Employable Patriarchy
It seems to me that many modern people, when regarding old fashioned patriarchy (let alone true Biblical patriarchy), with unfortunate experiences with modern so-called patriarchy, come to some rather startling and unhistorical conclusions about the nature of that system. Raised deep inside what is, historically, an aberrant age, they view the women of patriarchy and come to some dramatically unhistorical conclusions.
Unemployable
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine by the sides of your house; your sons shall be like olive plants around your table.
Behold! So shall the man be blessed who fears Jehovah.
Psalm 128:3-4
One of which is that the women of patriarchy would have been ‘unemployable’ outside the home. This unhistorical view seems caused by two equally grave errors:
1) That the patriarchal woman was ‘uneducated’ and unskilled and
2) That the patriarchal ‘job market’ had no place for women.
Both of these are not only false, but laughably false… until one realises that the people holding them are caught in an ahistorical bubble. Their experiences of ‘modern patriarchy’ and their lack of experience of the daily life of a patriarchal woman (and a patriarchal man, for that matter) lead them inexorably to this false conclusion.
Dealing with the first myth. The patriarchal woman was highly educated… in the knowledge and skills required for her day. She didn’t have much algebra, true. Her grasp of feminist theory was decidedly wobbly. But for the thousands of things she did each day, for the thousands of things that her society needed done, she was, truly, a jack of all trades. In fact even in the area of book learning she was, often, more educated than her male counterparts. Often the task of teaching the next generation to read and write fell to her.
Division of Labor
She seeks wool and flax, and she works with her hands with delight.
She is like the merchant ships, she brings in her food from afar.
She also rises while it is still night and gives game to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
Proverbs 31:13-14
True, there was a large division of labor between men and women in those days. But it wasn’t the division that the poor modern might think. The men had their jobs, and the women had theirs. Taking just one area, farming: the standard division of labor in many of these societies was that the man would work on the ‘cash crop’… the extensive fields dedicated to long rows of the same plant: a work that required back breaking labor in the hot sun; while the women would farm the ‘garden’… the more concentrated fields that grew the crops the family would be expected to cook and eat from day to day. Again, if anything, the woman’s work required more ‘education’, since she would be dealing with (what would be to me) a dizzying variety of different crops, all with different needs, different points of ripeness, etc.
Given that there simply was no real ‘job market’ in truly patriarchal days, the next point is rather confusing. The question would not be ‘could she be employed’ in the wage labor sense, but ‘could she find work’… and the answer was a definite yes. As the modern student might not know, the patriarchal age was organised not around ‘employers’ but around ‘families’… and a woman could definitely find work in a family.
And, no, I am not merely talking about getting married and ‘working’ for her husband. I am pointing out that ‘families’ tended to ‘employ’ large groups of people, many of whom would be women. Our modern people tend to forget that for people in old fashioned societies the home was the centre of both production and processing. They would grow the grain, harvest the grain, winnow the grain, store the grain, grind the grain, and prepare and cook the bread made with that grain. They would breed the cow, pasture the cow, milk the cow, skim the milk, make the butter, make the yoghurt, make the cheese, store all of these things (no easy task) and cook the meal that included these things.
So a well trained woman in a patriarchal society could be ‘hired’ in any of dozens of positions of ‘women’s work’ for which a man might well not be eligible or desired.
Even when we arrive at today’s rather bizarre age it is simply not true that the well-trained, Biblical Patriarch trained, woman would be incompetent even if she needed to go into the ‘job market’. The idea that this is true is based upon the bizarre combination of ideas that go to make up modern ‘patriarchy’ and that have no basis in the Scripture or even the history of patriarchal life.
Contrariwise and Conclusion
For so once indeed the holy women who were hoping on God adorned themselves, submitting themselves to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose children you became, doing good, and fearing no terror.
I Peter 3:5-6
And after we have looked at all of these ways that she is employable even in the modern sense, we should turn around and see that the modern woman is, by and large, not ‘employable’ in the patriarchal sense. She seems hardly prepared to marry, bear children, nurse those children, and keep the house. At least, not if it involves very many children. And most of them can’t even seem to be able to manage the house.
So, let us not denigrate those patriarchal women. Let us try to raise daughters half as good.
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Von
Links
and I are discussing patriarchy. I’m in favour and think it inevitable. J.S… not so much.
The Inevitability of Patriarchy: Laying some foundation.
The Blessings of the Breast and the Womb: // Podcast Version The role of pregnancy, lactation, and raising children in the inevitability of patriarchy.
What is Marriage // Podcast Version: Adding the issue of marriage, and discussing meritocracy and inheritance.
Differences Make Differences: // Podcast Version Given the differences between men and women, could it be that boys are wired to do their jobs and girls are wired to do theirs?
Not in the letter exchange, but on subject:
What is a man? A response to
on the subject.