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(Proverbs 31:10-31)
by Carol Meyers
The book of Proverbs
has a surprise ending.
Most of this book
sets forth societal values, giving the ancient audience (probably elite young
men) practical instruction about how to navigate the moral difficulties of
daily life.
Its poetic proverbs,
like those found in other Near Eastern sources, are considered wisdom
literature, a genre typically offering advice gained from experience.
But then, after
hundreds of pithy maxims and astute insights, the last 22 verses of Proverbs present
the many attributes and accomplishments of an eshet-chayil, or “woman of
strength.”
This meaning of the
term is obscured by translations that render it “capable wife” or “competent
wife” or even “good wife” or “wife of noble character.”
The basic meaning of
the Hebrew word describing the woman is clearly “strength.”
And while moral
excellence is among her attributes, the dominant portrait is one of the
physical and personal powers (e.g., Prov 31:17) that allow her
to accomplish in exemplary fashion the myriad tasks of household life.
Does this really
reflect the lives of women in the period of the Hebrew Bible?
This last section of
Proverbs is an acrostic poem, each line beginning sequentially with the letters
of the Hebrew alphabet. It thus takes on the quality of an A to Z compendium of
all that a woman does.
Yet it is not a
complete catalogue of a woman’s activities in the largely self-sufficient
households of Hebrew Bible times, for it focuses on some activities and omits
others.
For example, textile
work is mentioned frequently (Proverbs 31:13, Proverbs 31:19, Proverbs 31:22, Proverbs 31:24), but there is only the vaguest allusion (Proverbs 31:15) to the many
food-preparation tasks necessary for household life, and the religious rituals
carried out by women are never mentioned.
In other ways too,
this poem is detached from reality. For one thing, it hardly reflects the lives
of all women.
Note these details:
the woman of the poem has servants (Proverbs 31:15); she and her
family wear luxury garments (Proverbs 31:21-22); her husband is involved in civic matters rather than
agricultural labor (Proverbs 31:23); she has access
to imported food (Proverbs 31:14); and she has a
surplus of resources that enables her to be charitable (Proverbs 31:20).
These features
indicate that she is a well-to-do urban woman, not at all representative of the
roughly 90% of women who lived in peasant households.
Also, the poem
presents the woman as a paragon of virtue: flawless in her relationships with
her husband (Proverbs 31:11-12), children (Proverbs 31:28), and servants (Proverbs 31:15); laudable in her
charitable work (Proverbs 31:20); and unsurpassed
in her wisdom and piety (Proverbs:26, Proverbs:29, Proverbs 31:30).
Yet no woman is
without some failings or occasional lapses!
What can this poem
tell us about women’s lives?
Although this is an
idealized portrait, many details of Proverbs
31:10-31 reflect aspects of elite women’s lives. Like much of wisdom
literature, it is probably drawn from the experience and observations of the
author.
She not only performs
many of the daily tasks essential for the well-being of her household; she also
makes decisions about the allotment of human and economic resources.
That is, she directs
the labor of household members (Proverbs 31:15), engages in the
production and sale of goods (Proverbs 31:13, Proverbs 31:18, Proverbs 31:24), and purchases property that she then puts to
productive use (Proverbs 31:16).
This autonomous
ability of a woman to enact commercial transactions is actually reflected in
archaeological discoveries: stamp seals used to “sign” business documents
sometimes bear women’s names.
In depicting a strong
woman who makes decisions about social and economic matters, Proverbs 31:10-31 conveys information that challenges common
notions about women in the period of the Hebrew Bible’s composition — for
example, that they were sequestered, subordinate, and “only wives and mothers.”
To be sure, some
aspects of the poem make it seem, from today’s perspective, like the portrait of
an enabler — working hard for the benefit of others with little to gain for
herself.
However, in biblical days, when the household
was the primary social and economic unit, women’s managerial roles and
productive labor were arguably as important and rewarding as men’s activities
in ordinary households as well as elite ones.
Carol Meyers
Professor, Duke University
Carol
Meyers is the Mary Grace Wilson Emerita Professor of Religion at Duke
University. An archaeologist as well as a biblical scholar with a special
interest in gender in the biblical world, she has served as a consultant for
many media productions dealing with the Bible. Her hundreds of publications
include: commentaries on Exodus and on several biblical prophets; an
edited reference work, Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and
Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and
the New Testament(Eerdmans, 2000); and Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite
Women in Context (Oxford University Press, 2013).
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