The House Builder and the House Destroyer.
I. A woman’s special sphere of work—her house. In this word is included all that in any way relates to the home life. Woman’s relation to it is three-fold. 1. The house—properly so-called—the interior of the building, is under her especial care. It is her temple of service, she is its priestess. As the female priestess in the Roman temple and the Hebrew priest in the temple of God were responsible for the internal order of their temples, so is every woman responsible for the order, the cleanliness, and comfort of the house of which she is the social priestess. It is her house, and in it she is expected to perform duties to which she is not called in any other house. Her oversight and presence, if not her actual labour, are indispensable to the proper arrangement of everything in it. 2. The affairs or business of the house is her special care. It is for her to preside over the domestic economy of the house—over that which we call housekeeping. All transactions of this nature seem naturally to fall within her jurisdiction, and it looks odd and out of place to see them in other hands. 3. She is specially related to the life of the house. If she is a mother, she, above all others, has the charge of the children, her opportunities for influencing them are greater than those possessed by the father. Her life is always before them. Her words are treasured up and repeated by them. If she is a mistress, the servants are under her special jurisdiction and guidance.
II. The wise woman is a social architect. She “builds her house.” 1. Building implies a plan. No man sets about building a house without first having a plan, which is well considered in proportion to the wisdom of the builder. No argument-builder, with any wisdom, enters into an argument without first considering what he is going to do, and how he is going to do it, in order, if possible, to arrive at an unanswerable conclusion. So, to build a house in the sense of the text, there must be a plan of action. Every wise woman has an end in view in the government of her household. She has plans in relation to each department. She knows what she purposes to do before she begins to do anything. 2. Building implies personal exertion on the part of the architect. All his work is not done when he has drawn the plan and issued his orders. He must see that they are executed. He must, if needful, show how they are to be carried out. In times of emergency the general of an army must—like Napoleon at the Bridge of Lodi—engage himself in a hand-to-hand fight with the enemy. So will a wise woman. She does not always say, “Go,” but sometimes, “Come.” She does not say, “That is the way,” when “This is the way” is necessary. She never contents herself with saying, “Do this,” without assuring herself that it is done. 3. Building implies a union of diverse materials to form a complete whole. Many and diverse materials are brought together to build a house. It would be impossible to erect a building of usefulness and beauty of one material alone. So a wise woman brings together many different elements, and blends them in due proportion, in order to make the home-life true, and beautiful, and good. Her wisdom is shown in developing the abilities and capacities of each member of the household, so that each may contribute to the strength and comfort of the whole. Upon the female head of the house, more than upon anyone else, depends the unity, peace, and concord of this temple of living stones.
III. An unwise woman, who is at the head of a house, caricatures her position by her conduct. Her position implies that she is a builder-up. Her conduct has the effect of pulling down. A clown upon a kingly throne is not more out of place than a foolish woman who bears the name of mistress, wife, and mother. The reins are in her hands, but she does not know how to guide the chariot; the materials are in her possession but she has no skill to use them. She is not only no centre of unity, she is a source of discord; she not only cannot build the house herself but she makes it impossible for anybody else to do anything towards it. She is not only no “crown to her husband,” but she is “rottenness to his bones” (chap. xii. 4).
outlines and suggestive comments.
A good wife is heaven’s last best gift to a man; his angel of mercy; minister of graces innumerable; his gem of many virtues; his casket of jewels; her voice, his sweetest music; her smiles, his brightest day; her kiss, the guardian of his innocence; her arms, the pale of his safety; the balm of his health, the balsam of his life; her industry, his surest wealth; her economy, his safest steward; her lips, his faithful counsellors; her bosom, the softest pillow of his cares; and her prayers, the ablest advocates of heaven’s blessings on his head.—Jeremy Taylor.
The following is a translation of a Welsh Triad:—A good wife is modest, void of deceit, and obedient; pure of conscience, gracious of tongue, and true to her husband; her heart not proud, her manners affable, and her bosom full of compassion for the poor, labouring to be tidy, skilful of hand, and fond of praying to God; her conversation amiable, her dress decent, and her house orderly; quick of hand, quick of eye, and quick of understanding; her face benignant, her head intelligent, and provident, neighbourly, gentle, and of a liberal way of thinking; able in directing, providing what is wanting, and a good mother to her children; loving her husband, loving peace, and God.—New Handbook of Illustration.
“House” means all interests. “Has built” is preterite. If all interests are prosperous at present, it has been the work of the past. The second clause wisely returns to the future, which we commonly translate as the present, because the act is steadily running on, and includes both the present and the future. Wisdom in woman has built her house, beginning a long time ago; but “folly” in woman is an affair of the present. If it had been at work long, it would have had no house to pull down. As entering upon the work of the wise, ungodly mothers tear down the house which generations of the righteous have been slowly building. The grand comment, however, is that this womanly wisdom or wise woman, like the woman of grace (chap. ix. 16), or woman of folly (chap. ix. 13) has an allegoric meaning. Women do much toward building up. But the text means more, that “wisdom,” as personified, is the only builder of a “house,” and “folly,” as impenitence, all that can pull it down.—Miller.
Only the characteristic wisdom of woman (not that of the man) is able to “build itself a house,” i.e., to make possible a household in the true sense of the word; for the woman alone has the capacity circumspectly to look through the multitude of individual household wants, and carefully to satisfy them; and also because the various activities of the members of a family can be combined in a harmonious unity only by the influence, partly regulative, and partly fostering, of a feminine character, gently but steadily efficient. But where there is wanting to the mistress of a house this wisdom attainable only by her, and appropriate only to her, then that is irrecoverably lost which first binds in a moral fellowship those connected by relationship of blood—that which makes the house, from a mere place of abode, to be the spiritual nursery of individuals organically associated.—Elster.
The fullest recognition that has as yet met us of the importance of woman, for good or evil, in all human society.—Plumptre.