Part 6 (2/2)

SOME MANAGING WOMEN.

The women of the Old Testament always wanted something, and it is a noticeable fact that they always asked for it--and got it too.

So the daughters of Zelophehad had a grievance, and they didn't go among the neighbors bewailing their hard lot, they didn't sit and wish from morning till night that something would turn up to help them, or sigh their lives away in secret, but they put on their most radiant attire and jauntiest veils and ”stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation,”

and demanded their father's possessions, and even argued the question reasonably and logically. There was not any of the St.

Paul-women-should-not-speak-in-meeting doctrine about the Biblical women of those elder days.

They didn't endeavor to persuade Moses' wife to influence her husband to use his power in their behalf. They did not retain the services of Aaron, the finest orator of the day, to plead their cause, but they did their own talking, and they got what they asked for--their father's possessions--and husbands thrown in without extra charge.

Being clever as well as ambitious women, they probably foresaw that husbands would follow after the inheritance, and although they would not ask for lords and masters of course, they had their eyes on them just the same. As there were several of them, all unmarried, they were no doubt _not_ ”fair to look upon,” so they laid a little plot to secure husbands. And they succeeded and were happy, for marriage was the aim and end of a woman's existence then, and there was a better market and more of a demand for husbands than in these modern days.

We only catch a glimpse of one woman named Achsah, but that is enough to show us that she possessed the prevailing and prominent characteristic of all the other ”holy women.”--she wanted something.

After she had married her warrior lover, who conquered Kirpathsepher for her sweet sake, the very first thing we find is that ”she moved him to ask of her father a field.” Now naturally a young man would dislike to approach his father-in-law upon such a delicate subject, and so soon too, but _she_ asked him and he obeyed--like all the men of the Old Testament.

And even then she was not satisfied; but of course she embraced her father and kissed him, and told him he was the most indulgent father in the whole wide world.

Now Caleb no doubt had had dozens of love affairs, and experience had made him a connoisseur of female character, and understanding all their little scheming ways and little designing tricks, without beating around the bush at all he came to business at once and asked,

”What would'st thou?”

[Ill.u.s.tration: (What would'st thou?)]

”Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a south land, give me also springs of water,” she said.

Springs of water were a bonanza in those days--something like a gold or silver mine to us moderns--but she had requested it and of course he could not refuse, ”and he gave her the upper springs and the nether springs.”

And it came to pa.s.s that Joshua sent two men, two spies, saying, ”Go view the land, even Jericho,” and I suppose they disguised themselves and went by secret ways; anyway they eluded the vigilance of their enemies and entered the city, even Jericho, and let me whisper it in your ear, they went to see a woman named Rahab--and she wasn't a very nice woman either--and ”lodged there.”

But their visit leaked out, as such things always do and always will, though the stars should pale their fires to s.h.i.+eld them, the moon withdraw behind the clouds to hide their shadows, the rain pour and the thunder crash to drown their footsteps. Perhaps the children told the neighbors, perhaps the hired girl whispered to her friend, perhaps some jealous watching lover told of it, but at any rate we read:

”And it was told to the King of Jericho, saying: Behold there came two men in hither to-night of the children of Israel, to search out the country.”

”And the King of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying: Bring forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into thy house: for they be come to search all the country.”

Now does one suppose for a moment that she obeyed the mandate of the King? Of course not, if one is a student of the Bible, but if one is not, I'll just say that she took them up through the skylight and hid them, piling flax over them, and then she said innocently and convincingly to the King's officers:

”There came two men unto me, but I wist not whence they were: And it came to pa.s.s about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out: pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them.”

Then she went up on the roof and talked to the men like a lawyer. I notice that these old women--I mean women of old--were all good talkers, and they didn't speak like meek, pa.s.sive, submissive girls wrought up to sudden action by wrong, indignation or revenge, but they spoke with a freedom, vigor and fluency that betokened everyday practice.

St. Paul says that woman should ”Keep silence,” and that ”they are commanded to be under obedience,” but he evidently had some remarkable ideas upon this and other topics. Perhaps he never had read the official records, and we know he was never married, and so we don't censure him so much for his ignorance of female character, having never had a wife, or, so far as we know, a love affair, for what does a man born blind know about the suns.h.i.+ne, or the lightning's awful flash, or one born deaf know of the pealing, clas.h.i.+ng thunder?

The women of his day were no doubt obstreperous and extravagant, and hence his famous but perfectly ineffectual teaching that they should not ”broider their hair, or wear gold or silver or costly array,” and that they shouldn't talk in meeting, and if they wanted to know anything, ask their husbands, and drink of their intellectual superiority. But to return.

<script>