Let them be Women

When I was little, many adults asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Mommy, teacher, doctor, missionary, and writer were among my many answers. I recently asked a 6-year-old girl the same question, and she promptly replied that she wanted to be a farmer and a mother.

If this little girl had been subjected to the American public school system, she would not have replied as such. She answered that way because she is being schooled at home by parents who are professing Christians and understand true work. Of course, she was only 6 years old, and may have a different desire when she is older. But because motherhood is an integral part of the God-given nature of femininity, I doubt her mind will change.

Unfortunately, our present culture eradicates “mother” from the list of career options, eschewing motherhood and housewifery. However, the Bible and the Great Books glorify the domestic sphere with men and women properly ordered – as in Homer’s Odyssey, where “long-suffering” and wise Penelope functions as a fitting and loving counterpart to Odysseus, who faithfully strives to return to his home.

Men and women ought to be living rightly for the glory of God in their respective spheres. Post-modernism erases such sex distinctions, ignoring God and exhorting people to live for self-pleasure. Finding a 6-year-old girl in any public elementary school who wants to be a farmer and a mother is a nearly-impossible task. The girls of the next generation are allowed to be anything they want – except a mother. As God created them, let them be women and mothers!

In circles including Grove City College and the Classical Christian Education movement – in scholastic corners of both Catholic and Protestant churches – conversations are happening about raising up Christian men and women who live for God’s glory and contribute to and participate in their communities. The participants in these conversations seek to raise up real men and real women. Some of these conversations are successfully moving from theory to practice, as all such conversations about living well ought to.

As I am a college student, unmarried and childless, I have no experience and no say in the rearing of children. But I would like to be a real woman. I would like to know how I can live practically as a Christian woman in the twenty-first century. As far as I can see, I was created with innate motherly and domestic instincts. I may never marry and may never have children, but I will still have those instincts.

How must I live, then? The question I ought to be asking is this: how does God want me to live?

A woman, as outlined in Proverbs 31, ought to be one who is industrious, strong, focused, prepared, noble, wise, kind, giving, faithful, loyal, and selfless. In Ephesians 5 a woman is to be one who submits to authority. In Titus 2 an older woman ought to instruct younger women in self-control, purity, domestic work, submission, and love. These can all be lived out in different practical ways.

Since the beginning of time, men and women have resisted God’s rule, rebelling against God-given definitions and distinctions, including distinctions of sex. Women have wanted to “wear the pants” since the Fall. This is an outworking of our fallen nature. Yet  “confinement” to the domestic sphere is placement as God designed. God’s design yields happiness and therein freedom, not confinement.

Practically, each woman’s life will be different from the next; not all women are called to be wives and mothers, but all have the potential to work in domestic spheres where they can share “motherly” wisdom and practice the support of a “suitable helpmate,” as Eve was meant to be for Adam. The virtues of femininity will grace various spheres differently – nonetheless, from classroom to marketplace to home, women’s wisdom, kindness, and other virtues can further harmony.

What about me, as a female college student? How does God want me to live? I must do my homework, share meals with others, listen well, pay attention in class,  take care of my body by eating and sleeping well, take care of my soul by reading  Scripture and praying daily. I must be loyal to friends, church, and family, dress modestly, clean my dorm room and clothing, mend my torn shirt — in short, I must do the things that God has placed before me at this present time. I must do these simple tasks – whether intellectual or material, involving service or conversation – with joy and for His glory.

What will I be once I graduate, once I“grow up?” I want to be what God created me to be: a woman. I want to be where God created me to be: the domestic sphere. In Let Me Be a Woman, Elisabeth Elliot wrote, “The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian makes me a different kind of woman.” Let me be that different kind of woman. Let little girls aspire to be like that different kind of woman.

Let them be women.

The views and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the values and beliefs of Cogitare Magazine, nor of Grove City College.