Texts in Conversation
Sirach criticizes households where a wife must financially support her husband, describing it as a source of disgrace and conflict. This theme is echoed in Tobit, where the wife’s paid work becomes a source of conflict.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Tobit 2:11
Deuterocanon
10 And I did not know that there were sparrows in the wall above me; and their dung settled warm into my eyes and brought up white films; and I used to go to the physicians to be healed; and the more they anointed me with their medicaments, the more my eyes were blinded by the films, until they were totally blinded. And I was impotent in my eyes four years. And all my kindred did grieve for me, and Ahikar nourished me two years until he went to Elymais. 11 And at that time my wife Anna used to work for hire in the tasks of women, 12 and would send the tasks back to their owners: and they would pay her the wages. And on the seventh of Dystrus, she cut off the web, and sent it home to the owners and they gave her all her wages, and gave her in addition to the wages a kid of the goats.
Date: 225–175 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Sirach 25:22
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
20 As walking up a sandy hill is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of words to a quiet man. 21 Don’t be ensnared by a woman’s beauty. Don’t desire a woman for her beauty. 22 There is anger, impudence, and great reproach if a woman supports her husband. 23 A wicked woman is abasement of heart, sadness of face, and a wounded heart. A woman who won’t make her husband happy is like hands that hang down, and weak knees. 24 The beginning of sin came from a woman. Because of her, we all die.
Date: 195–180 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... A wife working for pay casts dishonor upon her husband, because of the presumption that he was unable to support her. Ben Sirach 25:22 “Bad temper, insolence and shame hold sway where the wife supports the husband.” ..."
Robert J. Littman, Tobit: The Book of Tobit in Codex Sinaiticus (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 68.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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