A Woman Worth More Than Rubies - Term Paper Example

? Wisdom: A Woman Worth More Than Rubies November 23,   Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.   She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.   She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar. She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.   She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.   She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.   She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.   She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.   Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.   She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.i This beautiful passage, from the book of Proverbs, can be interpreted in a number of ways. From a traditional perspective, perhaps the woman, described, is a wife and mother who actually lived, modeling standards which every woman should aspire to attain. Maybe godly women should try to emulate her example in full or in part. A second interpretation is feminist, and sees the woman as being of worth within the context of the patriarchy, while being actually oppressed and having worth in terms of male benefit. A third interpretation is that the woman is real and elitist, and the passage itself has both liberating and oppressive elements for black African women, in particular. A fourth interpretation, the thesis of this paper is that “The woman of worth”, is an acrostic poem extolling godly wisdom which is of great value and benefit to the family and society. ii The traditional interpretation is, no doubt, attractive to any man whose values are based in patriarchal tradition. This woman is a dream, an ideal wife. She is supportive and does all duties of wifehood with great competence. She is low maintenance as she is able to organize, manage and even reward herself. Everyone who sees what a good woman she is can only conclude that her husband is a man of great worth. Her reputation upholds his so that he can sit in the most public place, the city gates, and enjoy the dignity he derives from her. She daily proves what a lucky and clever man he is to have a woman of her quality securely attached to him. She is a God-fearing woman, moral and ethical, compassionate and charitable, providing for her husband and children with great focus. This is the woman all men should want for a wife and all women should aspire to become. This is the woman all mothers and fathers want their sons to marry, to bring into the family. This is the woman all children should be so blessed to have for a mother. This is the woman all servants should have as an estate mistress. This is the woman all communities should have for a model and charitable resource. This is the woman all schools would be proud to claim as an alumnus. This is the woman all churches should look toward as a measured template for women of their membership. She is a paradigm for godly women everywhere. It is unlikely that anyone raised within the context of a compatible value system could ever find fault with such a woman. What is there to complain about? What more is there to want? Who could not want it? On the other hand, how achievable is this model of a woman? Whether or not she was at one time “real”, is she real-izable? Is she within the scope of potential achievement for all women, or at least for many women, or anyway the average woman, or at the very least enough women to be visible to most women, thus providing inspiration for a realizable goal? Most women in the world do not own lots of money and property, are disadvantaged at doing business, lack training, know nothing about vineyards, rarely speak with wisdom, are not strong and ideally healthy, wish they had nicer clothing, lack household help and have no resources for dispensing charity. A lot of women have children and husbands who complain and whine, and they feel inadequately appreciated. Even the most well-meaning woman, of average or less than average means, would be unable to live up to this model. The modern woman, even when she has a high social status, would be uncomfortable with the role described in this passage from Proverbs. It is safe to conclude that it is not realizable for more than an extraordinary few, if any, women today. If it is an unrealizable model, a woman who tries to live up to it can only confront failure, not inspiration. So is this woman of worth description completely without value to women today? Or perhaps it is simply intended as an unrealizable ideal, but one which would point out a direction for the godly woman, one that is gender distinct. Reverend William Arnot’s commentary on Proverbs iii interpreted the passage compatibly with this view as a gender distinct map for the socialization of godly women. He noted that their qualities, based on this passage, should be shaped toward including industriousness, activity (as opposed to slothfulness), benevolence, exercising forethought, elegance, discretion and kindness, and moral discipline. He summed the passage up by saying, “To be occupied with good is the best defense against the inroads of evil.”iv A study of elderly, pious Middle Eastern Jewish women in Jerusalem v (originally most came from Kurdish background, but some from Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Morocco) found that they participated in holiness within the daily context of the profane. They were formally excluded from most formal religious observance, but they derived gendered religious identity and satisfaction from cooking for others (family, guests, neighbors, the poor), including charitable cooking. In spite of being widowed, illiterate and poor, they focused on helping others and keeping close relationships with their children. In analyzing their case, it seems these elderly, pious women can be considered to be in sync with the woman of worth ideal. One way of looking at the traditional interpretation of the passage from Proverbs is to see a picture of an ideal which, although it may not be realizable in totality, yet serves as a framework within which the godly woman may position herself. Another ethnographic study, which suggests this interpretation, focused on Fundamentalist Christian women in Southern California. The Researcher found that gender functions to “literally bifurcate the congregation in two, establishing parallel religious worlds: a general symbolic world led by men that encompasses overall congregational life and a second, female symbolic world composed of and led solely by women.”vi This is consistent with the idea that the passage from Proverbs could be reasonably seen as an idealized framework that maps out distinct areas of a godly woman. An alternative to the traditional interpretation, of this passage on the woman of worth, is a feminist one. While it appears that the “woman of worth” is being praised for her highly regarded values, she is only seen as an extension of her husband and specifically, her “worth” is restricted to being seen in terms of what she can provide for the benefit of her husband. Her capability in providing for the needs of her husband, in a male-centered passage, results in her praise for fulfilling her man-assigned role. In stark contrast, a woman who deviates from her male-assigned role is portrayed as very dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. Those who hold a traditional interpretation argue the feminist interpretation by saying that a woman’s role is not assigned by the man at all, but is assigned by God, for her benefit.vii A feminist interpretation sees no benefit to a woman when she is restricted and oppressed, when she is taught to define her life based on her man’s needs and demands, when everything that she is and everything she produces is pragmatically owned by him. A feminist ideal of a woman of worth is one who is self-determined, confident, self-expressive, self-defined, strong, independent, ethical, charitable, fighting on the side of good and justice. A feminist icon of the ideal woman is Wonder Woman, viii Surprisingly, Wonder Woman, shares a majority of traits with the Biblical woman of worth: strength, competence, moral discipline, managing well, being industrious, compassionate, generous, resourceful, hands-on, articulate and wise. It must be remembered, however, that Wonder Woman is a cartoon, a myth, and not a real woman at all. It seems that the women discussed in the book of Proverbs are polarized caricatures and probably not real in the particular. Lady Wisdom, the caricature of goodness, has her opposite in the Strange Woman, a caricature of badness. The woman of worth is a domestic Wonder Woman, who has her opposite in Queen Jezebel, another educated woman of talent and intelligence, but one who manipulated her weak husband for her own interests ix. A particularly intriguing interpretation of the woman of worth is a womanist approach, which expands on, and is in somewhat of a contrast from the mainstream Feminist view. The passage re-read from the perspective of Black/African women sees the woman as “real” and elitist while the passage itself has both liberating and oppressive elements for women of Black/African descent. Madipoane Masenya observed that: “The patriarchal African and apartheid cultures (endorsed by religious tradition) dictate that adult African female humanity can be achieved only within the confines of marriage.”x She also notes that what defines a beautiful and desirable woman is always White and Western. So to be a Black woman of worth, in a culture in which the church confirms these patriarchal standards, is unattainable, without redefining the standards. The woman of worth, in Proverbs, is elitist xi. She is not achievable by the African woman, yet she, being married and doing it so well, represents a deep value of African womanhood. Masenya explains that the Bosadi (womanhood) approach to scriptural texts that are problematic goes against the stereotypes and beliefs that make a woman feel less than a man, ordained by God to be inferior, by upholding the positive aspects of African cultures, especially family and community, hard work and sexual morality; redefining the concept of African womanhood to affirm the validity of married and unmarried women. xii The Bosadi approach de-emphasizes the oppressive elements of a text and emphasizes the more liberating elements, emphasizing also the role of faith among South African women and considering the values and context they have in common with ancient Israelites.xiii It can be seen, then, that both the traditional and feminist interpretations argue that the woman of worth is real, and on the other hand that she is an unattainable ideal. Feminist and Womanist Bosadi interpretations add to this the need to distinguish and extinguish what is oppressive and focus on what is liberating, strengthening confidence and to appreciate the dignity of independence. These are helpful interpretations. The problem with them lies in the complete lack of historical evidence that the woman of worth was in fact a real woman and, furthermore, in the failure to place interpretation in the larger context of the Book of Proverbs. A contribution of Christian feminist thought is that we need to pay very special attention to the feminine metaphors of the Divine, in the Bible, because they have historically been choked by patriarchal interpretation xiv. While Hinduism has an array of strong and amazing goddesses through whom women can experience God through feminine attributes, and Buddhism has Green and White Tara and Kuan Yin, Christians have only Mary, and Mary is Catholic territory, not Protestant. Mary is a mother, an intercessor and a virgin, and each of these statuses define her in relations to males (mother of Jesus, intercessor between man and God, and a virgin, untouched by man). The woman of worth may be neither a real woman nor an ideal woman, but may be a metaphor for a Divine attribute. As such, it is not intended as patriarchal justification for women’s oppression, nor as a template for godly women’s territory, but has an entirely different meaning: “The woman of worth”, is an analogy for the virtue of wisdom and it is presented in this acrostic poem which extols “godly wisdom” and extreme value for all men, women and society at large. Occam's razor, sometimes expressed in Latin as lex parsimoniae (the law of parsimony, or succinctness), is well-recognized as recommending, from among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest new assumptions. We are faced, in this paper with a handful of rival hypotheses: 1. The Woman of Worth is a real woman (even though she is unrealistic, as a real woman, and even though there is no historical evidence of who she was). 2. The Woman of Worth is an ideal image, a template for women to model themselves after (even though she represents an unrealizable goal, and following that path will lead to the church’s justification of woman’s oppression, and apparently God did not foresee that). 3. The Woman of Worth is an oppressed caricature and needs to be liberated (even though she seems to have an elevated status and be loved by family and community, and even though she is in a different cultural and socio-historical context we are less familiar with). 4. The Woman of Worth is both real and ideal (and we should feel free to redefine scripture and womanhood, as necessary, in order to attain a more comfortable fit, to derive liberation benefit and to overlook the depressing oppression aspects of scripture). 5. Rather than being an actual person, “The woman of worth”, is an analogy for the virtue of wisdom and it is presented in this acrostic poem which extols “godly wisdom” and extreme value for all men, women and society at large. An application of the Occam’s razor principle will readily lead us to see that the latter hypothesis is the one requiring the least new assumptions; it is the most simple and clearly the most reasonable. Furthermore there is evidence of this explanation. The book of Proverbs is a book of wisdom, a collection of three writings under the theme of wisdom xv. There are other feminine wisdom archetypes posing as “real” women in Proverbs, showing the proper manifestation of wisdom and the improper manifestation of wisdom. It is sensible to assume that the topic and its methodology remain consistent through the 31st chapter, and that the woman of worth is a personification of wisdom xvi. The Hebrew title for the Book of Proverbs is “Mishleey”, which means it is a poem. xvii Actually, the structure is an acrostic, making it easier to remember. Each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in correct order xviii. An analysis of the structure of the poem reveals that it is a hymn to Lady Wisdom, written in the heroic mode. xix Lady Wisdom may be a survival of goddess worship in Israelite theology, and she is surely a snapshot of the positive roles women played in Israelite society. xx But rather than speaking of her as a deity, she is spoken of in Proverbs as a woman of worth, thus concretizing a summary of the entire book of wisdom. Lady Wisdom provides a model for both men and women to follow xxi. A careful examination of this passage in its historical context, and with consideration of the rest of the book of Proverbs, reveals that Proverbs 31:10-31 is an acrostic poem dedicated to “Lady Wisdom”. Wisdom is presented as a highly desirable and necessary virtue, one which is difficult, but not impossible to obtain and which, once obtained, brings with it a tremendous amount of benefits for those who acquire it. Read More