Women… the Weaker Sex?
Women… the Weaker Sex?
1 Peter 3:7
I know that this may come as a shock to many of you Bible readers out there, but I think the Bible got it wrong when it describes women as “the weaker sex.” Here is the text to which I am referring: “Likewise, you husbands should live with your wives in understanding showing honor to the weaker female sex…” (New American Bible).
Women are not the weaker sex, at least not in terms of inner strength, character, and moral courage — men are. And almost everyone, I believe, intuitively knows this. The key moment of this insight into the human person came when colleges were first organized. Thousands of freshmen boys were placed in high-rise dormitories, two-to-three to a room, and were told to act like mature, respectable adults. And what did they do?
Well, we know what they didn’t do: THEY DIDN’T CLEAN THE TOILETS, CHANGE THE SHEETS, OR WASH THEIR CLOTHES! In fact, one of my brothers was part of this experiment and told me that he liked to get his sheets so coated with body sweat that he could slip’n’slide in and out of bed.
Once my friend Greg and I visited my brother, and oh, the things we experienced that fed our desire to go to college: male students dumping trashcans of water (or maybe worse) onto unsuspecting students one floor below; male students having food fights inside and outside the dorms; male students lying on the floor, 10 abreast, while a male upperclassman cracked an egg into the mouth of a male underclassman lying at one end of the line and directed him past it on, yoke unbroken, to the person next to him and so forth. Oh we couldn’t wait to get to college.
Colleges have now learned how to civilize freshman boys; they house them in the same dorm as freshman girls. REALLY, IT WORKS! Lori and I were NOT believers in this creative housing arrangement when we first brought our son to Seattle University.
“How dare a Catholic university place hormone-ridden youth so close to a near occasion of sin.”
We soon learned we might be wrong and could see some wisdom in this arrangement. Young women have gifts that help young men learn some manners and… become human beings. But wait a minute; I should have known this from my own experience.
When I enrolled at LSU I joined a household of students, young women and men, who wanted to be a Catholic community for one another during our time in college. This was the first time in 19 years of existence that I had ever lived with girls, other than my mother, being that I was raised with six brothers.
I learned some hard lessons about what authentic civilized behavior looks like and the first lesson came right after I had taken a shower and used the closest towel that I could reach to dry myself off. Trish followed in the shower after me. I heard a screech! Everyone in the house froze and turned their attention to the bathroom wondering if we should call 911. Then the bathroom door burst open and dragon lady stepped out in her robe and demanded to know: “WHO USED MY TOWEL?”
I was confused by the tone of her voice, as if I had eaten all of the chocolate out of her Easter basket, and raised my hand. I had never seen anyone faint before from the simple knowledge that another person had used her towel. I had shared towels after a high school football practice with multiple users for days on in. Guys didn’t seem to mind, but this young woman did. And not only her but, the other women in the house rallied around her when she came to and sat the men down for “An Evening at Living with Women.”
We learned about some very important behaviors, to our surprise, that these women found repulsive and must be stopped at once: licking one’s plate after dinner, walking around with out a shirt, negative humor (no more Three Stooges), and wearing physical ed. shorts without underwear.
All-in-all, I would say that these women made a better man out of me — which brings me to the point of the article: that it is men, not women, who are the weaker sex.
Interestingly, the Bible does say in Genesis 18, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” No truer words have been spoken.
Most men, without a wife, are pathetic creatures (notice that I said, “most,” and not “all”). Studies today show that single men, either divorced or those who have never married, drink more, do more risky behavior, suffer greater emotional stress, and die at a younger age than their married counterparts. (See The Case for Marriage by Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waite.) The same statistics do not hold true for single women.
It is women who have the stronger constitution, and it was women whom God made the child bearers. Can you picture if the reverse were true, if men could conceive and birth children; what would happen? WE MEN WOULD RUN IN THE OTHER DIRECTION AND AVOID PREGNANCY AT ALL COSTS! No children would be born and the human race would have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
To back this up with a real life example, let’s look at the Irish. During the great famine of 1845-1849, so many of the Irish men were so traumatized by their failure to provide for their families that they fled the home either through “the drink” or disappearing altogether. It was the women that held the family together. Today there are entire communities in which men cannot take the “heat” of fatherhood and marriage commitment. They run as far away as they can from both.
True, some men live fruitful and joy-filled lives as singles. Others find strength in religious community. However, for most men, it is a commitment to a woman in marriage that brings out the best in us. There is no truer example of this than the American civil war hero and US President Ulysses S. Grant who was married to Julia Dent.
His biographer, Jean Edward Smith writes, “Grant was at his best when Julia was near.” (He could write the same about me: “Robert was at his best when Lori was near.”)
Julia gave Ulysses a “relationship foundation” that allowed him to focus his gifts and energies on the job at hand. Without her, he was a mess and leaned on the bottle for support. With her, he led the Federal Army to defeat the Confederacy and then was elected president twice.
Women, the “weaker sex?” Think again!
