CHILDLESS WOMEN – It’s a Biblical Idea

 

Thinking About Motherhood 2024
Geoffrey W Sutton & Designer

“Give me children, or I’ll die!”

   Rachel

 CHILDLESS WOMEN – It’s a Biblical Idea

Vice Presidential hopeful, J.D. Vance (b. 1984) is a Yale Law School graduate, Marine Veteran, and US Senator from Ohio. He made news for his comments about childless women. Here’s the introduction to the story by Kazynski and Steck of CNN (2024):

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance has a history of making disparaging remarks toward people without children, a CNN KFile review of his comments shows, including fundraising off his now-infamous “childless cat lady” remarks in a series of emails that called Democratic leaders “childless sociopaths” who “don’t have a direct stake in this country.”

[See link below for a history of the "cat lady" insult.]

Not surprisingly, many people rallied to the defense of childless women. There are, of course, numerous reasons why a woman might not have children. As a man and a father, it’s hard to imagine how depressing it must be for those who desire children but have faced repeated disappointment.

 

Setting aside Vance’s comments, we might wonder where such disparagement originates. We need not look any further than the words of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. The Bible’s barren women include well-known figures such as Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel.

Consider one example. Jacob’s first and unloved wife Leah has borne children but Rachel, the one Jacob loved, is barren. Her plight can be read in her provocative demand of Jacob.

30 When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” 2 Jacob became angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?” 3 Then she said, “Here is Bilhah, my servant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family through her.” 4 So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife. Jacob slept with her, 5 and she became pregnant and bore him a son. 6 Then Rachel said, “God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son.” Because of this she named him Dan.[a]

(Genesis 30. -6, NIV)

As we read on, Rachel proposes a trade with Leah— she can have sex with Jacob in exchange for mandrakes, which one of Leah’s sons has gathered. Perhaps not surprisingly, Leah has two more sons as a result of this deal. Finally, Rachel becomes pregnant and declares (bold emphasis added):

“God has taken away my disgrace.” 

    (verse 23, NIV)

Other stories reveal the high value the ancient Hebrews placed on motherhood. We get the distinct impression that something is wrong when a woman has sex but does not become pregnant. The assumption seems to be that there is something wrong with the woman, but the blessing, or lack thereof, is ultimately under the external control of God. Rachel’s disgrace was her childlessness. How awful it must have been to live with such disgrace for one’s entire life!

 

Sadly, many Christians throughout history have perpetuated the idea that a significant part of a woman’s worth is tied to being a mother. In fact, having just one child may not be considered enough, as reflected in an insult stored in a friend’s memory: a woman with one child is not a real mother.

 

But before considering what might be going on with this denigration of childless women, we recall a curious comment about a woman being saved by bearing a child (1 Timothy 2:15), which reminds us of Eve’s curse referring to the pain of childbirth (Genesis 3: 16).

Pregnant with Meaning

It’s easy to guess that having several sons in an ancient agrarian culture represented wealth, or at least the potential for wealth, as a large family could help with the food supply and other tasks. Hence, a wife who could bear sons not only ensured the family legacy in cultures where the firstborn son inherited the family’s wealth, but she also labored to provide laborers for her tribe. Additionally, intertribal violence meant that young men were valued for their ability to defend the home against enemy tribes and mate with the women of neighboring tribes to seal mutually beneficial relationships and nonaggression pacts. In the present, of course, large families are often mired in poverty due to the high cost of raising children.

 

Persistence of Select Cultural Values

Perhaps strangely, some biblical beliefs and values persist while others do not. The notion that having children is a blessing from God persists but it’s rare to find a Christian culture that values polygyny. And many, if not most, Christians in western cultures do not express a preference for sons over daughters. Of course, most moderns understand the contribution of a man and a woman to the creation of a new life.

And then Russia makes news. An Independent (Sharma, 2023, November 30) story announces:

Putin urges Russian women to have ‘eight or more’ children amid soaring deaths in his Ukraine war.

Reflections

It appears that, in some ways, we have not changed much in a few thousand years. Some contemporary leaders still stigmatize women without children, while in Russia, women who have many children are rewarded.

For some, mothering is exalted based on biblical teachings and examples. For others, a quiver full of future warriors may help save a nation.

 

Fortunately, women in some cultures, have more encouragement to bolster self-esteem as they develop a strong internal locus of control. In addition, many enjoy cultural support for a variety of ways they may contribute to society.

 

Related Concepts

Locus of Control

Polygyny

Self-control

Self-esteem

 

Related Posts

Christian Polygyny

 

 

Reference

Kaczynski, A. & Steck, E. (2024, July 30). It’s not just ‘cat ladies’: JD Vance has a history of disparaging people without kids. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/30/politics/kfile-jd-vance-history-disparaging-people-without-kids/index.html

 Note

A CNN article (Andrew, 2024, July 27) traces the history of associations of cats with women--especially childless women. How ‘cat lady’ became an insult for women of a certain age | CNN