A Word About Our Single Adult Christian Daughters

I recently read a blog post from a patriarchal Titus 2 “influencer” with a large following asking whether it was a sin for a single adult Christian woman to have an education and a career.  While she initially stated she couldn’t definitively say, she proceeded to lay out all the bad things that happen (in her mind) to women who work outside the home, especially as nurses or teachers (traditionally female occupations). In the discussion on her Facebook page, she not only deleted whole sections of comments from very well balanced single young Christian women with careers whose parents are elderly and on a fixed income (therefore cannot support them), she revealed her true thoughts when responding to several people who questioned what would happen if women left education and health care.  “Straw man argument!” she declared, “Not all will repent and come home.” She also stated that only those who didn’t love Jesus would stay in nursing instead of being full-time homemakers or stay-at-home daughters.

I have been thinking about this for days.  This woman’s view is filtered through about 8 verses in the Bible and is very narrow.  It is also hypocritical, because her daughters were not stay-at-home daughters, and I doubt she has ever met anyone who truly lives that lifestyle.  Why has this been bugging me?  Besides the fact that I know this rigid approach to Christian life is wrong, I have three adult daughters with college degrees who are either in the workplace now or in graduate school.  And nothing bothers me more than the idea that there is only one way for women to live, using the Bible to cram all of us into a little box based on the way things used to be.*

1 Corinthians 7:32-35 says: “I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”

This passage is addressed to both men and women.  And it indicates that single men and women can do a lot to serve God that married people cannot do.  It does not mean that single is better than married or vice versa, just that the way you serve may look different depending on whether you are married or not.  I see no prohibition on a woman having an education or a job in these verses.

There is a segment of Christian society that teaches women to stay uneducated and only focus on homemaking things and child rearing.  This kind of teaching tells women that God’s best (and usually only) plan for their lives is to be a wife and mother.  And in that, an education and any kind of career is not only frowned upon as unwise, these things are seen as making a woman less than desirable to the “right” kind of patriarchal men. When married, these women are also expected to stop any kind of thinking for themselves, allowing their husbands to dictate their schedules, what news they take in, and who they vote for.

I live in the real world, however, and I have seen this attitude play out with disastrous consequences for women.  When you teach your daughters that God will absolutely not call them to do anything but get married and have children, they spend most of their teen and young adult years trying to catch the attention of any acceptable man.  After all, they are to stay with their parents until they marry, some not even allowed to work outside the home, some allowed to work at acceptable Christian companies that are closed on Sunday. Some with entrepreneur fathers may work for Dad. Often, they are educated less vigorously than their homeschooled brothers (which seems unwise to me, especially since they are expected to homeschool their own children, but I digress…)

These women, when they finally land a husband their parents approve of, get married quickly and start having children (because of the verse that says it is better to marry than to burn.) If the guys are kind, it may work out okay.  But often these men, raised with a patriarchal mindset, are not only very controlling, but they are also critical and angry.  These young ladies are trained by people like the Titus 2 influencer to deaden their emotions and just submit more to present a happy face and keep from agitating the head of the household.  Years pass and several children are born, and some wind up finding out their husbands have been cheating on them for years.  (I have heard this scenario repeated often in my various homeschool circles to the point it no longer surprises me.) With no skills and no ability to earn money, along with the guilt that is heaped on them for even thinking of leaving, they stay until the kids are mostly grown, when they finally walk away from these men who have used them and expected them to stay because that was what they were taught.  The women were to submit; the man is king, and he can do whatever he wants without her saying anything about it. (The Titus 2 influencer inspiring this post has literally said that it is worse for a woman to “fornicate” than a man, because it does more harm to her.  Silly me, I thought the Bible prohibited that for both men and women.)

I don’t say this to paint a bad picture of Christian marriage in homeschool circles.  I have seen a lot more good marriages along the way.  But in the good marriages I have not seen many who came out of the mindset that they had nothing more to do than to get married and have children.  Many of the women in good marriages are educated in one way or another and either work part time or worked in the past and know they could go back if they had to but choose not to.

And I think that is the most important part of this discussion.  By allowing our daughters to develop their God given interests and talents as single young women, we empower them to marry better guys.  After all, if you could continue working as a nurse, teacher, scientist, accountant or any other field you can imagine and easily support yourself, you are not searching in desperation for a man to take you out of your father’s household and allow you to be an adult. Even a young, educated woman who might like to settle down and raise her own children and maybe homeschool is empowered to wait for a good husband rather than settling for the first option that presents itself.

And I have also seen this happen more than once:  young, educated Christian women spend their 20’s or even into their 30’s working in the field God has led them to and in which they excel, and then they meet a man while doing these things that benefits greatly from having a helpmeet with their particular experience.  After all, if you are in a certain field and passionate about it, you will be around other people who are equally passionate about it.  And I would rather see my daughters wait until they meet someone compatible instead of following the Titus 2 influencer’s terrible advice to not use your heart at all to find a mate, but to use your head.  After all, she consistently teaches all that is necessary is to find a good provider that loves Jesus.  Having any common interests is not part of the mix. (I get strong vibes of Charlotte Lucas from Pride and Prejudice from this lady.  Do any of us want to see our daughters wind up in a marriage like that? Or have a Mr. Collins for a son-in-law?)

One final thing: It is a mistake to raise your daughters with the idea that God’s best plan for them is to marry and have children.  It may be His plan, but it may not.  I think the worst thing for a young lady to do is stay in her parents’ household without a job or education waiting for a husband to appear, even if she winds up 35 before she marries (or never marries at all). I think about all the time that was wasted while these young women could be serving God in one of the other areas of culture besides family (religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government).  If my female “arrows” stay in my quiver and only get released into one area, we won’t do very much to impact the culture. And how heartbreaking for these young women, wondering why God isn’t giving them what is said to be His best plan for them! Infertility is the same kind of thing, why would we tell every woman that God wants her to have many children when not all women can have children?

In closing, I believe that God is sovereign, and He is big enough to use our daughters as well as our sons at every stage of  their lives, whether their single years are temporary or permanent. God is also able to use every skill acquired by our daughters to His own glory.  And isn’t that the point of our lives? 

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

1 Corinthians 10:31

*I am in no way saying God doesn’t call some young women straight into marriage and motherhood at a young age.  That path is perfectly legitimate.  My larger point is that it isn’t the only path God gives young women.