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Feme-covert

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A married woman. This does not mean a woman coverte by her husband, but a woman whose head is covered, not usual with maidens or unmarried women. In Rome unmarried women wore on their heads only a corolla (i.e. a wreath of flowers). In Greece they wore an anadēma, or fillet. The Hungarian spinster is called hajadon (bareheaded). Married women, as a general rule, have always covered their head with a cap, turban, or something of the same sort, the head being covered as a badge of subjection. Hence Rebekah (Gen. xxiv. 65), being told that the man she saw was her espoused husband, took a veil and covered her head. Servants wear caps, and private soldiers in the presence of their officers cover their heads for the same reason. (See Eph. v. 22, 23.)

⁂ Women do not, like men, uncover their heads even in saluting, but bend their knee, in token of subjection. (See Salutations.)

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Feeble
Feed of Corn
Feet
Fehm-gericht
Felician (Father)
Felix
Felixmarte
Fell (Dr.)
Fellow Commoner
Felo de Se
Feme-covert
Feme-sole
Femme de Chambre. (French.)
Femynye
Fen Nightingale
Fence Month
Fenchurch Street (London)
Fencible Regiments
Fenella
Fenians
Fennel