What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
In my continuing effort to know more and think more about religion, faith, and related topics, I've discovered a lot of excellent blogs. This one, Philosophical Fragments, written by Tim Dalrymple, is really worth a bookmark.
My recent favorite post is "Is it Wrong for a Wife to "Let Herself Go" After Marriage," which inspired the kind of response that a Sarah Palin post gets around here. It's a complicated religious argument (and therefore above my head) but it's interesting:
Recently a well known Christian blogger, Rachel Held Evans, offered some thoughts on concepts of biblical womanhood and beauty, responding in part to comments from Mark Driscoll and to books by Martha Peace and Dorothy Patterson. Evans alleges that there is a fairly common de facto teaching in Christian circles that “is as clear as it is ominous: Stay beautiful or your husband might leave you. And if he does, it’s partially your fault” (the bold type is hers). This message inspired Rachel “to devote the entire month of February to studying everything the Bible says about women and beauty.” (Wow!) At the end of her study, she concludes: “I’ve found nothing in the Bible to suggest that God requires women to be beautiful.” Instead, the Bible affirms what women everywhere know and experience: That bodies change (1) as they get older, (2) when they bear children, (3) when they get sick, and (4) as they experience joy, pain, life, death (certainly that!), victory, heartache and time.
Evangelical megablogger Tim Challies, not without trepidation, responded. He agrees with the contention that the Bible does not require physical beauty of women. ”The beauty the Bible commends is a beauty of character more than a beauty of appearance.” That said, however, the outer beauty of a wife reflects inner beauty to a certain limited extent, insofar as it expresses her desire to care for the “Temple” God has given her (her body) and her desire to respect and please her husband by keeping herself appealing. While what is considered “outer beauty” is culturally relative, and Challies makes clear that he is not speaking of a Hollywood-starlet conception of beauty, what is not culturally relative is that spouses (and Challies makes the same charge for men) ought (within reason) to do those things they know bring happiness and contentment to one another.
Meaning: enough with the bread, already. And maybe throw out those old sweatpants.
Or something. I'm not married (can you tell?) so the whole thing reads like science fiction to me. But I did like the way Tim Dalrymple summed it up:
It’s very important to emphasize that the basic moral imperative here has nothing to do with gender. If it’s emphasized only or primarily from men to women, then it starts implicitly to give pseudo-biblical and -ecclesial sanction to the Law of Beauty. This should not be a matter of what wives do for husbands. It’s a matter of what people who love each other do for one another. It’s a matter of spouses understanding what brings joy and passion and fulfillment to one another, and giving that to one another as a gift.
There’s no biblical injunction to be beautiful — and baptizing The Law of Beauty is indeed sinful and oppressive. It fills the hearts of women with shame and resentment and insecurity. But there is a biblical injunction for spouses to give themselves to one another.
And then later:
Men need to be careful that they do not manipulate the scripture in order to guilt their wives into different behaviors. Men need to be very careful that they do not blame women and the natural aging process for their own declining libido and for the loss of a sex life that they had imagined for themselves. Men cannot force their wives to want to please them sexually. Ideally, each member of the relationship will be fully giving the self to the other in a way (within biblical bounds, of course) that pleases and fulfills the other. If one member of the relationship feels that the other is not sufficiently giving, then that one member should give more, and by love bring love out of the other. The beauty, the power, even the sacral significance of sex and marriage itself is found in this self-yielding, and apart from it sex and marriage lose their spiritually creative power. The best that men can do, I believe, is model the sacrificial love that Christ showed for the church.
But still: enough with the bread. And throw out those sweatpants.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Even beyond that, physical beauty is a gift. It's wrong to neglect any gift. But we are also called to moderation. So we should honor physical beauty while keeping it in perspective with other goods.
Jan '11
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Rob,
From privatizing Social Security & Medicare reform to this topic - just how many 'third rails' are you willing to grab on to?
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Kowaliczko Tom: Rob,
From privatizing Social Security & Medicare reform to this topic - just how many 'third rails' are you willing to grab on to? · Jun 6 at 6:37pm
I grab 'em all.
Oct '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
"Beauty is only skin deep. But ugly goes all the way through."
Fred Sanford, Sanford & Sons.
May '11
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Rob,
Whether you were married or not, I am sure from your perspective in Hollywood this would seem like science fiction. I read the linked article and you omitted my favorite line: "In fact, over time, she might leave her her legs and armpits unshaven, at least for long periods of time, stop bothering to make her hair, and so forth. (None of which is sinful in itself, of course, but stay with me.)"
The way in which Darymple discusses these things so delicately and yet so solemnly, lends it to ridicule but I agree with his point. It is interesting and it is a good thing that there are websites where this gets as much reaction as She Who Shall Not Be Named on Ricochet.
Dec '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Rob Long
I grab 'em all. · Jun 6 at 6:44pm
That's what Weiner said at his press conference a little while ago too.
Hmmmm . . .
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Southern Pessimist: Rob,
Whether you were married or not, I am sure from your perspective in Hollywood this would seem like science fiction. I read the linked article and you omitted my favorite line: "In fact, over time, she might leave her her legs and armpits unshaven, at least for long periods of time, stop bothering to make her hair, and so forth. (None of which is sinful in itself, of course, but stay with me.)"
The way in which Darymple discusses these things so delicately and yet so solemnly, lends it to ridicule but I agree with his point. It is interesting and it is a good thing that there are websites where this gets as much reaction as She Who Shall Not Be Named on Ricochet. · Jun 6 at 6:56pm
I agree -- don't mean to make fun at all. I'm impressed at the way the question was debated and the humility with which it was discussed. I actually think this is a good sign!
May '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
I haven't gone to the links, so perhaps I'm missing something. Does anyone argue that it IS okay for anyone to let her or himself go after marriage?
Edited on Jun 6, 2011 at 7:34pmOct '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Perhaps the missing element is the consensual agreement as to what is important. When Linda, my wife, wound up in a power wheelchair permanently, after over 40 years of marriage in which she used enormous amounts of energy to hop on crutches, from childhood, she began to gain weight, girth. Because she was no longer working at Olympic levels simply to walk, her metabolism could not simply adjust. We have adapted.
I am now over 68 years old, and the weight problem I have had for most of my life is no longer controllable without focused effort. Do we then give up a pleasant bottle of Chardonnay in the evenings, or perhaps a great breakfast, because we continue to hold on the the habits of youth?
A truly great marriage, with Jesus at the center of our lives, transcends the "beauty" issue. Beautiful? You bet Linda is that. I hear her spend hours each day talking with people in their eighties and nineties, bringing God's love into their day.
Rob... Know real beauty. Forget the physical stuff.
Dec '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.
She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.
Apr '11
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
OK, I'll bite. I won't go so far as to recommend letting yourself go after marriage, but I will say that sometimes life happens and we find that we have higher priorities than maintaining our bodies. A woman might gain weight because she's eating to try to stay awake long enough to clean the house in between nursing babies. She may not consciously realize she's doing it. A man might work long hours to earn money to pay medical bills, and end up eating a lot more fast food than he'd like. Having to let yourself go to serve higher priorities should be a signal to your spouse to get you some help, but sadly many people take it as an abrogation of our responsibility to maintain our bodies.
Nov '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
"But Jehovah said to Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him; for it is not as man sees; for man looks upon the outward appearance, but Jehovah looks upon the heart."
This is God speaking with regard to the selection of David as king over Israel. The application applies to both genders.
"...whose adorning let it not be that outward one of tressing of hair, and wearing gold, or putting on apparel; but the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price."
This is St. Peter speaking about wives.
What's in the heart is the common theme.
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
raycon: Perhaps the missing element is the consensual agreement as to what is important. When Linda, my wife, wound up in a power wheelchair permanently, after over 40 years of marriage in which she used enormous amounts of energy to hop on crutches, from childhood, she began to gain weight, girth. Because she was no longer working at Olympic levels simply to walk, her metabolism could not simply adjust. We have adapted.
I am now over 68 years old, and the weight problem I have had for most of my life is no longer controllable without focused effort. Do we then give up a pleasant bottle of Chardonnay in the evenings, or perhaps a great breakfast, because we continue to hold on the the habits of youth?
A truly great marriage, with Jesus at the center of our lives, transcends the "beauty" issue. Beautiful? You bet Linda is that. I hear her spend hours each day talking with people in their eighties and nineties, bringing God's love into their day.
Rob... Know real beauty. Forget the physical stuff. · Jun 6 at 7:28pm
Beautifully put. What a great story.
May '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Wacky Hermit
... sometimes life happens and we find that we have higher priorities than maintaining our bodies.
Well, I mean, of course. What I'm wondering is whether anyone seriously argues otherwise?
Two positions seem to me so far off (from a moral and Christian point of view), so antithetical to spousal love, as to be completely risible.
1) That it's okay to "let yourself go" once you're married.
2) That maintaining physical beauty should take priority over the kinds of things you mention.
Of course we shouldn't "let ourselves" go, and of course life happens.
I'm definitely missing something.
May '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Maybe we could draw an analogy with men as providers.
Would anyone argue that once he's married, a man can stop working and spend his days playing video games? Or would anyone argue that since he is supposed to be the provider, a man who loses his job through no fault of his own is not living up to Biblical standards?
Aug '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Wacky Hermit
OK, I'll bite. I won't go so far as to recommend letting yourself go after marriage, but I will say that sometimes life happens and we find that we have higher priorities than maintaining our bodies...
Or as an economist might put it, maintaining our physical temple is just one good among many goods, and the scarcity of our resources means that we sacrifice a portion of some goods for the sake of other goods.
Overworked fat ladies are pretty common, in my experience, and now that our country is rich enough so that the poor don't go hungry, it is the poor, rather than the rich, who are fat. Which is evidence that maintaining thinness amid abundance uses up resources (time, money -- even willpower can be an expendable resource) that could be spent on other things.
Sep '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Sure. The wife should throw out the sweatpants. And eat less bread. I get that. But Rob, please tell me you're not one of those guys who thinks the command is directed only at the wife and not at the husband. Or does his attractiveness derive not from his body but his wallet? Are we still in that place?
Apr '11
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
katievs
Of course we shouldn't "let ourselves" go, and of course life happens.
I'm definitely missing something. · Jun 6 at 7:45pm
What you're missing is that there are any number of people who are willing to watch my fat butt walking down the aisle at Wal-Mart and say to themselves, "Boy, that lady really let herself go. Look at how she didn't even bother to put on any make-up before she went to the store! And her hair! Does she really think it's OK to let yourself go like that??" They don't get the backstory with the fibromyalgia and the kids with Asperger's Syndrome and food allergies and the husband working long hours, but they're perfectly willing to assert that I just "let myself go" because I must have somehow felt it's OK.
At some point you have to tell yourself, "It's OK that I'm fat and that I had to go to the store before I got a chance to brush my hair today," because if you don't, you'll go insane.
Nov '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
Funny, I followed the beauty discussion somewhat when it appeared in a link and then a post on Challies. I never imagined that it would show up on Ricochet. Challies offers something good to read every day, but his site deals with Christian life from a Reformed perspective. I'm intrigued that he is mentioned here.
Anyone else a Challies fan?
Sep '10
Re: What the Bible Tells Ladies about Letting Themselves Go After Marriage
please tell me you're not one of those guys who thinks the command is directed only at the wife and not at the husband.
Silvio Berlusconi joke deleted due to translation issue.