Maidens of Virtue: Chapter 14

Every author has styles of writing where they excel and styles in which they falter.  Stacy McDonald has a notable strength in writing realistic fiction set in a semi-idealized CP/QF home schooling universe.  She struggles mightily when she attempts rhetorical or persuasive essays.  Unfortunately, "Homemade Homemakers" in "Maidens of Virtue" is a stilted, under-researched essay that aims to explain to young women why the only acceptable end goal for young women is to become a stay-at-home daughter to learn the intricacies of homemaking and child rearing. 

The chapter starts with McDonald's standard theme: Be like me or you offend GOD! 

If you have been raised to love God and respect His plan for families, then you almost certainly dream of someday marrying a godly husband who loves and protects you. You also probably hope for plenty of babies to rock and cuddle. If you have been raised by parents with a healthy vision for future generations, you may plan to homeschool and faithfully train your own children in the ways of God night and day ( Deuteronomy 6: 7- 9) (pg. 126)

Apparently God's expectation for all women is to marry, bear scads of children and home school all those kids. 

If that is the case, why are the Bible verses used to support these expectations pulled from a few books of the Bible and never from the Gospels or Acts of the Apostles? 

If that is the case, why are the few verses mangled beyond recognition?  Deuteronomy 6: 4-5 is when the Israelites are given the Great Commandment or Shema "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul and all your might."  Verses 6-9 are commentary on what following that commandment would look like.    I suppose that a shaky interpretation of verse 6 could imply that "Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and away, when you lie down and when you rise" could be used to support home schooling Biblically - but that also would require the wearing of phylacteries and affixing the Shema to the home which isn't done by most conservative Christian homeschoolers.

Random change of topic: how come every discussion of raising children in books for unmarried women focuses on rocking and cuddling an infant?  I enjoy a good cuddle with my son - but rocking and cuddling are only one of a million infant related chores.  She'll be spending far more time feeding, changing diapers, and cleaning up the messes created by the infant than she will rocking them.  Plus, horror of horrors, some babies are not fond of being rocked.  As much as I like rocking a baby, my son uses the motion to keep himself awake by focusing on how the objects around him look different. 

Yet not everyone will be called to marriage. We all know godly Christians who never married. So what if you are going to be single your whole life? Shouldn't you prepare for that day? Shouldn't you go to college in case you ever have to work? Shouldn't you get a part-time job somewhere to become independent and gain some experience in the workforce? Before we go further, let us consider whether singleness or marriage is normative in Scripture. (pg. 126)

Stacy McDonald never circles back to answer the important questions she poses in this paragraph so I'll answer them instead. 

Yes. 

Yes, women should prepare for adult life by being educated enough that they can be productive members of the workforce.  Pursuing a vocation is not about rejecting parental authority or refusing to seek out a qualified marriage partner.  Vocations are about finding the type of work that a person can do well and get enough income to benefit a family.  In a broader way, working helps achieve the Biblical mandates to do good and help others.  Some careers specifically revolve around helping people like medicine, education, social work and human resources.  Other careers do not support people directly but earn wages that can be given to help others. 

Mrs. McDonald launches down a rabbit hole by wasting pages of writing to demonstrate that marriage was the normative state during Biblical times.  Unfortunately, she does this by pulling verses about marriage and married couples before waving her hands and saying "See!  Marriage is normative!"  A more nuanced look at the Bible makes it clear that plenty of women were in a states of singleness known as widowhood or slavery.   Yes, some widows remarried and some women who were enslaved either became wives of their master or were freed and married another free person - but that's not the same thing as saying that marriage was normative.  Also, the Bible is pretty clear that polygyny was normative at points as well...but let's not blow Mrs. McDonald's mind.

Truthfully, marriage is still normative in the US.  The vast majority of adults will marry before age 40 and a sizable portion of the remaining singles will marry later in life.  Likewise, periods of singleness are also normative.  The main difference between "Biblical" times and now is that the period of singleness before marriage is longer and that divorce is a more frequent cause of singleness in all age groups except the elderly.  Plus, slavery is illegal and polygyny cannot be entered without a willing partner. 

Those good ol' days weren't so good.

Where do good wives come from? They don't just happen - -good wives are either trained to be successful wives and mothers... or they are not. If you are Christian maiden and plan to be a wife and mother, shouldn't you be working alongside your mother, focusing together on your goal of becoming this rare and precious jewel?

(...)

We might expect Scripture to instruct younger women to find a trade or means of making an independent living. Wouldn't this appear to be wise advice? Isn't that what most people say young lady should do - - prepared to be breadwinners, just in case?

Paul had different instructions for young maidens:

I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. (1 Timothy 5:14) (pg. 127)

Where should I start this time?

I don't buy Mrs. McDonald's assertion that the only way a person can have a happy marriage is if their mothers trained the wife to be the perfect future wife.   Bluntly, Mrs. McDonald's far too old to still believe that pap.  Some happy couples come from dysfunctional families of origin; some miserable couples had functional families when they were growing up.  The outcome of happiness in a marriage has far more to do with how much work both members of the couple are willing to do than with how they were raised.

The bit about how being a wife and mother is "a rare and precious jewel" cracks me up.  In terms of rarity, being a lifelong single person without children is rare so I assume that makes the lifestyle precious as well.

Looking back at Biblical times to make connections involving working is as fraught with peril as making assumptions about marriage.  Every job, every task discussed in Scripture has changed beyond recognition for people who lived in Biblical times.  Keeping a home in Biblical times was far, far more difficult than it is today.  Women needed to bring water from a water source to their homes.  Livestock needed to have water drawn from wells which was an exhausting task.  All foods came in a raw, unprocessed form.  Grains needed to be ground into to flour, leavened, shaped and baked.  Baking required tending a wood fire in a clay-brick oven. Milk needed to be made into cheeses.   In addition to the never-ending process of feeding a family, textile work consumed any remaining time.  Linen plants needed to be retted and combed to remove the woody parts of the plant to ready the fibers for spinning.  Wool fleeces had to be cleaned and either combed or carded to prepare for spinning.  Women were spinning thread all the time.  Finished yarn needed dyeing before being woven into cloth.

Even the most ardent homesteader today has advantages that Biblical women couldn't imagine in the form of water pumps, hoses, glass canning jars and commercially available clothing.

The reason Paul doesn't recommend that young women learn a trade is that he assumed they were already learning the trades of food preparation/storage and textile work along with any skills that a girl could learn to help out her father in his trade.   Women stuck to food preparation and textile work not because women were unable to learn a trade but because food preparation and textile work can be done around the additional work that lactation, infant care and young child care brings. 

I thought the McDonald Family were KJV Bible enthusiasts.  1 Timothy 5:14 doesn't talk about "younger women".  The group referred to is "young widows".  Most of the fifth chapter is about how best to manage the needs of widows in the church community.  Having young widows remarry if possible made the most financial sense because it reduced the number of people being supported by the church while increasing the number of households that could pay support for the needy.

The last quote brings up the favored strawman of CP/QF women - the dissatisfied college graduate:

I often hear from women who are never taught homemaking skills when they were young. Many genuinely struggle with organizing and cleaning their homes consistently, mastering basic cooking skills, and being content at home with children all day. What is even more interesting is that most of these frustrated women are college graduates.

Some are accomplished career women, yet many gave birth to their first child without having ever changed a diaper. In fact, many hospitals now have mandatory diaper changing classes which parents must attend before they are allowed to take their newborn infants home. Before marriage, most of these women knew how to drive a car, balance a checkbook, change a tire, and even run a cash register; yet they were unprepared for keeping a home, helping a husband, and nurturing children. (pg. 128)

I firmly believe that women who have graduated from college could use the same skills that got them through college to learn how to clean and organize a home and learn basic cooking.  Even before the advent of the internet, there are plenty of books on how to clean and organize a home at the local library; ditto for cooking.   I wonder if the difference that Mrs. McDonald is actually picking up is that women who have graduated college and are stay-at-home-mothers might not care as much about having a spotless house as they do letting their kids have creative play time.   I also question that a college degree causes women to find being at home with children all day more exasperating than not having a college degree.  I suspect that the main difference is how honest the different groups of women are being.

I did know how to change a diaper before my son was born, thank you - but let's not pretend that changing a diaper is a deep and complicated task.  It's three steps: remove diaper, clean baby's butt, put new diaper on.    I think that the mandatory diaper changing class is a bit of hyperbole; before we brought my son home, the nurses needed to sign off that we knew how to feed, burp, diaper, and bathe him along with knowing about safe sleep practices and the importance of using a car seat.  Because my husband and I were reasonably comfortable with infants before Jack, the nurses just watched us care for him and checked off that we knew what to do.  I'm sure that nurses do need to show some parents how to care for an infant - but baby care is simply not that complicated.

I think Mrs. McDonald should poll some young men about which wife they would prefer.  Would they prefer to be married to a woman who can drive a car, balance a checkbook, change a tire and run a cash register  but can't change a baby's diaper  OR would they prefer a woman who can change a diaper, but doesn't drive, can't balance a checkbook, can't change a tire or run a cash register?

I know which group I suspect would be more popular among men - and it's not the diaper changers who are confounded by a checkbook and a tire iron.....