Well, after an absolutely, mamash, gevaldig shlomo zzl’l concert motzei shabbos that went on till one in the morning, I am back adding my two cents to some of the questions discussed.Joseph and others, notpashut,noitallmr, I had the opportunity to ACTUALLYy learn the BACH this shabbos and other “nosei keilim’ of the Tur and Shulchan Aruch.
It is INCONTROVERTBILE that the Bach and his succesors do not consider “beged ish’ a Piece of clothing of the opposite sex in two different situations: 1) even it is a “beged Hiddur”- meaning a fancy and important piece of clothing, if it is put on by the woman (or the man)for a specific purpose (like cold or rain), not related to wanting to look like the opposite sex, it is PERMITTED. The Taz ( Bach’s son-in-law) and the Shach CONCUR.
the other situation is of a piece of clothing that is not used for “hiddur’- importance, then it is mutter anytime.
Before jumping on me- PLEASE check the sources!!
Ok- now, the Bach does not specifically mention pants or the like and I surmise that the acharonim mentioned prohibit pants because of znius , not “lo silbash’. This fact is truly clear from the BACH, the TAZ and the SHACH.
Interestingly, the Tur and the Shulchan Aruch mention a “mitznefet” as a ‘beged ish”, because it is a piece of clothing that a man wears to look important. SO, women, to put on a (man’s) hat may be “lo silbash’!
Anyway- It is absolutely clear from these acharonim that what a “beged ish” is much more limited than you’d think. Woman’s pants are not even “beged ish”, so wearing pants may not be “znisudik” but ‘lo silbash’ it ain’t.
notpashut- I have not seen the various teshuvos that Joseph mentions but I can only quote the gedolei acharonim like the Bach ,the Taz and the Shach.
Joseph, I checked the Bi-ur halocho about woman’s hair and ,if you would quote it properly, he writes that , in her house, she is permitted to go without her hair covered. True- the Chofetz Chaim himself continues and strongly questions this custom but he writes it in Biur halocho, which ,as you know, is not the way he actually paskens.
The issue of hair coveing is very extensive and really cannot be covered in a short email posting. There are a multitude of halochos and customs -Das moshe, das jehudis, etc. The Rambam seems to have his own way of looking at this (see Hichos soitah)and “nahara ,nahara pashtei” ,the customs on this have spread far and diffently to various communities.
One correction- the mother who said that “the walls of her house never saw her hair’ had the zechus of “Kohanim gedolim'(not a Tannah ,as I wrote mistakenly) as descendants (Massechet Jummoh).Still ,it was a “madreiha’, not a halacha.
I won’t even venture into the discussion about eiruv. For that, you need a whole blog!