Concerning Widows

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Age and gender discrimination?

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Nothing is said about men in the same situation.

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In Timothy, chapter 5

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The passage starts out positive:

3 Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need.

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Then it is said a widow has to be over 60 years old before she can have any help, and she has to meet a set of requirements.

9 Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man.

10 Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.

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Younger widows are stereotyped in a very negative way:

11 But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry;

12 Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.

13 And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.

14 I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.

15 For some are already turned aside after Satan.

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Families to take care of their own

16 If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged; that it may relieve them that are widows indeed.

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Objections:

1. If a woman is widowed at an early age, with no family, there is no help for her.

Why does she have to wait until her life is almost over to receive charity?

She is only allowed to have been married once. If her first husband died, and she remarried, and then the second one died, she is not eligible to receive aid.

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2. Younger women are automatically portrayed as damned, gossips, idle, and tattlers.

Suppose the woman has 7 children, and she is losing her mind trying to take care of all of them, without any help from the church?

Suppose she is a virtuous woman, who is now misrepresented as “turning after Satan” just because she lost her husband?

Isn’t this a bit cruel and unfair? What does Paul know about being a widow, and all the hardships?

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3. The passage later comments that people should take care of their own widows. That is good, but suppose there is no family available?

Or if they do not fit the “official” definition of a “widow indeed ( over 60 years old),” does the family ignore them?

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Need for compassion in today’s world

Today, there are many widows. Single mothers head up more households than men do now.

Churches routinely discriminate against divorced, or widowed young women, and treat them as either insignificant, or as a jezebel threat to the men.

If they are fat, ugly old hags, then acceptance comes easier.

If churches somehow accept the young widow, she is expected to pay tithes, rather than receive charity.

And if the pastor has contact with her, he needs to “protect himself” and his reputation from this “lonely, sex starved” woman.

Young widows may be far from family, or just do not have any family who will help.

Does the church ignore them, as the bible instructs?

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My Thoughts

I think this passage is sexist, and hostile to virtuous, widowed, young women.

Just because a woman is widowed, it does not make her a gossip and a slut.

And why, if she has had 2 husbands to die, or abandon her, does that disqualify her for help?

So what is the correct interpretation of this passage against women?

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What are your thoughts?

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