Joyfully At Home: Chapter Ten - Part Two

Jasmine Baucham informs her readers that Chapter 10 of "Joyfully At Home" will help them shed a false view of singleness.  After reading the chapter a few times, I think the false view of singleness that Jasmine is trying to puncture is the idea that a single woman is less worthy or less Christian than a married woman.

I agree wholeheartedly that the worth of a person who is female should not be based on her marital state.   My bias coming to this chapter is that I'm Catholic.  Vatican II has attempted to place religious, marital and single life on equal footing - but the older views still linger.  For people who grew up or are of other religions, the older view is that people who REALLY loved God became priests - or the runner-up title of sister/nun if you happened to be born female - and the rest of us were always going to be second-class posers. 

You can see, then, why reading the chapter in "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" where various people explained that sanctification of women didn't require marriage confused the hell out of me.  Of course women didn't need marriage for sanctification; no one did!  Really holy people would dedicate their lives to God and not have sex.   Marriage is a backup calling for those of us with sex drives who pay for that sex drive by raising a huge family of Catholic babies.

This chapter, though, fails at killing a false view of singleness because every mention of singleness is qualified by explaining how singleness is really a planning stage for marriage.

Take this first quote where Bridget Baucham is a secondary character in her own singlehood season the needs of Voddie Baucham as predetermined by God:

My father was married at the tender age of twenty; my mother was twenty-three. He was married young because that was God's plan for him. The Lord meant for marriage to sanctify him, to gird him during his ministry, and to teach him lessons that would stabilize this young pastor as he began to preach. The Lord meant for my mother to be married three years later than my father because when she was 20, he was only 17, and would not come to know the Lord until he was almost 19.(pg. 116)

Bridget Baucham's readiness for marriage is couched entirely in terms of Voddie Baucham's life path with a strange gloss of God's Plans. 

Was Bridget ready to be married at age 20 herself?  We have no clue. 

Did she gain skills or maturity between 20-23 years of age?  Got me. 

Did Bridget matter to God outside of her future role as Voddie's wife?  Apparently not.

Since Jasmine was living in the same home as her mother while writing this book, Jasmine's complete neglect of her mother's growth, work and maturation process as a single adult woman is stunning.  Jasmine talks about her mom frequently in the book - but only as a married adult woman sharing wisdom.  This oversight reinforces the theme that the story of a woman's life only begins once she's married.

The next quote starts with a standard scolding about not using single life for the Lord before it slides seamlessly into a hymn to the importance of being a wife and mother:

If you are staying home is some sort of ticket to matrimony, I suggest you reevaluate your priorities. The goal for us unmarried daughters should be to bring glory to Christ and every season of our lives, not strive to get married so that we can start giving him glory. This in no way undermines the beauty of marriage or the nobility of motherhood, but it does put the focus on the one who makes marriage beautiful, and who makes mothering worthwhile-- he's the same King who makes our singleness worthwhile as we use it as a time to reflect on his goodness. (pg. 117)

Marriage is beautiful. 

Mothering is the fulfillment of a woman's life. 

Singlehood is worthwhile if and only if women use it for the goodness of God. 

Marriage and motherhood apparently glorify God without distracting women at all from God.  Single women, on the other hand, need to be constantly reminded to stay on-topic about God.

That's pretty ironic since the biblical view of marriage is the polar opposite; married people are more likely to be focused on the concerns of their spouse, children and other dependents while single or widowed people are able to focus entirely on God.

This is really not helpful for changing the habit of treating unmarried women as children.

This last quote shows Jasmine Baucham's ambivalence at the idea of remaining unmarried for any period of time.  I didn't grow up in this culture - but this quote makes me feel like stating that God might want you to be single is such a bad omen or so likely to draw the curse of singleness upon the speaker that Jasmine intuitively praises marriage hard to prevent being an old maid.

You could be married about 9 months from now , or you could be married nine years from now. The Lord might purpose for you never to marry. There is no way you can know exactly when or you will wed. But here's what we do know: the Lord has given us life, perhaps an unmarried one at this point, and he has given us a mission to carry out, single or married ( Matthew 28: 18-20), and is constantly sanctifying us, single or married, and is called us to a purpose, single or married...

And that's a wonderful thing!

I am not suggesting that we should not actively prepare to be capable wives and mothers...but daughterhood is the best training ground. (pgs 118-119)

Good news!  You might be married in nine months. As an older person, that's a terrifying statement when directed as a very young, very sheltered girl-woman

 Bad news: you might have to wait NINE WHOLE YEARS!  (Oh, the horrors!)  I had around 9 years to wait before getting married when I was Jasmine's age; I was busy enough with working and learning that the time passed quickly and enjoyably.

As a real adult, my advice to the young unmarrieds who might be reading this is to use your time to become the best "you" you can be.   You know what your strengths and weaknesses are.  Work on cultivating your strengths and remedying your weaknesses rather than striving to become the best fit an unknown man and children who are not in existence.