Guide
Can a Non Mason Wear Masonic Symbols?
· 3 minute read
There is no rule that stops anyone wearing a Masonic symbol. Freemasonry has no trademark on the square and compasses, no police, and no interest in being either. The question is not whether you may but what you are saying when you do, and the answer depends on which symbol it is.
The square and compasses
The emblem is understood, by Masons and by everyone who knows what it is, as a statement that the wearer is one. A brother who sees it on a stranger will assume he has found another brother and may say so. If you are not a Mason, you will then be explaining that you are not, and most people would rather not have that conversation in a supermarket.
That is the whole of the objection. It is not sacred, it is not secret, and wearing it does no harm to anyone. It simply says something that, for a non Mason, is not true.
Family
Family are the exception everyone recognises. The widow of a Mason wearing his emblem, a daughter wearing her father's, a son wearing his grandfather's, are all common and all understood as pride in a relative rather than a claim. Say so if asked and nobody will think twice. The Order of the Eastern Star, open to the women of a Mason's family, has emblems of its own that many prefer. Our A Mason's Lady shirt takes the other route, a gold rose and a banner that say whose she is without borrowing his emblem.
The wider symbolism
Most of what people love in Masonic art is older than the fraternity and belongs to nobody. The All Seeing Eye is centuries of religious painting. The two pillars are in the First Book of Kings. Euclid's forty seventh problem is Euclid's. The celestial sphere, the beehive, the acacia, the mosaic floor and the working tools were all pictures of something before a lodge ever hung them on a wall. A shirt built on those says you admire the ideas, and it says nothing about membership.
Our For Our Friends and Family collection is drawn on exactly that rule. The Beehive, the Two Pillars, the Mosaic Pavement, the Eye of Providence, the Keystone and the rest are the same codex plates as the Archives, with the square and compasses left out of every one of them.
What not to do
Do not claim to be a Mason if you are not. Do not wear a Masonic ring, which is read as a jewel of membership more firmly than any shirt. Do not wear an apron, which belongs in a lodge room. A shirt is a lighter thing than any of those, and a straight answer to a friendly question settles it.
Questions
- Is it disrespectful for a non Mason to wear the square and compasses?
- It is not forbidden and it harms nobody, but the emblem is read as a statement of membership, so a non Mason wearing it will be taken for a brother and should be ready to say he is not.
- Can a Mason's wife or daughter wear Masonic symbols?
- Yes, and it is common. Family wearing a relative's emblem is understood as pride rather than a claim of membership. The Order of the Eastern Star also has emblems of its own for the women of a Mason's family.
