Who Can Find a Virtuous Woman?

“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.”

As I was reading through Proverbs 31 today, it hit me that we have not talked about the value of the kind of woman we are training our daughters to be and our sons to look for. We have talked a lot about what she looks like day in and day out and how to become like her. So today we will be talking about what this kind of woman looks like both from her description here and from a great example we have in the Bible.

First we have to understand what the Bible means by virtuous. Its synonyms are uprightness, integrity and strength. A woman who has these things is one that you can’t put a value on. She is priceless. She has the integrity to keep her character intact, to keep her husband from being concerned about what she is doing when he is not there, and to be trusted with the training of their children. This is why her husband can safely trust her. She is a woman of worth. As Proverbs 12:4 says, “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband”.

We can see this kind of woman in action not just here in Proverbs 31 but also in the book of Ruth. Ruth makes promises to her mother-in-law and keeps them, regardless of how much work and hardship that means for her; she is a woman that can be trusted. She works hard and without complaint; she is a woman of industry. She makes a good impression on a worthy man and willingly follows her mother-in-law’s instructions regarding her interactions with him; she is a woman of virtue. And she waits for him to accomplish his plan for winning her for himself without interjecting her own ideas; she is a woman of patience and faith. I would encourage you to read through the book of Ruth this weekend. It is short but compare what we have been learning about what a truly Godly woman looks like from Proverbs 31, with Ruth’s example of a real life woman of God. I think you will find that they are very much the same.

One last thought on the worth of a Proverbs 31 woman; we are willing to spend all kinds of money to buy expensive jewelry, cars, houses and many other things that won’t last, but are we willing to spend the time and money that it takes to train our daughters to be women of integrity and virtue and our sons to seek out a woman who is worth more than her “face” value? When we read that this woman’s price is far above rubies, it doesn’t mean that your son will have to pay lots of money to keep her in the latest styles. Nor should we teach our daughters to expect a man who will make a certain amount of money or live a certain kind of house. All that she needs is a man who will do what it takes to care for his family, which is an attitude of the heart not a number with a certain amount of zeros after it. And when we are telling our sons what to look for in a wife, we need to show them how to identify a woman of strength, virtue and integrity who will be willing to do what it takes to support her husband. These are the things that make a woman, a worthy wife and mother.