Oriental Women

by Edward B. Pollard

It is said of this period, commonly known as the Age of the Judges, that "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." This would be known in political theory as well as in practical government as nothing short of anarchy. And indeed, it was, for while each man did that which was right in his own eyes, the "right" of each was so frequently wrong, that social chaos reigned with almost unbroken sway. And while one woman of the period became a deliverer for four decades, for more than a century many women suffered untold misery for lack of unity among the tribes and leaders capable of bringing the life of the reign to rights.

It is often affirmed that sons more frequently inherit characteristics of their mothers, while to the daughters are bequeathed the traits of their fathers. An unnamed woman of this period of the political chaos, the wife of a certain Manoah, from the family of the Danites, was chosen to be the mother of a giant. Now, giants were rare in Israel, though in the earlier days of Palestinian occupation, Nephelim, and "the sons of Anak," are mentioned as among those enemies of the Hebrews. Their huge forms, it is written, were a menace to Israel's peace, and in comparison with these monsters her sons were said to be "as grass-hoppers." One day, as the story runs, an angel appears to this nameless, hitherto childless, wife of Manoah, and informs her that a son who is to be born, and nourished at her own bosom, is to have a remarkable history. She herself is to take care neither to drink wine nor any strong drink, for her son is to be dedicated to the abstemious life of the Nazarite. The woman is obedient to the angelic voice; and she with her husband offers up a burnt offering to Jehovah in grateful praise. The son is born. He is taught that no intoxicating draught shall enter his lips, nor should a razor touch his head, that his long-grown locks might speak outwardly of his vows. But wine is not the only temptation that is to beset this giant youth. The daughters of neighboring Philistia were to his eyes more than passing fair.

The influence of these young women, whose features, we may suppose, bore some characteristics of Grecian beauty,--as their progenitors had landed on the shores of Canaan from the island of Crete, gradually adopting a Semitic language and civilization,--was very potent over the heart of the muscular but susceptible young Hebrew. A love affair in which the long-haired Nazarite plays a prominent rôle will introduce us, somewhat at least, into woman's world of this disorganized period in the early life of Western Palestine at a day more than a thousand years before the Christian Era.

This affair of the heart was brought to light when one day the young man came in to tell his father and his mother that a fair damsel in Timnah, a city of the Philistines, had captured the very citadel of his being. Neither the protestations of his parents, nor their careful descanting upon the virtues of the daughters of his own people could move the young man. His heart was set. Neither parents at home nor the lion that met him on the way to secure his bride could thwart his firm-set purpose. Mother and father are for the moment forgotten, and the lion is torn asunder by the strong arms of this young giant. Every obstacle is surmounted and Delilah is in the arms of Samson.

Now, George Sand was doubtless correct in the rather prosaic remark: "It is not so easy to see through a woman as through a man." Samson did not quite penetrate the wiles of his lady love. Her beauty hid all else, and Samson fell. "The whisper of a beautiful woman," says Diana of Poitiers, "can be heard further than the loudest call of duty." The Nazarite vow, so strong and binding, became in Delilah's hands, as she held the shears, weaker than the withes she bound about the arms of the captured giant. Robert Burns has, in a characteristic fashion, given what might well be inscribed to Samson's memory:

"As Father Adam first was fooled,

A case that's still too common,

Here lies a man a woman ruled

The devil ruled the woman."

Delilah, the Philistine, is to be contrasted with the typical Hebrew women, not only in the matter of feminine chastity for which they stand out among ancient women as preëminent, but also in that fidelity to husband and to native land which made the Hebrews the most stable and persistent race with which the world is acquainted.