a good wife isn’t necessarily a housewife (II)
i’m sure you all have been waiting with baited breath to hear my next batch of opinions and insight on “the excellent wife,” so i’ll get right to it :-).
the second verse the author uses is titus 2:3-5:
Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
seems to make good sense. the author of TEW mentions that in the greek, the phrase “busy at home” means “worker at home,” someone that is the “keeper of the household.” this stands to reason for many people, as it may be the best arrangement for them, but even in this passage i don’t see grounds for the idea that that’s ALL a woman would do. i don’t agree with the author’s statement that “common sense would dictate that the younger women … would have to be at home to accomplish this objective well.” and here’s why:
1. 2000-plus years on, things are vastly different. the goal of reading and interpreting the bible is not to look at it and immediately say, “what is this saying to me?” but to ask what we can learn from what’s been written, who it’s written to, what their circumstances were, and what the passage, verse or chapter says about god (if applicable). (for really good reading on this subject i recommend “playing with fire,” written by a theology professor at my alma mater.) to think that every single piece of the bible can be applied literally and directly to us is narrow-minded and somewhat self-centered. (for example, a subsequent verse in this chapter admonishes slaves to be subject to their masters. i’m pretty sure NO ONE would argue that we should therefore still have slaves.)
2. it just doesn’t make sense for everyone. this is why i disagree with the author when she says that, “a wife should make it her business to find out how to keep an orderly and clean home and stay organized with her grocery shopping and meals.” i’ll go more in depth into this idea in my next post (oh yes, there’s more!), but i see no reason - in most cases - why certain things HAVE to be the responsibility of one person or the other. if you’re doing things you’re not good at, that you don’t enjoy, that you feel obligated to do, how is that beneficial to a marriage?
going back to the idea that a wife and mother should only - unless under extreme circumstances - work within the home, i’ll say this one last thing. not only have i been wholly unconvinced by this passage and the last one she used, but there’s no reason nowadays why a woman can’t have it all. maybe back in titus’ time that would’ve been next-to-impossible or there just wasn’t the infrastructure set up for it, but that’s just not the case now.
3. just because a woman has a career doesn’t mean her family and kids can’t come first. we can make compromises with our spouses, coordinate things in ways that work for us and our needs, and we can place a high level of importance on our top priorities. i’m not sure a clean house or grocery shopping should be so high up the list.
the author of TEW would probably argue that i need to change my outlook and acknowledge my rightful place as a wife, but i disagree. marriage is a partnership in which each person should be valued for their talents and gifts that help make the relationship unique. i can hire a housekeeper or have someone make my meals (and honestly, any potential family i might have some day would probably be stoked, given my level of skill in these areas), but no one can be ME. to deny that in favor of trying to teach myself to like stuff i hate seems unreasonable and counter-intuitive.
March 23 2009 03:36 pm | career and family and marriage and religion