At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“A gracious woman retaineth honour: And strong men retain riches”
Proverbs 11:16
This proverb has a woman on one side of it, and men on the other. The verb for retain or hold is the same verb in both cases.
A certain kind of woman retains honor, and the implication is that strong men, in the same way, retain riches. This tells us several things of significance.
The first is that what strength is to men, graciousness is to women. Put another way, graciousness is a woman’s strength. It is what enables her to hold or retain something that is essential for her to retain. By it, she retains honor. This enables us to make another equation, which is that honor is a woman’s wealth.
Men retain their riches by means of their strength, and women retain honor by means of their graciousness.
This means that women are supposed to be charming. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 11, the woman is the glory of the man. He says just before this that man is the image and glory of God, which is certainly good. But when it says simply that woman is the glory of man, is this meant to be a slam? Is she representing some kind of second class glory? Is this a downgrade? Not a bit of it. He is the glory of God, and she is the glory of that glory. This is why women are much easier to look at than men are . . . much less of an eyesore, to be frank.
Elsewhere in Proverbs, King Lemuel is exhorted by his mother not to give his strength to women (Prov. 31:3). This is related to the point that a man’s strength is the source of his wealth. If a man is a fool, he gives his strength to women the way the prodigal son did (Luke 15:30).
But flip this around. In the same way, women ought not give up their strength to men. The graciousness of a godly woman is how she continues to receive honor, and from men particularly. But if she allows herself to start acting low class, like a slattern, she is throwing all her wealth away.
