Honestly, I feel acutely torn by the fact that official rhetoric puts me up on some sort of pedestal (Women are so great - better than men even! I love my wife and am so glad she supports me! Aren't we glad for the righteous mothers in Zion! I could go on, but all of this bothers me for various reasons - not least of which being the idea that men are somehow less capable of spirituality than women) while in reality women are relegated to a marginal role in the church. Some of them are even unlucky enough to have a husband who insists on acting as THE intermediary between God and the family, and they find them selves marginalized even within their own families. Is it any wonder that with the lip-service-only value given to women in the church, the LDS church has such a high rate of women with depression? Talk is cheap. Show me a man who actually supports women and actually values them by actively supporting them. You know, with actions. Like being a capable parent and sharing the burden of making a home comfortable.
But that's not what this post is about. Others have already dissected those issues with beautiful skill and rhetoric that impresses me. I only mention it to explain why I'm studying Proverbs 31 the way I am.
And I'm going to leave verses 10 for last. So there.
I've been thinking about the list (the very LONG list) of the things that the virtuous woman does - there's a whole host of things listed in verses 11 - 27.
My first thought is a reminder that it is impossible to do all things at every moment. If you're looking for the virtuous woman in Proverbs and expect her to be continually doing ALL of those things ALL of the time, well.....good luck with that. Probably not going to happen. I repeatedly remind my children that they are the most important thing I have, but that their immediate wants are not always the most important thing; this resembles that condition. At different stages in our lives we'll worship God in different ways and give emphasis to different commandments.
Right now the things that resonated with me personally the most are these:
Verse 13: worketh willingly with her hands
Verse 15: riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household
Verse 16: considereth a field and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard
Verse 17: girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms
I work willingly with my mind. My hands are part of the equation (hard to write on a chalkboard or type or grade papers without them), but the thing that really benefits me these days is the knowledge that I worked so hard to accrue over time (and oh such a long time it seemed....and is still not over). I'm so grateful that I didn't go the "get married at 19 and have babies as soon has humanly possible" route - I know several women who, while they accept that they chose this route, feel like cultural pressure indoctrinated them into it. For me in my headstrong ways, it's nice to know that I'm staying because I choose to - not because it's my only alternative.
Working outside my home means that I often rise while it's yet night - to finish some grading, some laundry or mending, and to get dinner into the crock pot so that we can eat when I get home. I'm willing to sacrifice the extra sleep because I value the things I do, and don't want to neglect any of them.
We recently purchased fruit trees and planted them; I finally got the raised beds into shape, too. Last year's garden was good, this year's should be great. And I can't wait for the trees to bear.....the years are going to drag, but it will be fun to teach the kids about the process and watch the trees grow and change. We're also going to buy chickens to sort of co-op with my cousin (who has space but no money). With all of these things, we'll be largely self-sufficient for 1/4 of the year. Awesome.
I'm strengthening my legs mostly these days. Though there's some core and arm strength involved in running (looking at most any runner will demonstrate this). I'm at the point that I can run for about 3 hours before I start to feel sluggish. It's amazing - I have more energy (even though I'm expending a ton of it), I'm nicer to the kids and more patient, and just feel more healthy overall. It's nice to feel capable and confident in my body's abilities. This weekend's 50K should be quite the adventure. We'll see how it goes.
I feel like I have serious room for improvement in my helping of the poor - fast offerings, storehouse assignments, and even donations to local thrift-stores-with-causes seem insufficient to me. I can and should do better.
So now for verse 10.
The word "virtuous" has me fascinated, because the shared root with the Latin "vir" (as in virile - manly) makes me think of the 16th-century Spanish "one-sex" model of gender - which holds that men and women are just at different points along some sort of gender continuum (no guessing who's farther along toward perfection under said model, of course). Being virtuous means being manly? Being "varonil" for a female protagonist in a Golden Age play is NOT an insult (the way calling a woman "butch" these days might be). It's a compliment. But I decided that as much as I liked the idea that the scriptures encourage women in their striving to have characteristics typically associated with men (working, industry, protecting the people in the home, etc), I still wanted and needed to dig deeper.
The Hebrew word in the verse, normally translated as "virtuous," is "chayil." In the Tanakh this version of the word is used almost exclusively to refer to warfare. So women should be strong, forceful, mighty. And those things are not necessarily "manly," they're just desirable traits. I like this explanation.
I'm striving to work on the "to-do" list in Proverbs 31 because I feel like those are things Christ did. And I want to follow His example. But in the meantime, it's nice to know that I don't have to be some sort of shrinking violet in order to accomplish some invented female variation on discipleship.
Verse 13: worketh willingly with her hands
Verse 15: riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household
Verse 16: considereth a field and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard
Verse 17: girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms
I work willingly with my mind. My hands are part of the equation (hard to write on a chalkboard or type or grade papers without them), but the thing that really benefits me these days is the knowledge that I worked so hard to accrue over time (and oh such a long time it seemed....and is still not over). I'm so grateful that I didn't go the "get married at 19 and have babies as soon has humanly possible" route - I know several women who, while they accept that they chose this route, feel like cultural pressure indoctrinated them into it. For me in my headstrong ways, it's nice to know that I'm staying because I choose to - not because it's my only alternative.
Working outside my home means that I often rise while it's yet night - to finish some grading, some laundry or mending, and to get dinner into the crock pot so that we can eat when I get home. I'm willing to sacrifice the extra sleep because I value the things I do, and don't want to neglect any of them.
We recently purchased fruit trees and planted them; I finally got the raised beds into shape, too. Last year's garden was good, this year's should be great. And I can't wait for the trees to bear.....the years are going to drag, but it will be fun to teach the kids about the process and watch the trees grow and change. We're also going to buy chickens to sort of co-op with my cousin (who has space but no money). With all of these things, we'll be largely self-sufficient for 1/4 of the year. Awesome.
I'm strengthening my legs mostly these days. Though there's some core and arm strength involved in running (looking at most any runner will demonstrate this). I'm at the point that I can run for about 3 hours before I start to feel sluggish. It's amazing - I have more energy (even though I'm expending a ton of it), I'm nicer to the kids and more patient, and just feel more healthy overall. It's nice to feel capable and confident in my body's abilities. This weekend's 50K should be quite the adventure. We'll see how it goes.
I feel like I have serious room for improvement in my helping of the poor - fast offerings, storehouse assignments, and even donations to local thrift-stores-with-causes seem insufficient to me. I can and should do better.
So now for verse 10.
The word "virtuous" has me fascinated, because the shared root with the Latin "vir" (as in virile - manly) makes me think of the 16th-century Spanish "one-sex" model of gender - which holds that men and women are just at different points along some sort of gender continuum (no guessing who's farther along toward perfection under said model, of course). Being virtuous means being manly? Being "varonil" for a female protagonist in a Golden Age play is NOT an insult (the way calling a woman "butch" these days might be). It's a compliment. But I decided that as much as I liked the idea that the scriptures encourage women in their striving to have characteristics typically associated with men (working, industry, protecting the people in the home, etc), I still wanted and needed to dig deeper.
The Hebrew word in the verse, normally translated as "virtuous," is "chayil." In the Tanakh this version of the word is used almost exclusively to refer to warfare. So women should be strong, forceful, mighty. And those things are not necessarily "manly," they're just desirable traits. I like this explanation.
I'm striving to work on the "to-do" list in Proverbs 31 because I feel like those are things Christ did. And I want to follow His example. But in the meantime, it's nice to know that I don't have to be some sort of shrinking violet in order to accomplish some invented female variation on discipleship.
2 comments:
Interesting task. That is definitely a long list.
The word, "virtue" is interesting, and I can understand your struggle there.
I've written a whole post about the D&C 121 reference to "let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly," in a message to men:
http://goodstrongmen.blogspot.com/2011/04/manly-men-and-virtue.html
Mostly, though, I'm trying to help men recover from the timidity and fear induced by the previous several verses about avoiding "unrighteous dominion."
I think the characteristics of "virtue" as I describe, though could be applied to both genders.
I would appreciate if you would limit blatant, shameless plugs for your blog on mine. The people who read my blog have already ventured to yours and find it ridiculous or (even worse) hurtful.
That post has little or nothing to do with what I'm discussing here, since I'm talking about women appropriating characteristics traditionally viewed as "male." Which you discourage on your blog and in your post - saying that only MEN should be this way. I specifically mean that women should be like this. The scripture says so.
I do not struggle with the word virtue - I find it empowering. I struggle with the fact that LDS culture (and the church in general) associates it purely with chastity for women.
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