The veil may be a symbol of division. It can represent a gendered distribution of space, demarcating the public and the private realms in which man and woman respectively have their being. It can be resented because of the restrictions it enforces, and cherished as the source of wisdom and insight. Certain Pauline or deutero-Pauline texts, enjoining silence and docility as the conditions of woman's marginal participation in the public sphere, make this a plausible interpretation of the Pauline image. On closer reading of the Pauline text, however, it appears that the veil is the symbol not of woman's enforced silence but of her authority to speak – to speak, indeed, to and from God on behalf of the congregation, to declare in her own voice the word of the Lord and the answering human word. ‘Every woman praying or prophesying with uncovered head dishonours her head’ (1 Cor. 11.5). Granted that woman speaks and must speak to and from God, the veil is the mark of her right to do so. Woman ‘must have authority on the head …’ (v. 10), and the veil is that authority – assuming what must later be demonstrated, that the veil is indeed the issue here. The speech that the veil authorizes is not a marginal speech that occurs behind closed doors but a speech that belongs at the heart of the public life of the worshipping congregation. But why is this speech subjected to the condition of the veil?