By The Daily Caller (U.S.) | Created at 2026-08-03 17:44:52 | Updated at 2026-08-04 00:15:08
6 hours ago
Former White House speechwriter and author Joshua Charles recently suggested that one practical way for a man to evaluate a potential wife is to ask her to dress more modestly in public.
The idea is that by refusing she may signal a deeper rejection of Christ’s authority and, by extension, a rejection of the husband’s leadership in marriage, according to Charles. He recommends moving on. The internet, mostly women, did not like this advice, calling it controlling or outdated. Still, there is a cautious case for agreeing with Charles’ underlying concern.
One of the easiest ways for a man to see if a woman is worth pursuing: ask her to dress modestly in public (since most don’t these days).
If she says no, she rejects the authority of Christ, and would thus reject your authority as a husband.
Move on.
In a culture where revealing clothing has become the default for many young women, a willingness to discuss and adjust how we dress can function as a useful signal of shared values. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)
Christian marriage, at least in traditional interpretations, involves mutual submission under Christ, with the husband bearing a particular responsibility for spiritual leadership. If a woman treats any request related to modesty as an automatic overreach, it may indicate that the couple already disagrees about the legitimacy of religious tradition. Figuring this out before wedding vows are ever exchanged would be pretty important.
The same logic applies to a man who cannot regulate his own habits around pornography or self-indulgence, and has no standing to lecture anyone else. This is a point that Charles has also made in other posts in the past. And despite it really carrying equal weight, the internet was not nearly as upset about his comments about men as it was about his advice on women and modesty.
If you are a Christian man, and haven’t kicked your porn habit (at least 6 months free): shut up complaining about the dating market. You’re part of the problem.
— Joshua Charles🇻🇦 (@JoshuaTCharles) March 4, 2026I think the more women and men use discernment to find a match before marriage, the better. And I truly think this is the point that Charles was making. It wasn’t necessarily about modest dress but rather a litmus test for whether your partnership is compatible.
Still, there is something to be said about the reality that modest dress is largely suggestive. This reminds me of the Evie Magazine milkmaid dress internet discourse from 2025. What counts as modest changes with climate, activity, social setting, among other things. A woman in a professional workplace, a mother at a playground, and a teenager at a beach face different practical constraints. Rigid external rules ignore those differences and quickly become arbitrary.
When people treat modesty primarily as a list of prohibitions, the virtue itself is distorted. Genuine modesty aims at respect and reverence for the body. It recognizes that the human form is not neutral property to be displayed for validation or sexual consumption. What most miss when discussing modesty is that the desire to be modest must be internal before it’s ever external. Overemphasis on the external can quickly turn into scrupulosity, which I think runs rampant in most traditional Christian circles.
Scrupulosity is an excessive and irrational obsession with keeping rules perfectly to avoid sin, which in turn becomes a sin itself, especially when you are using this obsession to correct others. But humanity has always found it hard to remove the plank out of their eye before demanding other’s remove the speck out of theirs. (ROOKE: Modern Motherhood’s Weed-Filled Isolation Chamber)
Charles is right that values around the body and authority matter in marriage and that early signals of disagreement are useful. A culture that treats every concern about immodesty as inherently oppressive leaves no room for discussing how our bodies are worthy of respect. I don’t think it’s wrong for a man to suggest a dress code in the same way that I believe women should be allowed to vet a potential future husband for internal and external qualities she desires. When did we forget that the purpose of dating is to find compatibility?
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