Biblical Womanhood

I enjoy reading posts from Carolyn, Rachel, and Mary, with their diverse insights into biblical womanhood. It got me thinking about it in more concrete and down to earth terms. What do I think biblical womanhood is?

First and foremost, I think it is caring for others, fulfilling one's God-given and natural responsibility to protect and provide. But first one has to care for oneself, one's own health and well-being in order to do that. So the best part of the past four years has been about getting back on my feet. It's still a struggle some days, but it's okay.

But I blog about that theme quite a bit. Its the overriding theme of this blog. Being a woman means that, like men, we take care of others. And that's another theme - to have more feeling with men rather than in contrast to men.

However, today I was thinking in more concrete terms. What kind of physical activities belong with historic biblical womanhood. And here is a great site to give us insight. It opens,

Work, especially food production, was necessary for survival. No one was exempt. Most of the population worked in their village or on the land around it - even children worked beside their parents in the fields and in the home.

When the grain had been winnowed, it had to be ground to separate the hard outer shell from the flour. In earlier times, and in many small communities, this work was done by women. They ground the grain into a course flour using a pestle and mortar, before preparing the dough and baking it.

For Proverbs 31, it adds,

• keeping herself physically and mentally strong and fit
• giving religious instruction to her children: she was their first teacher
• gathering food and assembling a varied and healthy diet for the members of the household
• administering the finances of the family and overseeing the family business
• buying investment property wisely
• supervising investments then re-investing the profits
• performing charitable work and caring for the poor
• organizing and supervising the tasks of all servants
• overseeing the emotional and physical well-being of all the members of the household
• being available at all times to anyone who needed her.

Women were largely responsible for production of clothing in all stages of manufacture. They
* shared responsibility for tending the animals in the flock
* sorted and carded the wood after the goats and sheep had been shorn
* spun the wool into lengths of fabric
* grew and harvested flax for linen
* dried the flax
* carded and spun the flax into either fine or coarse linen strips (linen produced by the Egyptians could be woven finer than the fabric in a modern handkerchief).
* prepared dyes of various colors. in the flock
* sorted and carded the wood after the goats and sheep had been shorn
* spun the wool into lengths of fabric
* grew and harvested flax for linen
* dried the flax
* carded and spun the flax into either fine or coarse linen strips (linen produced by the Egyptians could be woven finer than the fabric in a modern handkerchief).
* prepared dyes of various colors.

I confess - I was intensely interested in some of these crafts at one time. I was raised to sew all my own clothes, knit, embroider and bake bread, etc. so that was nothing new. But as a young adult, I learned to card wool, spin it, dye it with beautiful lichen-based dyes, knit and weave. I don't have the leisure time for this right now, but I know their appeal.

However, the biblical woman worked in the field, cared for animals, spun, wove and sewed, made tents, pitched tents, folded tents, fed the family and produced goods for trading. Whew.