Books

Let Me Be A Woman

By Elisabeth Elliot
Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1976
190 pages, paper

Reviewed by Melissa Wallace
Homemaker, Teacher

This book takes the form of correspondence between Mrs. Elliot and her daughter Valerie, who is engaged to be married. It is a book about the meaning of womanhood, especially in the marriage relationship.

One of the main themes of Let Me Be A Woman is its development of the concept of masculinity and femininity. In her discussion of the sexes, Elliot touches on concepts of freedom and limitation, divine order or hierarchy, submission, and the symbolism of the sexes in their relation to each other, society, and the church.

Freedom and Limitation

In discussing the meaning of freedom in regard to womanhood, Elliot proposes that freedom does not mean casting off all restrictions and doing what we feel like doing. It means rather, functioning in the way God designed us to function. The special gifts and abilities of each creature in God's universe defines its limitations.

The Metaphor of Wings

"As the bird easily comes to terms with the necessity of bearing wings when it finds that it is, in fact, the wings that bear the bird up, away from the world, into the sky, into freedom—so the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations her gifts, her special calling—wings, in fact, which bear her up into perfect freedom, into the will of God."

The woman who defines her liberty, according to Elliot, as doing only what she wants to do, is evading responsibility. Refusing the significance of sexual difference, she retreats to a partial humanity. Ignoring the fundamental truth of sexual difference, she refuses to fulfill the whole purpose of her womanhood. So in discussing freedom, we must also discuss limitations, if we would use freedom responsibly.

The ability to do something is not a command to do it, says Elliot. It is not even permission.

We all know that doing something on the basis of ability, regardless of consequences, very often results in disaster!

Ordination and Divine Calling

It is in this context that Elliot refers to ordination of women. She insists that ordination to the gospel ministry cannot be based simply on a question of competence.

Neither can it be decided on the basis of the church's need, or an individual's urge, or on any sociological argument. It can be decided only on the basis of what God Himself has ordained for the sexes.

Essential Differences Between the Sexes

Elliot deals with some fundamental questions: Did God create two sexes for a reason? Is there some essential, non-anatomical difference between the sexes? If not, then why did God create two sexes instead of one? And what are the differences?

Elliot discusses the women's liberation movement as envisioning a freedom from society's stereotype of what women are supposed to be. Its theorists claim that there are no fundamental differences between the sexes—that apparent differences are only a matter of social conditioning. But scientific research has discovered that it is not merely society which determines how the sexes behave. Strong biological forces cause males to dominate and females to submit in every society. Elliot insists that true matriarchy is mythical. She says that no genuine example of a matriarchal society has ever been documented.

This is as it should be, according to Elliot, for the very order of creation calls for the male to lead, initiate, and rule and for the female to respond, follow, adapt, and submit. "Even if we held to a different theory of origin, the physical structure of the female would tell us that woman was made to receive, to bear, to be acted upon, to complement, to nourish."

The Totality of Sexuality

But just as the human being consists of body, mind and spirit, so woman and man are total beings in the realm of their sexuality. "No one can define the boundaries of mind, body, and spirit. Yet we are asked to assume nowadays that sexuality, most potent and undeniable of all human characteristics, is a purely physical matter with no metaphysical significance whatever." We cannot bypass matter in our search for understanding personality.

Universal Patterns

Creation itself has as one of its fundamental themes the pattern of rule and submission, power and passivity, ebb and flow, generativity and receptivity. These obvious polarities were described by the Chinese as yin and yang and made the symbol of their religion. The physical realm is also founded and held together by the positive and negative attraction of atomic particles. Everywhere the universe displays its division into pairs of interlocking opposites.

Mary as Symbol

Elliot suggests that the Virgin Mary's humble acceptance of God's will for her life is a symbol of the response of every Christian to the Christ. Mary could have hesitated in accepting God's will for her. She might have refused to be known as Somebody's mother all her life. She might have preferred to see her own dreams fulfilled. But her "be it unto me" demonstrated her willing acceptance of God's ideal for her life. In this sense the soul and the Church have been seen throughout Christian history as feminine before God for it is the very nature of woman to submit.

Hierarchy in Marriage

Elliot proposes that hierarchy is essential in marriage. She notes that the notion of hierarchy comes from the Bible, and that the words "superior" and "inferior" refer originally to position, not to intrinsic worth. The order of rule and submission proceeds from the nature of God Himself. The Godhead displays both the just and legitimate authority of the Father and the willing and joyful submission of the Son. Authority and submission in the Godhead are to be reflected in the relationship of man and woman in the institution of marriage.

"The image of God could not be fully reflected without the elements of rule, submission, and union."

The Art of Submission

In defining a good marriage, Elliot establishes the art of submission as essential. In anything that is fortified there are tensions, like the strength of a great cathedral dependent upon the thrust and counterthrust of its buttresses and arches. Each architectural element has its own function and peculiar strength. Man and woman have two kinds of strength, each meant to fortify the other in different ways.

The Metaphor of the Sailboat

The sailboat submits to the rules of sailing and in its submission finds strength to harness the wind and thus take to itself the wind's strength.

It was not weakness in the Son of God to obey the will of the Father, but rather power—the power of His own will to will the Father's will.

Marriage as Divine Metaphor

Marriage, as Elliot reminds her daughter, reflects the relation of God to Israel and of Christ to his Church. "Tremendous heavenly truths are set forth in a wife's subjection to her husband, and the use of this metaphor in the Bible cannot be accidental." Feminists claim that womanly submission is cultural, not essential. But if they are right, marriage no longer illustrates the relation of Christ to His Church.

The order of rule and submission proceeds from the nature of God Himself. The Godhead displays both the just and legitimate authority of the Father and the willing and joyful submission of the Son. Authority and submission in the Godhead are to be reflected in the relationship of man and woman in the institution of marriage. "The image of God could not be fully reflected without the elements of rule, submission, and union."