I was recently reading the latest edition of Halachically Speaking. It says:
A woman who is a widow r”l or divorcee still has an obligation to cover her hair.
But why is this so? Why should they be any different than unmarried women?
Answer
Presumably standard practice is that once a woman begins treating her hair as erva, she should continue doing so. (I believe I've heard this from Rabbis Broyde or Willig.)
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein does write that hair-covering while married is dat moshe, but hair-covering afterwards is dat yehudit. There is a great deal of discussion over what those terms mean, but most straightforward is the argument of Rabbi Yehuda Henkin, Rabbi Michael Broyde, and others that the former is completely objective, but the latter may have some cultural dependence.
(By the way, why do unmarried women not have to cover their hair? It appears their definition of erva is culturally subjective, hence not today.)
The obligation of hair-covering post-marriage is less than during marriage; thus (as indicated by rony), in one responsum Rabbi Moshe Feinstein allowed a young widow to uncover her hair as that was needed for her employment in an office (which sounds a bit like the Mad Men era, but I digress). In another responsum, he allows a young divorcee to uncover her hair to increase the likelihood of meeting an eligible fellow. There are actually two reasons why this is helpful:
- Rabbi Feinstein is concerned that a man may be so ideologically opposed to marrying a divorcee that he'd never talk with a hair-covered woman to begin with; but if she looked never-married, he'd make conversation with her, and then by the second or third date she'd reveal her background, but by then he'd think of her as a whole person and not a theoretical category.
- More simply, if I'm a single guy at a kiddush, wedding, or other social event, I'm not going to approach random pretty lady wearing a hair-covering -- she's probably married!
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