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Summary
- Jehovah’s Witnesses dress formally for meetings and door-to-door ministry and ordinarily the rest of the time. There is no uniform, head covering or identifying garment.
- The standard is guidance from the organisation rather than a written rulebook, and rests chiefly on 1 Timothy 2:9 and 1 Peter 3:3-4, both about modesty and display.
- In December 2023 the Governing Body announced that beards are a personal decision, ending roughly a century of discouragement.
- Guidance on women’s clothing has also been relaxed in subsequent updates. Practice varies between congregations, and the organisation’s own current publications are the reliable source.
- Scripture’s own concern about clothing in a congregation is James 2:2-4 — that dress should not sort people — rather than that it should be formal.
Bibliography (Click to show)
Sources: Scripture quotations from the NIV via BibleGateway (1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Peter 3:3-4; Matthew 6:28-29; James 2:2-4). The December 2023 announcement that beards are a personal decision, and subsequent relaxations of guidance on women’s clothing, were made through the organisation’s own broadcasts and publications, which remain the authoritative current source; this article summarises them rather than replacing them.
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