It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.
There are not many of the Proverbs that speak directly to women. The book itself is directed toward a son, although most of the book is still equally profitable for our daughters. But here is a verse that speaks to a specific sin with which many women struggle. It is the sin of discontentment that finds vent in complaining and nagging. Once the sin of discontentment has lodged itself in a woman’s life, nothing can satisfy her. She always finds something to complain about, and her husband often bears the brunt of it. She complains about her father or her husband. She complains about being cooped up in the house. Then she goes to work and complains about her management and various aspects of her work. She incessantly worries out loud about her health and her financial condition. All day long, she carps on the character flaws of her children and her husband without any abhorrence toward her own wicked behavior. She slanders and gossips. She engages in judgmental hypocrisy and violations of the golden rule constantly. This woman is a living nightmare.
There is no satisfactory remedy for the poor wretch who finds himself married to this woman beyond escaping to an attic, where he must share the space with spiders and mice. This problem of the nagging woman may have contributed to the origination of the “tavern.” Today, of course, men secure a bill of divorcement for “irreconcilable differences,” but many years ago, divorce carried a strong stigma with it. Even today divorces can be cost-prohibitive with lawyer fees, alimony, and many other expenses. So men will do what they can to avoid their nagging wives, even to the point of spending untold hours each evening sitting on barstools “enjoying” the community of drunks.
Obviously, our sons would never want to marry one of these women, and God forbid that any of our daughters would ever grow up to be such a person! Godliness with contentment is great gain. Whether our children will live in a dirt hut or in some great mansion, they must learn to be grateful, hopeful, and content. Griping against the difficult circumstances God arranges for us is, in the ultimate sense, complaining against the wise providence of God.
The soul of the wicked desires evil: his neighbor finds no favour in his eyes.
If a man does not desire heaven for himself or his friends, then he must be content with the fact that they are all going to hell. When a group of college-aged young people organize a party of drunkenness and other revelries, the basis for such companionship cannot possibly be a concern for the souls of those involved. Their friendship is empty and meaningless, for they take delight in their friends’ drunkenness and debauchery, which is exactly what earns for them the damnation of their souls. Even bank robbers might enjoy a little camaraderie with their fellow thieves. But when they encourage each other in thievery, they are only encouraging their comrades in that which would ruin their lives. What applies to the temporal applies that much more to the eternal. Those who delight in the moral depravity of their friends are setting their friends up for failure and destruction. What kind of friend would contribute to his friend’s destruction? Of course, this is no friend at all. If, therefore, a man desires what is evil for himself and his acquaintances, he will naturally have a perverted sense of friendship.
If you are a good friend, you should wish the very best for your friends—which would be nothing less than eternal life! You would never sit idly by while your friends abuse God’s name or ignore His claims on their lives. You would look out for their “better interests.” And as long as they are your friends, you would relentlessly pursue their better interests. Should they cast off your pleadings and grow weary of your constant witness, more often than not they will pull away from you, and you will find that friendship with unbelievers who persistently reject the truth is impossible.
1. What sort of signs might we note in a four-year-old girl, a ten-year-old girl, or a fifteen-year-old girl, indicating that we might have a brawling, nagging woman in the making?
2. Contrast a godly, contented woman with the brawling woman.
3. If you are a true friend, how might you look out for the well-being of your friends?