What is a Godly Woman anyway? Part One

The challenge to be a godly woman has resonated throughout Christian circles a lot in the past thirty years. I suppose it is a response to the feminist movement that began picking up speed in the 1960’s. Before that, there must not have been so much a need to define godly womanhood. Nowadays, there are countless books, seminars, radio programs, and websites out there that promote godly womanhood in one form or another. Women love to hear and read about themselves so there is always a market!

I was raised in the home-school culture, which lifted godly womanhood (GW) to an even higher level of importance. My own parents left the main-line churches in part to escape the example of “worldly” women who looked like fashion divas and involved themselves in church leadership. With a family of six daughters, learning how to be a godly woman was a constant focus, as it was with many other home-schooling families.



Perhaps because feminism was considered a modern concept, GW began to look backwards in time for inspiration. (Now remember, this was in my circles.) A godly woman became someone who canned garden produce, wove rugs, knit, milked goats, sewed all her clothes, dipped candles, and used cloth diapers. Just the phrase “godly woman” brings to my mind a picture of a Victorian-looking woman in old-fashioned clothes, with plump, rosy cheeks, sitting placidly at a spinning wheel with a cherubic toddler or two pulling at her skirt.

BUT, is this what a godly woman is?

Other ideals became associated with GW. Godly women did not pursue higher education or get jobs outside the home. They got married and had lots of children. They home-schooled their children. They had to look a certain way, which was usually counter-cultural in one form or another. They needed to exhibit a quiet, reserved demeanor. A godly woman tended to shun convenience, for instance, preferring to wash her dishes by hand.

But is this what a godly woman is?



Questions come to my mind. What if a woman doesn’t get married? What if she does, but can’t have children? What if she likes the outdoors better than the house? What if her husband prefers her to wear jeans, or use birth control, or send the children to school? What if she is interested in education? What if she has an exuberant, outgoing personality? Is it possible for this person to be a godly woman?

Why all this outward focus?

At the ripe old age of 32, having spent time in various circles and watching women keenly, I have questioned much of what is popular as Godly Womanhood. Not that all of it is bad. But I have learned that everything must be held up to the light of Scripture alone, leaving behind man’s ideas. I’ve found that a lot of what we consider to be truth is man’s presumptions, and we totally miss what is clearly spelled out in God’s Word. It’s like we are so busy trying to read between the lines that we don’t even get around to reading the lines. So, what is, Biblically, a godly woman?

To be continued. . .