence, and only He can tell us why and for what purpose man and woman are different.  His answer and our purpose do not change with the passage of time.

The Nature and Dignity of Women

In his book, The Nature, Dignity and Mission of Woman, Fr. Stehlin offers what I believe is a beautiful explanation of the purpose of a woman as created by God.  A woman is a fruitful giver of life, she serves life with God and in Him, to be a source and mother of life.  God gave woman the distinct features that she needs for this mission: the physical ability to receive, bear, bring forth, nourish, and raise new life.  He gave her the quality of serving, guarding, and protecting life with care.  A woman is a home, a place of refuge. She is responsive to other’s needs, so as to protect life: to help the poor, to alleviate the suffering.  She is the steward of love and the heart of the world.  She is the silent bearer of human values, talents, and abilities: she receives values and carries them on from generation to generation, like a stream.  She is a timeless power that bears life and passes it on.

Here is something else Fr. Stehlin said that kind of blew my mind.  We all know that God made Adam first, but God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, so he created Eve, “the Mother of all the Living,” to be his helper.   For a time, Adam was alone on the earth, but Eve never was!  Fr. Stehlin explains, “The woman does not exist for herself but is always oriented toward a "Thou" for whom she can be a helper, someone she can love.”  The “Thou” referenced here is simply someone else - it may be a husband, a child, or the poor, weak, and suffering, or in the case of a cloistered nun, her beloved “Thou” is Jesus Christ. The point he is making is that a woman’s character lies not in an ability to be utterly alone, but rather in helping and serving others.

There is tremendous beauty and dignity in being a woman.  There are particular features of her character, imprinted in her nature by God, that are exclusive to her and that she does not share with men.  Her clothing is meant to enhance this dignity and to be a symbol of her state in life.

As I said at the beginning, I had an understanding of modesty in terms of purity and not causing scandal, but what I lacked an understanding of the positive aspect of modesty, which is clothing that honors who I am and edifies my neighbors.

Different Sexes Have Different Clothing

Because men and women are different, it makes sense that there are different forms of dress for men and women.  Even in ancient times when both men and women wore robes, the men’s garments were different from those of the women.  Our modern tendency to minimize the difference between men and women’s clothing is a dangerous attempt to minimize the difference between their roles, a difference ordained by God.  By keeping the clothing of men and women distinct from one another, we respectfully maintain the order and roles of the sexes as determined by our Creator.  The manner in which we dress and present ourselves expresses our inherent masculinity or femininity, given to us by our Creator.

Because the female body is capable of bringing new life into the world — new persons created in the image and likeness of God with immortal souls — her body is, in a sense, more sacred than a man’s.  It is also a tradition and principle of our faith that sacred things are veiled.  This is why long skirts and dresses that cover a woman’s body are symbolic of her sacred ability to bring forth new life, new souls.  Her body has power and dignity and must be treated with reverence.  Modest clothing highlights this unseen reality while immodest clothing exposes and profanes her sacred character.  

I genuinely hope this explanation helps women understand that when they cover their body with a long, flowy, beautiful dress it is not because her body is “bad” or “shameful” and needs to be covered from the eyes of men.  It is because her body plays a beautiful role in God’s design — a beautiful and exclusive role that men do not share with her – and the very femininity of her nature demands great respect and reverence.  The clothing we wear is simply an outward sign of this interior reality.  This is, above all else, why women dress in beautiful and dignified ways: to represent the beauty and dignity of their place and role in God’s creation.

Does God really care about the exterior? Isn’t it only the interior that matters?

Because the Pharisees in the Bible had corrupt and wicked hearts concealed beneath a virtuous-looking exterior, many heretics have fallen into the opposite extreme and have contempt for all exterior practices.  But the Catholic Church maintains a happy medium between both.  Our interior virtues are superior, but the Church still recognizes the merit of the exterior as well.  

Fray Louis comments on this necessity of exterior as well as interior virtue:

“A true servant of God must not be content to seek interior virtues only, though they are the noblest, but must also add the practice of exterior virtues, both to preserve the first, and to perfectly fulfill the obligations to justice.  True Christianity is neither wholly interior nor wholly exterior.  The union of both classes of virtue is necessary to the perfection of the natural life.  For as the body receives its life and dignity from the soul, so the exterior virtues receive their life and merit from our interior dispositions, particularly from charity.  Therefore, he who would become a perfect Christian must remember that the interior and exterior virtues are inseparable as soul and body, the treasure and the chest, the vine and its support – that is, the spiritual virtues and their defenses, the exterior works of piety.  Otherwise he will lose the first, without which he can reap no profit from the second.”  

I believe this is why Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen said, “Modesty is the bulwark of the interior life.”  The exterior virtue of modesty in our dress and behavior is like a defensive wall that protects what is precious inside.

However, it is still very important to realize that an exterior display of virtue and piety with a rotting interior is a matter of false of justice that is despised by God. This is frequently condemned in Scripture, even by Our Lord Himself who reproached and condemned the Pharisees for their hypocrisy. If our exterior practices are not animated by an interior spirit of virtue, they are nothing. Our exterior virtues have value only when they are animated by interior virtues. According to Fray Louis, our exterior practices should be motivated by our love of God, our fear of God, and our sincere hatred for sin.

“Those who give themselves wholly to exterior practices should be made to cultivate interior virtues, while those who are devoted to interior virtues should be taught the value of exterior practices when animated by the proper dispositions. They will thus learn to appreciate the merit of both kinds of virte, and therefore to avoid the extremes into which many fall who devote themselves closely to one and neglect the other.”

Those who say that “it’s only what is inside that matters, God knows my heart, it doesn’t matter what I wear on my body” do have a point, but it is not the whole story. Similarly, those who go through all the external actions of piety with an empty interior are omitting something important. As usual with Catholicism, it is not an “either/or” but a “both/and.” We must avoid the trap of falling into either one of these two extremes and understand that both our interior and exterior are intimately related and the truth is that, united together, they both matter a great deal.