Proverbs 31 - a career woman?

[satz]

Just to clarify, if I were to give a one word answer to the OP, no, I do not believe proverbs 31 teaches a Christian wife to be a career woman, certainly not as we would define the term today.

 

[steadfast7]

Now, as far as Proverbs 31, I don't think the point of Proverbs 31 is to speak of a woman who actually exists. Not only are their connections to wisdom, but there also seems to be a connection to the sections dealing with the kind of woman a man is to be seeking. Thus, these are the kinds of traits that show that a woman is wise.

So a man is to seek someone who doesn't exist? Or, the text is actually about wisdom? As posted earlier, I would concur that this woman's capabilities are unrealistic, but does this text have nothing to say about what it actually means to be a noble, godly woman - traits that can and should be emulated?

Also, I don't think it will do to speak about a "carrier woman" or a "homemaker." Such is entirely anachronistic, and totally a product of the industrial revolution. Now, if you demand the family-centered agrarian society of the ANE, you also have to reckon with the fact that the family structure was different. Not only did one generation live in a home and work together, but there could be up to three generations living and working together. Worse than that, families in the ANE also included slaves and resident aliens [does that mean that you could invite someone to live with you, and look after your children while you go to work?].

The ANE context is not so unheard of in today's world either. We should avoid anachronism but modern terms are helpful because we're trying to live in a modern world in the light of scripture. "Career" is simply a long term solution for earning income. The text suggest that this woman is a serious work-horse, both in the home and out of the home. The thrust of the text certainly suggests this to the point that it parallels the modern career woman that conservatives are wary of. So it's not a huge leap across time to read the text in this way. If we took the text strictly in its ANE context, it raises even more problems: why, if there are so many servants and other families in the house, is this woman doing everything herself? Why if there so many potentially shared resources, is this woman striving so hard to earn money?

 

[lynnie]

Her husband sits with the elders. Now possibly she was married to a much older man, but I agree with JBaldwin above that the implication is that she is older, not pregnant and nursing babies.

Many things women used to do have been removed from the home- nursing, schooling, economic contributions (think Ma in Little House on the Prairie making clothes, bread, soap, candles). When kids start school and are out of the house 8-3, maybe Mom can look into income producing activity. But when you have babies and toddlers, and kids home all summer, Titus 2 seems clear.

Anyway, the NT interprets the old, the old does not interpret the new, whether eschatology or the role of women.

 

[Pergamum]

Adam,

I don't think the point of Proverbs 31 is to speak of a woman who actually exists.

Without bragging, I can honestly say that my wife hits the mark a lot of the time. If she ever died, I would look for another Caroline Ingalls type of gal just like her (and would have a very, very hard time finding one from the US in these days).

One key aspect of this discussion is this question, "Who does the wife answer to? Who is she working for?" And I believe that a wife must be industrious, but it is clear that the wife of Proverbs 31 is home-based and only calls her husband her boss. She is his "helpmeet' not some wage-slave to another man.

 

[he beholds]

Career .. good question. Of course it's a modern word, and the main idea I think is a money-making venture that one considers their long term employment. The Prov 31 woman is buying land of her own consideration, planting a vineyard, selling clothing, on top of home making. Perhaps the nobleness of the woman is not that she is centred in any one location, or does any particular work over others, but that she is an extremely capable person who accomplishes so much (?). last verse, v 31 "Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates."

She is not real!! I was thrilled when I finally understood that this is a mother giving her son advice on what kind of wife to find! She is not a real person! I'll give my sons quite a list, too, when they're ready to marry. They won't find a woman with all of the characteristics that I'd advise, but it will tell them what kind of woman to find. This was a word for men, not women. Sorry fellas : )
I've finally stopped comparing myself to this fictitious woman. Not that reality is easier--we've got Christ to compare ourselves to! But at least he has the power to be what we need, despite our complete inability to do so ourselves.

 

[TimV]

Jessica you're one of the women I think of when I read Proverbs 31, and your back handed humility just reinforces that. Chin up, girl, you rock.

 

[he beholds]

Jessica you're one of the women I think of when I read Proverbs 31, and your back handed humility just reinforces that. Chin up, girl, you rock.

haha! oh the irony! we were out of town for the past week and just got in a few hours ago. for me, unpacking is akin to torture, so if you could only see our house right now!! too funny!
(but thanks for the encouragement, nonetheless! hopefully we'll have no unexpected guests drop in till after monday. perhaps days after!)

 

[kvanlaan]

I think this is at least a reasonable interpretation - not the 'a woman CAN have it all and be Biblical about it, too!' attitude that so many twist this to mean. If your husband is an elder at the gates, your children are calling you blessed (I know from this one phrase alone that the children are past their teenage years), and you are out and about without children, you are more advanced in years. Simple.

Who and where has said anything about having it all?

Well, it is the clarion call of the secular world, and many modern day women are buying into it - Christians included. I know I have seen this on many a thread, though it hasn't popped up on this one. I know that we can exception this to death (well, what if her husband is a quadriplegic who requires an extensive list of meds in order to survive - then what???) but the usual norm is that people want a certain lifestyle, they can't have it on one income, and so Prov 31 is brought into the mix in order to justify the wife working outside the home. I know there are exceptions to that, but lets talk general norms here and not give way to the cavalcade of exceptions.

I can't speak for anyone else but my position has been that these verses teach it is part of the role of a wife to contribute financially to the family. How much (if any) time she spends on this will depend on the circumstances of her family and her husband's wishes. However, bibilcally there is no basis for saying that the dedicated stay at home wife is the only acceptable model of christian family life.

Maybe not the only acceptable model, but the preferred one. Just as having one wife is not the only acceptable model of godly family life, but the preferred one? We see examples of both, but in the OT it is acceptable (or at least a norm) to have multiple wives, while in the NT, it is not (assuming you wish to serve in church office). Is this not similar?

The difference is (if she has children to raise) that the cost is so much
greater to earn said money.

If the cost is too great she should not earn the money.

And where is that line? I would venture to say that too often today, we buy into much of what the world is selling, and put our 'needs' well ahead of what models we are given in scripture.

Again, the issue is whether the wife is fulfilling her duties. And whether a job or business will prevent that is a matter of individual circumstances, not of making blanket rules.

Fine, then let's call it 'best practises' before the P-word starts being slung about - it is not a blanket rule, but it is a scriptural admonition. We like the OT practise better than the NT (it fits modern day practises better), so we drag it out whenever it suits our circumstances, when perhaps we should look to the church body before it gets to that point. Actually, most frequently, we need to look to our own lifestyle choices long before we need to look to the body or the benevolent fund or to a working spouse.

 

[Scottish Lass]

He even assumed this state of affairs in the Ten Commandments because the Fourth and Tenth commandments tell men how to treat their maidservants or other men's maidservants. He even directly addresses a situation where a woman has both a master and a husband (Ex 21:2-11).

There are rules about divorce, too--doesn't mean God approves of it. I'm not in a place to interpret scripture on the OP; I'm just saying that simply because God has rules for it doesn't mean it's ideal.

 

[satz]

One key aspect of this discussion is this question, "Who does the wife answer to? Who is she working for?" And I believe that a wife must be industrious, but it is clear that the wife of Proverbs 31 is home-based and only calls her husband her boss. She is his "helpmeet' not some wage-slave to another man.

Pergy

If this reasoning is correct, why isn't a man who works for a employer a slave to his employer instead of the head of his own household?

---------- Post added at 04:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:59 PM ----------

I know there are exceptions to that, but lets talk general norms here and not give way to the cavalcade of exceptions.

I don't actually believe this is a matter of exceptions. I believe Proverbs 31 teaches it is the norm that a wife can contribute financially to her family. If the circumstances make it so that she should not, than she shouldn't. But a family doesn't need a "good reason" for the wife to be engaged in outside pursuits. If it can be done without compromising anything else, the bible reveals that this is a acceptable and commendable arrangement for the family.

Proverbs 31 shows a woman who wants to do her best to help her husband excel in all areas - including financially. She does not limit helping him to just when he needs help to survive.

Maybe not the only acceptable model, but the preferred one. Just as having one wife is not the only acceptable model of godly family life, but the preferred one? We see examples of both, but in the OT it is acceptable (or at least a norm) to have multiple wives, while in the NT, it is not (assuming you wish to serve in church office). Is this not similar?

In all honesty, I am not familiar enough with polygamy and how it was treated in the OT to address the comparison.

But I'll ask, why is it the "preferred one"? Since proverbs 31 explicitly shows a wife engaging in pursuits to earn money. And whether they are home businesses or not, they take away her time and energy from being exclusively domestically focused.

And where is that line? I would venture to say that too often today, we buy into much of what the world is selling, and put our 'needs' well ahead of what models we are given in scripture.

The line should be drawn by each husband putting the spiritual good of his family above the financial. However, the line still varies from family to family because each set of circumstances is different.

What is the "model" that we see in scripture? Where is it taught?

Fine, then let's call it 'best practises' before the P-word starts being slung about - it is not a blanket rule, but it is a scriptural admonition. We like the OT practise better than the NT (it fits modern day practises better), so we drag it out whenever it suits our circumstances, when perhaps we should look to the church body before it gets to that point. Actually, most frequently, we need to look to our own lifestyle choices long before we need to look to the body or the benevolent fund or to a working spouse.

I am not sure the OT practice is any different from the NT. In this case, I believe the OT should interpret the NT passages because 1) there is no indication that gender roles changed between testiments, and more importantly 2) a long passage like proverbs 31 is a better indication of exactly what God was trying to say than the 3 word phrases in the NT.

 

[Philip]

Might we think of the reformational example of Katharina Luther as an example of how Proverbs 31 applied in that cultural context? What kind of person would be a modern analogue to her?

 

[kvanlaan]

The other side of this is that we are only seeing this passage as a literal description. Look elsewhere in proverbs - is Wisdom really a woman? Is a woman really pulling down her house with her own hands? Them's some pretty strong hands. Why are we saying that this is so definitively descriptive to life's activities when a number of commentators see it in a more poetic light? First, the structure (written with each verse as a subsequent letter of the Hebrew Alphabet) is not terribly prosaic or descriptive, but artistic and poetic. Secondly, if we look to most early commentators, we will see that most of them regard it not to be a woman, but the church body.

Second, we must not suppose that this allegorical interpretation was taken to be merely one of the traditional four senses of this scriptural passage, existing alongside an equally legitimate literal interpretation. The remarkable thing is that even those medieval exegetes who stressed the literal sense (such as Rashi, Albertus Magnus, and Nicholas of Lyra) nevertheless interpreted the Valiant Woman as Scripture or the church. As Nicholas of Lyra explains and approves, they held that the figurative meaning here constitutes the literal sense:

In the last part of this book is placed the praise of the valiant woman. It is commonly interpreted by our teachers to refer to the church which is metaphorically called the valiant woman, and her husband
Christ, whereas her sons and daughters are called the Christian people of both sexes, the way it says in Judges 9: The trees went to the bramble bush, etc. The literal sense does not refer to the physical
trees, but to Abimelech and the Shechemites who anointed him king over them.

With regards to books like Titus in the NT, it is plainly describing doctrine regarding actual behaviour and practises, there is no poetic side to it. And to think that such a notion of being a keeper at home is confined to a few words in Titus is not giving these two books their due. There is a flavour in both Titus and Timothy that is unmistakable - and does either one quote the OT to back up what they are saying? No. Why not, if this particular interpretation was so very clear and relevant?

 

[Pergamum]

One key aspect of this discussion is this question, "Who does the wife answer to? Who is she working for?" And I believe that a wife must be industrious, but it is clear that the wife of Proverbs 31 is home-based and only calls her husband her boss. She is his "helpmeet' not some wage-slave to another man.

Pergy

If this reasoning is correct, why isn't a man who works for a employer a slave to his employer instead of the head of his own household?

---------- Post added at 04:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:59 PM ----------

I know there are exceptions to that, but lets talk general norms here and not give way to the cavalcade of exceptions.

I don't actually believe this is a matter of exceptions. I believe Proverbs 31 teaches it is the norm that a wife can contribute financially to her family. If the circumstances make it so that she should not, than she shouldn't. But a family doesn't need a "good reason" for the wife to be engaged in outside pursuits. If it can be done without compromising anything else, the bible reveals that this is a acceptable and commendable arrangement for the family.

Proverbs 31 shows a woman who wants to do her best to help her husband excel in all areas - including financially. She does not limit helping him to just when he needs help to survive.

Maybe not the only acceptable model, but the preferred one. Just as having one wife is not the only acceptable model of godly family life, but the preferred one? We see examples of both, but in the OT it is acceptable (or at least a norm) to have multiple wives, while in the NT, it is not (assuming you wish to serve in church office). Is this not similar?

In all honesty, I am not familiar enough with polygamy and how it was treated in the OT to address the comparison.

But I'll ask, why is it the "preferred one"? Since proverbs 31 explicitly shows a wife engaging in pursuits to earn money. And whether they are home businesses or not, they take away her time and energy from being exclusively domestically focused.

And where is that line? I would venture to say that too often today, we buy into much of what the world is selling, and put our 'needs' well ahead of what models we are given in scripture.

The line should be drawn by each husband putting the spiritual good of his family above the financial. However, the line still varies from family to family because each set of circumstances is different.

What is the "model" that we see in scripture? Where is it taught?

Fine, then let's call it 'best practises' before the P-word starts being slung about - it is not a blanket rule, but it is a scriptural admonition. We like the OT practise better than the NT (it fits modern day practises better), so we drag it out whenever it suits our circumstances, when perhaps we should look to the church body before it gets to that point. Actually, most frequently, we need to look to our own lifestyle choices long before we need to look to the body or the benevolent fund or to a working spouse.

I am not sure the OT practice is any different from the NT. In this case, I believe the OT should interpret the NT passages because 1) there is no indication that gender roles changed between testiments, and more importantly 2) a long passage like proverbs 31 is a better indication of exactly what God was trying to say than the 3 word phrases in the NT.

Mark:

You are from Singapore. Could it be that your cultural upbringing and work ethic you were raised with impacts your view of Proverbs 31? There is quite a drive to push and get ahead in Singapore it seems, and it would be quite the cultural sacrifice to take one wage-earning member out of the workforce, would it not?


Imagine that you were married and your wife's boss wanted her to work overtime? Who has the final say? Does the husband then merely give in to the authority of the boss and become, in effect, a Mr. Mom while she puts in extra hours and the husband is forced to take on the domestic care of the home (lest the children go neglected)? I think that in many cases this happens.

I realize that Christian slave-women in the past tried both to please their masters and their husbands also. But, why any husband would desire to voluntarily submit their wife to wage-slavery under two authorities for the sake of a little luxury is beyond me.

Many, if not most, women who work do not work part-time. Nor do they have wide flexibility in determining their own work schedules.

Thus, it is hard to say that the working wife is much of a helpmeet to her husband in any way except financially, and most of the things that Americans and Singaporeans spend their money on is not out of necessity but are mere luxuries. Thus, our cultures are sacrificing their families on the altar of comfort.

 

[Philip]

Thus, it is hard to say that the working wife is much of a helpmeet to her husband in any way except financially

Can I get a precise definition of this term "helpmeet"? I hear it thrown around a lot even though it appears only in one verse, and even then only in the Authorized Version (if I'm not mistaken). We have established that the wife is to help her husband to raise his family in Godliness---but what else does the term entail?

 

[py3ak]

why, if there are so many servants and other families in the house, is this woman doing everything herself?

In Scripture, it can be said that the supervisor did something when it is hard to imagine that everything was done with his own hands: consider the narration of Moses setting up the tabernacle.

Many things women used to do have been removed from the home- nursing, schooling, economic contributions (think Ma in Little House on the Prairie making clothes, bread, soap, candles).

Dorothy Sayers makes this point in Are Women Human? It's a worthwhile thing to think about: has industrialization made staying home less interesting than it used to be?

 

[satz]

The other side of this is that we are only seeing this passage as a literal description. Look elsewhere in proverbs - is Wisdom really a woman? Is a woman really pulling down her house with her own hands? Them's some pretty strong hands. Why are we saying that this is so definitively descriptive to life's activities when a number of commentators see it in a more poetic light? First, the structure (written with each verse as a subsequent letter of the Hebrew Alphabet) is not terribly prosaic or descriptive, but artistic and poetic. Secondly, if we look to most early commentators, we will see that most of them regard it not to be a woman, but the church body.

Second, we must not suppose that this allegorical interpretation was taken to be merely one of the traditional four senses of this scriptural passage, existing alongside an equally legitimate literal interpretation. The remarkable thing is that even those medieval exegetes who stressed the literal sense (such as Rashi, Albertus Magnus, and Nicholas of Lyra) nevertheless interpreted the Valiant Woman as Scripture or the church. As Nicholas of Lyra explains and approves, they held that the figurative meaning here constitutes the literal sense:

In the last part of this book is placed the praise of the valiant woman. It is commonly interpreted by our teachers to refer to the church which is metaphorically called the valiant woman, and her husband
Christ, whereas her sons and daughters are called the Christian people of both sexes, the way it says in Judges 9: The trees went to the bramble bush, etc. The literal sense does not refer to the physical
trees, but to Abimelech and the Shechemites who anointed him king over them.

With regards to books like Titus in the NT, it is plainly describing doctrine regarding actual behaviour and practises, there is no poetic side to it. And to think that such a notion of being a keeper at home is confined to a few words in Titus is not giving these two books their due. There is a flavour in both Titus and Timothy that is unmistakable - and does either one quote the OT to back up what they are saying? No. Why not, if this particular interpretation was so very clear and relevant?

Kevin,

Are you really saying that Proverbs 31 isn't applicable in determining what a wife should do for NT Christians?

The NT itself shows that whatever gender roles there are in the NT are connected with, and linked to what was found in the OT (1 Tim 2:13-15, 1 Cor 11:8-9).

Proverbs 31 is the longest and most detailed description of a "good wife" God has written down in the bible. Why wouldn't we go to this passage to further explain what is God's view on womanhood?

---------- Post added at 04:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:48 PM ----------

Mark:

You are from Singapore. Could it be that your cultural upbringing and work ethic you were raised with impacts your view of Proverbs 31? There is quite a drive to push and get ahead in Singapore it seems, and it would be quite the cultural sacrifice to take one wage-earning member out of the workforce, would it not?

Pergy,

I guess it's possible. We all see the bible through the lenses of our upbringing. So that's (in part) why I would like to test my understanding in discussions like this.

As I said before, it seems to me Proverbs 31 shows that a good wife helps her husband financially - and this is a family that is quite successful, so she helps him excel financially, not just survive. That's the principle I see, how it may apply to each family is going to be completely different. How is this understanding coloured by any culture?

Thus, it is hard to say that the working wife is much of a helpmeet to her husband in any way except financially, and most of the things that Americans and Singaporeans spend their money on is not out of necessity but are mere luxuries. Thus, our cultures are sacrificing their families on the altar of comfort.

Surely whether a wife is a good helpmeet to her husband is for her husband, and not anyone else, to decide.

The fact that she may not be available 24/7 does not mean she is not a good helpmeet, if her unavailability is due to commitments her husband approved off or wanted. Isn't this what Numbers 30 teaches, where a husband can annul his wife's vows... or let them stand, thus allowing another obligation on his family.

In the end, whether a particular man wants financial help, or some other kind of help from his wife is completely up to him. Just because another man's choice is extremely strange to us does not give us the right to say it is wrong.

Regarding necessities and luxuries, as I said, I think Proverbs 31 shows that a woman earning money is a commendable act for a wife. So it doesn't need to be a situation where the family "needs" it. As long as the husband is approves, and no other command of God is compromised, a wife can engage in outside pursuits not just to help her husband survive, but prosper financially as well.

I think also that there's quite a large range of spending that is not a necessity in the sense of "the family can't survive without it" but is not luxury in the sense of indulgence. A man may be willing to live with a household that is not perfectly run in order to build up a larger savings reserve for the family. That's his choice on how he wants to run his family and use the resources God has given him, isn't it?

 

[steadfast7]

why, if there are so many servants and other families in the house, is this woman doing everything herself?

In Scripture, it can be said that the supervisor did something when it is hard to imagine that everything was done with his own hands: consider the narration of Moses setting up the tabernacle.

There's enough in the text to suggest that she's doing a great deal of work with her own hands: vv 13, 17-19. It seems to be a point the author wants to hit home.

 

[CharlieJ]

Dennis,

I'd like to add that Proverbs 31 is not a wife finding checklist. The sentence, "Who can find a capable wife?" does not mean that the following portion is advice for finding a wife. At least, it's a very strange checklist, since the woman outlined in the chapter is already married with children!

It does give an idea of what feminine virtue looks like over the course of a lifetime, and for us married men, it reminds us to empower our wives to grow in that direction and to praise them for all their successes.

 

[Pergamum]

Mark:

Yes, I agree that women can earn money. Yet, her domain is still the home and the center of her thoughts still the kids.

My own mother is a good example of this. She was a full-time stay-at-home mom while my dad worked in a car factory for over 2 decades. In her spare time, she made Raggedy-Ann dolls and quilts, which my father sold at work. This supplemented our income, but did not take her out of the home and my mother did this knitting or sewing in free times while I was playing beside her. If her children needed something, she was able to instantly stop and tend to us.


Also, my own wife runs a health clinic here on our porch. This is very much a "from the home" ministry. Alethea helps her hand out water for pill-taking and hands Teresa the bandages, etc. My wife is the busiest woman I know, but she prioritizes the home.

My wife Teresa worked as a nurse prior to our children being born. After Noah was born (for 2 whole days) Teresa was a "working mother"......but two days was enough. When newborn Noah could not sleep and I called the hospital and Teresa wondered if she could get off work to go and help her newborn, then we decided then and there that her working was too much of a sacrifice. If she had to ask permission to come and care for her own children, then it was clear that she had to quit.

Now, she stays plenty busy, but only insofar as she can do so alongside the children and make her activities into educational opportunities for the children. When the children are grown she could work outside the home if she desired, but at this later stage in her life, she might be better served to become an "older woman of the church" and spend her time helping the younger women.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Thus, it is hard to say that the working wife is much of a helpmeet to her husband in any way except financially

Can I get a precise definition of this term "helpmeet"? I hear it thrown around a lot even though it appears only in one verse, and even then only in the Authorized Version (if I'm not mistaken). We have established that the wife is to help her husband to raise his family in Godliness---but what else does the term entail?

Herman Bavinck

A third particular of this second chapter of Genesis is the gift of the woman to the man and the institution of marriage. Adam had received much. Though formed out of the dust of the earth, he was nevertheless a bearer of the image of God. He was placed in a garden which was a place of loveliness and was richly supplied with everything good to behold and to eat. He received the pleasant task of dressing the garden and subduing the earth, and in this he had to walk in accordance with the commandment of God, to eat freely of every tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But no matter how richly favored and how grateful, that first man was not satisfied, not fulfilled. The cause is indicated to him by God Himself. It lies in his solitude. It is not good for the man that he should be alone. He is not so constituted, he was not created that way. His nature inclines to the social — he wants company. He must be able to express himself, reveal himself, and give himself. He must be able to pour out his heart, to give form to his feelings. He must share his awarenesses with a being who can understand him and can feel and live along with him. Solitude is poverty, forsakenness, gradual pining and wasting away. How lonesome it is to be alone!

And He who created man thus, with this kind of need for expression and extension can in the greatness and grace of His power only choose to supply the need. He can only create for him a helpmeet who goes along with him, is related to him, and suits him as counterpart. The account tells us in verses 19 to 21 that God made all the beasts of the field and all the fowls of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see whether among all those creatures there was not a being who could serve Adam as a companion and a helper. The purpose of these verses is not to indicate the chronological order in which animals and man were made, but rather to indicate the material order, the rank, the grades of relationship in which the two sorts of creatures stand over against each other. This relationship of rank is first indicated in the fact that Adam named the animals.

Adam therefore understood all the creatures, he penetrated their natures, he could classify and subdivide them, and assign to each of them the place in the whole of things which was their due. If, accordingly, he discovered no being among all those creatures who was related to himself, this was not the consequence of ignorance nor of foolhardy arrogance or pride; rather, it stemmed from the fact that there existed a difference in kind between him and all other creatures, a difference not of degree merely but of essence. True, there are all kinds of correspondences between animal and man: both are physical beings, both have all kinds of need and desire for food and drink, both propagate offspring, both possess the five senses of smell, taste, feeling, sight, and hearing, and both share the lower activities of cognition, awareness, and perception. Nonetheless, man is different from the animal. He has reason, and understanding, and will and in consequence of these he has religion, morality, language, law, science, and art. True, he was formed from the dust of the earth, but he received the breath of life from above. He is a physical, but also a spiritual, rational, and moral being. And that is why Adam could not find a single creature among them all that was related to him and could be his helper. He gave them all names, but not one of them deserved the exalted, royal name of man.

Then, when man could not find the thing he sought, then, quite apart from man's own witting and willing, and without contributive effort on his own part, God gave man the thing he himself could not supply. The best things come to us as gifts; they fall into our laps without labor and without price. We do not earn them nor achieve them: we get them for nothing. The richest and most precious gift which can be given to man on earth is woman. And this gift he gets in a deep sleep, when he is unconscious, and without any effort of will or fatigue of the hand. True, the seeking, the looking about, the inquiring, the sense of the need precedes it. So does the prayer. But then God grants the gift sovereignly, alone, without our help. It is as though He conducts the woman to the man by His own hand.

Thereupon the first emotion to master Adam, when he wakes up and sees the woman before him, is that of marveling and gratitude. He does not feel a stranger to her, but recognizes her immediately as sharing his own nature with him. His recognition was literally a recognition of that which he had felt he missed and needed, but which he could not himself supply. And his marveling expresses itself in the first marriage hymn or epithalamium ever to be sounded on the face of the earth: “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.” Adam therefore remains the source and head of the human race. The woman is not merely created alongside of him but out of him (1 Cor. 11:8). Just as the stuff for making Adam's body was taken from the earth, so the side of Adam is the basis of the life of Eve. But just as out of the dust of the earth the first man became a living being through the breath of life which came from above, so out of Adam's side the first woman first became a human being by the creative omnipotence of God. She is out of Adam and yet is another than Adam. She is related to him and yet is different from him. She belongs to the same kind and yet in that kind she occupies her own unique position. She is dependent and yet she is free. She is after Adam and out of Adam, but owes her existence to God alone. And so she serves to help the man, to make his vocation of subduing the earth possible. She is his helper, not as mistress and much less as slave, but as an individual, independent, and free being, who received her existence not from the man hut from God, who is responsible to God, and who was added to man as a free and unearned gift.

 

[Philip]

I don't think that outside-the-home ministries or money-making is necessarily out of the question, so long as the home is in order. In many cases, as children grow older, it can even be necessary that the mother be at times absent so as to help the children to take ownership and more responsibility.

My own mother has been, for the last couple of years, a part-time educational therapist, partly to help fund educational therapy for certain family members, and I can truly say that it has helped to make the family stronger because everyone had to get on board to make it work.

 

[Pergamum]

I don't think that outside-the-home ministries or money-making is necessarily out of the question, so long as the home is in order. In many cases, as children grow older, it can even be necessary that the mother be at times absent so as to help the children to take ownership and more responsibility.

My own mother has been, for the last couple of years, a part-time educational therapist, partly to help fund educational therapy for certain family members, and I can truly say that it has helped to make the family stronger because everyone had to get on board to make it work.

The phrase, "everyone had to get on board to make it work." is significant to me and to my point. This may indicate in many situations that the needs or preferences of the family and what would otherwise be best for them are subordinated for the sake of a job outside the home.

 

[satz]

I don't think that outside-the-home ministries or money-making is necessarily out of the question, so long as the home is in order. In many cases, as children grow older, it can even be necessary that the mother be at times absent so as to help the children to take ownership and more responsibility.

My own mother has been, for the last couple of years, a part-time educational therapist, partly to help fund educational therapy for certain family members, and I can truly say that it has helped to make the family stronger because everyone had to get on board to make it work.

The phrase, "everyone had to get on board to make it work." is significant to me and to my point. This may indicate in many situations that the needs or preferences of the family and what would otherwise be best for them are subordinated for the sake of a job outside the home.

Pergy,

Isn't this the husband's choice to make, and not anyone else's (including, you, me or even any pastor)?

If the children are truly being neglected such that God's commands regarding them are not being kept, than things are obviously out of balance. However, short of an excess situation like that, its a husband's right and prerogative to chose how things will run in his own family.

 

[Pergamum]

Mark:

Yes, the husband may pick up some slack normally designated to the wife so that she can work outside the home. The family in this situation may, indeed, "make it work." The husband has the right even to make unwise decisions, I reckon.

But, on many occasions, it appears to me that the husband farms out the wife for the sake of personal financial comfort.

I strongly believe that a family is better off to live pretty poorly and have the mother constantly around the children than to live well-off and have both parents working. But of course, if a job schedule is extremely flexible, if the husband agrees (rather than merely relents) and if the children have a parent present instead of some form of parental surrogate to make up for their own absence (which I believe is tantamount to negligence in some cases), then a part-time job could be handled by a mother without her forsaking the center of her duties, the home.

I believe that the vast majority of people in the West would have overwhelmingly agreed with me 100 years ago. Yet, today my view is perhaps a vast minority and sounds extreme.

Of course, I have met families here in Asia that are dirt-poor and close to malnutrition and the wife and husband both work the rice paddies. In this case, the kids are right out there with mom. But barring extreme poverty, I see no reason to distract my wife from her high calling as mother, one of the highest callings on earth (the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world).

 

[kvanlaan]

Amen, amen, amen.

Thank you. I likewise find that modern secular culture has dictated too much to us what is the 'norm' in our Christian homes.

 

[satz]

Amen, amen, amen.

Thank you. I likewise find that modern secular culture has dictated too much to us what is the 'norm' in our Christian homes.

Kevin,

So should every home then be dictated by "conservative" culture?

You wouldn't want anyone telling you that your wife wasn't doing a good job of helping you because she doesn't do things the way his wife does things. So why do that to others?

 

[kvanlaan]

So should every home then be dictated by "conservative" culture?

You wouldn't want anyone telling you that your wife wasn't doing a good job of helping you because she doesn't do things the way his wife does things. So why do that to others?

No, not by 'conservative' culture, but by biblical implications. I still don't buy the idea that Proverbs 31 is some sort of OT diktat for women (as posted previously, there are a number of respected scholars who believe it speaks nothing of actual women).

I've heard some ardent feminists tell me that the suffragettes pried open the door to women in the workplace, and that second world war blew it open. Then women just never went back home - and the 1960's were the icing on the deconstructionist cake. This is the genesis of such an attitude and I find little value in it. It has taken a large part in inflationary measures of the last several decades and made life difficult for those who wish to live in a one-income family.

And so far as your wife not doing what my wife does, I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings. What my wife does is a unique calling that many women simply can't handle. I don't look down on those who don't do what Elizabeth does, not many are called to it (I won't go heading off into the jungle like Pergy and if he looks down on me because of that, I can't help him with that personal issue). But when decisions on work and childbearing are consciously or unconsciously made on the basis of worldly 'wisdom', I get really bent out of shape. I know that in defense, we can often say that person X down the church pew from me lives like that and person Y who sits two rows back also runs their family that way. And I will still say that in too many of those cases, it is an infiltration of the world into the church that caused this paradigm shift and not some sort of improved exegesis.

I don't take these views because I like them, I take them because I truly and wholeheartedly believe that is what scripture says - life would be much easier without these biblically-based convictions.

 

[satz]

No, not by 'conservative' culture, but by biblical implications. I still don't buy the idea that Proverbs 31 is some sort of OT diktat for women (as posted previously, there are a number of respected scholars who believe it speaks nothing of actual women).

If you don't think Proverbs 31 is a teaching on what a christian woman should be like, what about these verses?

Pr 31:11The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
Pr 31:12She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
Pr 31:27She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Pr 31:30Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

Do these have no implication on how a christian woman should behave? In fact, what about basically all the verses from 20-31, other than 16 and 24, which I have been using to support my point.

The new testament has words about the role of a christian woman - "keepers at home", "guide the house". I feel it is an obvious next step, if we wish to see everything God thinks about women, to look at a long, almost 20 verse passage he has written in his Word describing a good wife. Because as in any form of communication, when you speak or write for longer, you can more fully express what you mean. Or put another way, Proverbs 31 is one of the ways we help ourselves interpret what the words of the NT mean. This is "comparing spiritual things with spiritual", as 1 Cor 2:13 says.

On what basis do you disagree? Is it only because of the emminence of these scholars?

 

[Philip]

The phrase, "everyone had to get on board to make it work." is significant to me and to my point. This may indicate in many situations that the needs or preferences of the family and what would otherwise be best for them are subordinated for the sake of a job outside the home.

I should stress that this was at a point where two out of four children were in high school and capable of (and, if I am permitted to speak for myself in retrospect, needing to) take on these responsibilities. It brought our family together in an incredible way. I would even say that we were better taken care of because of this need/opportunity for work outside the home because it taught us valuable things about living independently---things that I am still using.