Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband safely trusts in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
The remainder of the chapter is taken up with the description of the “virtuous woman.” Continuing to advise her son, the wise mother lists the qualities of a good wife. Is there anything more important for a young man’s success than his choice of spouse? Every young man and woman should memorize these verses and meditate often on the qualities listed.
Importantly, the word for “virtuous” is taken from the Hebrew Chayil. It is better translated “valiant” or “highly effective.” From creation, God intended for the woman to be a helper appropriate for the man in his dominion work. As an ax head on an ax handle, the woman and the man unite to form an economic force that gets things done. Without the woman, the man is generally not fit either emotionally or physically to take on the dominion work he has to do. But together, they form a team that gets the job done. Therefore, the Proverbs 31 woman is better pictured by Vermeer’s Milk Maid than by some anorexic model on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine. She is courageous, productive, active, strong, and faithful in her role as wife and mother. The word is a military word used for an army that usually wins its battles. This woman knows how to get the job done as she acts upon the vision of the household. She is a doer.
The thrust of this chapter deals mainly with the economic role of the wife in the home. All of this assumes that the family still serves as the basic economic unit in society. Since our word “economics” comes from the Greek word oikonomia, which is translated “the vision of the family,” the basic economic unit is the family. For thousands of years, families saw themselves as working for a common economic interest. In the Scriptures, Joseph, David, Rachel, and Rebekah would tend to their father’s sheep. Aquila and Priscilla worked together as tentmakers (Acts 18:2–3). Most companies today do not contract with families for a job; they hire individuals and segregate families into institutions and corporations. That is why this passage makes little sense to the modern mind. Notice that the virtuous wife has her husband’s best interests at heart in her economic endeavors. Is she beholden to her corporate board or to her own husband? Does the heart of her corporate boss safely trust in her that he shall have no need of spoil? This speaks to how a woman sees herself. Does she see herself belonging, in an economic sense, to her own family or to a corporation or a government entity? Increasingly, the modern woman separates herself from her family and finds herself plugged into the large fascist-corporate economic infrastructure. The feminists tell her that this is ultimate freedom, but over time she finds herself more enslaved to corporations, banks, and government-instituted social programs. The family fragments, more children are raised outside the context of the family, socialism advances, and the biblical vision fades.
Paul speaks of the godly wife in 1 Timothy 5:14 as the oikodespoteo, meaning that she manages the home. According to Titus 2:4, the godly wife is the oikouros, which means she works in the home. Offensive though this may be to the egalitarian feminists today, the wife works for her husband’s interests. She manages his estate. She spends his money and she facilitates income for the household economy. When her economic loyalty moves away from her husband’s household, she has already disintegrated the marriage in some measure, at least in the economic sense. The marriage will only prosper as she works to gain her husband’s trust and as her husband learns to trust in her. Rather than micromanaging her every expenditure, he should be convinced in his own mind that she is always after the best interests of the household. To doubt her is to undermine her effectiveness in her work. If, however, she has failed to earn his trust and she is a self-consumed shopaholic, then she forfeits his trust and the marriage will suffer for it.
Nevertheless, the virtuous woman’s price is far above rubies because she is trustworthy, hard-working, industrious, and frugal. The Bible does not ignore the economic well-being of the home because the economy of the home includes the expenditure of time, money, and resources. A wise and careful use of these assets is what makes up a highly functional household that accomplishes a great deal in ministry, service, hospitality, charity, and dominion work.
Her task in life is to support her husband, doing him good and not evil all the days of her life. She delights in pleasing her husband. She seeks his spiritual, physical, and financial well-being. Sadly, there are few biblical examples that bear out this vision. Remember that Eve tempted her husband to the first sin. Jezebel inspired her husband to act wickedly. King Herod’s wife facilitated the murder of John the Baptist. Job’s wife was less than helpful when she encouraged her husband to “curse God and die.” Michal despised David as he danced before the Lord while Solomon’s wives drew his heart away from the Lord.
If these verses give us a vision for a good wife, how might we best prepare our daughters to this end? That question is foremost in the minds of godly parents who want the best for their daughters who hope to marry. We ought to raise our daughters with good financial sense, wise frugality, delegation skills, an understanding of economic value, and a love for hard work.
But as families raise their daughters with the “independent” mindset, they prepare their daughters for fragmented economies and divorce. The hearts of their husbands will not safely trust in them because there is little unity in their household economy. They set their future families up for quarrels over finances. If a daughter learns dishonor, discontentment, and disloyalty in her father’s home economy, how can we be sure that she will not exhibit the same things in her husband’s household? Could this be one significant cause for the dysfunctional conditions that define the Christian households in the West today? What is the best way for our daughters to learn godly submission, honor, contentment, and loyalty? Some say that the sooner a daughter is emancipated from her father’s home and lives on her own, the better she will learn these things. It is hard to believe this to be the case. For the last generation or two, independence became the rule for most daughters. But this also coincided with the greatest systemic breakdown of the family ever seen in the history of the Western world. Where there are broken relationships between fathers and daughters, the sad event of emancipation is almost inevitable. This is not always the case. Thank God, there are exceptional cases here and there where we find the precious rubies emerging from their fathers’ homes with a spirit of godly submission, honor, contentment, loyalty, and industry!
Also reference comments on Proverbs 27:25–27.
1. What does the word “virtuous” mean?
2. Whose heart safely trusts in this virtuous woman? Why is that important?
3. Provide examples of good wives in the Bible. Give a few examples of those who were not helpful to their husbands.
4. How might we prepare our daughters to be the kind of wives that are envisioned in these verses?