“Like the sun rising in the heights of the Lord, so is the beauty of a good wife in her well-ordered home.”
Sirach
There is so much to fathom in these words in praise of a good wife. What a revelatory simile/metaphor! Like the sun rising, so is the beauty of a good wife. In her home.
Far from minimizing the place of woman in society—as though what she does in the home were somehow remote from where life really happens, Ben Sira points to the archetype of womanly flourishing. And so he points to the household as a microcosm of the cosmos itself.
The key feature of God’s rule of the cosmos is the order it establishes. “He arranged his works in an eternal order…” This order is for the sake of persons, “All these are good to the godly…”, and it includes all the details of life, “and he will supply every need in its hour.” The goodness of the arrangement of things is not always immediately apparent, but it will show itself for what it is. “For all things will prove good in their season.”
What an incomparable charge it is, to rule in the household, as does God in the cosmos.
It is interesting that Ben Sira gives no like description of the good husband in the home. This could seem to imply the husband is not there, and that Ben Sira seeks to tie woman to that from which a man is somehow free.
Much more likely is that the husband’s presence is given. Indeed, it is both implied and explicitly addressed, though not a length, throughout the book.
The good husband will not only join his wife but will take the lead in this profoundly mutual project. Making good order in the home will be what they do together, and so it will be his and hers at the same time, each in their own way.
To what in the natural world Ben Sira would compare the good husband is left to our surmising. But the good wife is like the sun rising in the heavens. A constant source of light and warmth, indeed she gives life itself. Her work marks the days, from beginning to end. Perhaps unnoticed, unappreciated, or unpraised—sometimes even criticized and blamed, she is always there. An indispensable condition, a pulsing dynamo. The brightness quietly, unselfishly lending brightness to any who will receive.
This post is second in a series on Ruling Our Households Like the Cosmos.
Ruling Our Households Like the Cosmos Mini-Series
I. Ruling Our Households Like the Cosmos
II. A Wife in Her Well-Ordered Home
III: Manual Workers, Wisdom, and Cosmic Order
IV: Three Beautiful Things in the Cosmos
Join the Community.
Become a LifeCraft Member and gain access to our online courses and exclusive content. It's FREE of charge. Period.
If you join as a contributing member, you will help make this content available to an increasing audience and enable me to spend more time in this work. I thank you in advance.
Join the LifeCraft community today and get access to:
- Man of the Household (Course)
- Woman of the Household (Course)
- Concepts Made Clear (Mini-course)
- Dinner at Home (Mini-course)
Facing Discouragement: A Greek Insight
Discouragement, or at least its temptation, regularly accompanies intentional living. Even if we do not formulate it explicitly we find ourselves feeling “why do the good things I want have to be so difficult?” It is a consolation to know this is not unique to our...
Toxic Fatherhood?
There are important analogies between a father in a family and a ruler in a nation. This is perhaps especially clear in the consequences of their failure. Aquinas writes that “royal dignity is rendered hateful to many people on account of the wickedness of tyrants.”...
Master of His Time
“He had no ‘time of his own’ (except in his bed-cell), and yet he was becoming master of his time; he began to know just what he could do with it.” J.R.R. Tolkien, Leaf by Niggle Many of the greatest traps of our day appear in the guise of simple math. One of them...
Husband, father, and professor of Philosophy. LifeCraft springs from one conviction: there is an ancient wisdom about how to live the good life in our homes, with our families; and it is worth our time to hearken to it. Let’s rediscover it together. Learn more.
The husband is most definitely implied in the “well-ordered” description of the home. He is the one who appreciates the beauty of his wife and the home itself, and without his presence and his appreciation the order would be disrupted. I’ve known plenty of bachelors whose homes were attractive and comfortable and well-ordered strictly in their physical structure. Before I married, I had a beautiful, feminine home, too—but as lovely as I made it, it lacked the satisfying completeness that only my husband could add to it. The order comes with the marriage and the graces it imparts.
This is a wonderful reflection, Dr. Cuddeback. As always.
I will simply affirm that there is an order that my wife imparts in our household at which I continually stand in amazement and gratitude.
Ah, the Wisdom of the feminine genius, so exemplified for us by the Immaculata whose Spouse is the Spirit of Truth–wed so closely in eternity that she is mediator of all His graces to we children of hers.
O Theotokos, we magnify.
Amen.
You can blame James A. Patrick, Th.D. for letting me know about Dr. Carroll’s books.
How wise this Ben Sira! So many fine details in a sunrise, and so many little, fine details that the wife attends to on a daily basis to make the household ordered. Often it is those little things that matter most at times to both the husband and the children of the household creating memories that are never erased. Thank you for this wonderful reflection!
Never erased indeed!