A comment on another post got me thinking about what it means to be a helpmeet or helper. The bible says, “The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” This, to me, would make me think that woman was created to be a companion, so that he would not be alone. I also found it interesting when I went back and read through those chapters in Genesis, that God gave the commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to Adam, before Eve’s creation. It did make me wonder if perhaps that is the reason the first sin is ultimately attributed to Adam over Eve. But perhaps that’s a post for a different day.
The bible doesn’t say that working the garden was hard and that Adam needed an employee. It said that it wasn’t good for him to be alone. So, how exactly am I being a helper to someone else if I am employed by them?
My husband may have a dream or a vision for our family. And certainly I am helping him to further that dream or vision. That may even be part of what it means for me to be his helper. But I hardly think that’s all of it. If being a helper or helpmeet is all wrapped up in helping someone achieve their goals or vision, than why did the Botkin girls change their stance on that and remove the word from their writings? I mean, if that’s what it is, then they are in fact, teaching girls to be helpmeet’s for their fathers.
I’ve seen it written many places that one of the reasons that women shouldn’t be working outside the home is because it makes them helpmeets to other men. I find that really interesting. If being a helpmeet to your husband can be compared to being an employee, then it would seem that the militant feminists may be right about something. Some of the more militant feminists argue that marriage is a form of institutionalized prostitution. I have never agreed with that in the slightest. But, if being a man’s helpmeet means being his employee, doing his will, and being open for sex in exchange for food, lodging and protection, maybe it is! What a horrible view of marriage!
Continuing along the path of the relationship between employer and employee, if a woman working outside of the home is becoming a helpmeet to another man, then in a way, it makes it sound as if she is cheating. And how much worse that is if her husband has asked her to do so. But then again, perhaps it shouldn’t be so bothersome that her husband is essentially pimping her out if that’s all there is to the marital relationship anyway.
Please don’t get me wrong. These aren’t my thoughts on marriage or working outside the home. This is really just to illustrate where these ideas take us. I know understand why some of these women feel so strongly about not working. But it also makes me sad that they can’t share the view of marriage I do if they’re little more than glorified servants.
I am a helpmeet to my husband. I firmly believe that. I keep him from a life of loneliness, because neither of us would be good alone. I don’t just help him achieve his goals for our family, but I share his dreams, I know his secrets, and I help him to form them in the first place.
Our marriage is an intimate relationship, and not just physically. There is a depth to our emotional connection. We each trust that the other person desires our happiness, and that leaves us free to not worry about ourselves. Our marriage is a active choice, a gift of love, a shared vision, and so much more that I struggle to put into words. He would be insulted at the idea that the relationship we share is mirrored in that of an employer and an employee. As much as I enjoy my job, I go there to serve God’s children and to receive a paycheck that helps my family and my husband. The term helpmeet in no way applies.
I’ve seen it written many places that one of the reasons that women shouldn’t be working outside the home is because it makes them helpmeets to other men. I find that really interesting. If being a helpmeet to your husband can be compared to being an employee, then it would seem that the militant feminists may be right about something. Some of the more militant feminists argue that marriage is a form of institutionalized prostitution. I have never agreed with that in the slightest. But, if being a man’s helpmeet means being his employee, doing his will, and being open for sex in exchange for food, lodging and protection, maybe it is! What a horrible view of marriage!
I saw this idea presented at the Generation Cedar blog last week. (I’d post links, but I’m not sure how, sorry!) In response to an article about a woman pregnant with triplets who was continuing to work as a mayor’s chief of staff during her pregnancy and planned to go back to work after the birth, the author of the blog writes: Didn’t God already give him a right-hand woman? Why is she so inadequate as a help meet? And I bet the “powerful figure” would shudder to be called a help meet…but that is exactly what she is. A help meet to her husband would be “foolish”; a help meet to the mayor makes her a “powerful figure”.
There’s no thought given to whether the mayor’s wife is qualified for the position of chief of staff, or whether she wants to be his chief of staff. If the mayor had a male chief of staff, no one would be calling him a “helpmeet” or a replacement for the mayor’s wife. Why is there a different standard when this position happens to be filled by a woman?
Not to mention the fact that there’s every chance this woman who is such a highly praised mayoral chief of staff is a person who throws herself whole-heartedly into everything she does, and that she’s a great wife and will be a terrific mother as well as a “powerful figure.” I just do not understand this idea that men can have careers and still be godly husbands and fathers but that the same is not true for women.
What a lovely way of putting it:
We each trust that the other person desires our happiness, and that leaves us free to not worry about ourselves.
The word “helpmeet” comes from the original Hebrew phrase, ezer kenegdo . Ezer means help, ally, rescuer. Kenegdo means suitable, facing, alongside. Of all the times the word ezer appears in the OT (22 times, if I recall correctly), 21 times it is used to refer to God as our ezer.
Would we say God is subordinate to us? Would we consider God our junior assistant or analogous to an employee, the way so many female subordinationists do? Of course not. And yet, we have watered down the meaning of the Hebrew.
Everything God created was said to be good … except for the fact that the man was alone. That was why the woman was created – to rescue the man from his aloneness. To be a help to him not from a position of subordination, as hierarchalists would claim, but from a position of strength.
Anne girl, you’re awesome! Another wonderful post.
Lisa,
excellent point! It’s funny, but these silly women speak as though their husbands are jealous of anything they do for other men. I’m wondering if most of the patriarchal husbands are really like that, but I honestly doubt it, especially after seeing women like Nancy Wilson and Helen Andelin ridiculously exaggerate male behavior.
Wonderful post, Anne. Thank you!
I work outside the home, because my husband does not make a ridiculous amount of money. He makes just enough for bills, but hardly anything for savings. I’m working so that we can pay down our mortgage, and someday be free of that huge bill hanging over our heads. When that day comes, my husband has told me he would love for me to stay home and homeschool our kids.
Although I am looking forward to being a stay at home mom, I do not feel the least bit guilty for working outside the home, because it means that my lovely, hard-working husband does not have to work himself into the grave.
THAT’S being a helpmeet. (from my perspective..)
Oto
I have never considered that being a help for my husband meant having to work in his practice. His secretaries can do that, and I bless them for it — I have no secretarial skills and no interest in that role. While the kids were growing up I stayed home — someone had to and their dad (typical professional man!) worked rather family-unfriendly hours. being home gave me the fexibility to fit around things like his on-call roster. Now that our fledglings have flown the nest I’ve gone back to college and got my degree, am working p/t for our church and am thinking of starting my masters next year. the alternative would be to sit around all day twiddling my thumbs, especially since my craft skills are somewhere below zero. To be told I am a “help” in the biblical sense (as opposed to being helpful, which I hope I am!) to other men I have worked with and alongside is insulting. There is a huge difference between the unique (and uniquely physical) intimacy of marriage, which touches a place inside us nothing else reaches, and normal friendship, warmth and usefulness to one another, which are things that are irrespective of gender.
And, Lynne, it also seems that it’s almost a given in those writings that if a woman works outside the home, that she’s working for men. My boss is a woman and I work for an organization started by Christian women in 1907. I’m not furthering a man’s dream at all.
The owner of my school is a man and the board members are men as well. However the director, the principal, and the coordinators are all women, so who am I a helpmeet to? Hmm. Maybe I’m bisexual?
If I had my druthers I’d be home with my kids and homeschooling. However if we don’t want to live in Kuwait indefinitely (believe me, we DON’T) I need to work. I pay the rent, groceries, gas, etc. while DH’s salary has paid off our vehicle back home, paid for our vehicles in Kuwait, paid off our mortgage, and pays for the kids’ tuitions. (School is very expensive in Kuwait.) Yes, it would help tremondously to homeschool but we’d still be paying all of our living expenses from DH’s salary and that would not benefit us in the long run. I’m happy to be helping my family in this way because it’s needed and appreciated. I have a job I enjoy which makes it even better.
Why don’t these folks notice the context of these verses? Adam saw each animal (male and female) while he was naming them. He noticed that each animal had a suitable counterpart – “But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.”
In the context in Genesis 2 God says that it is not good for man to be alone but that He will make a helper suitable for him. After making this proclamation, He brings the animals to Adam for him to name. Adam does this. Then the next phrase in the story is “for Adam there was not found a helper….”
It seems to me that the context shows this as a compatibility with regards to sex (what is now known as gender) and species. God gave Adam the opportunity to recognize his lack and his need before providing him his counterpart.
How they manage to get the multiple layers of where women should work and for whom they should work I just don’t understand.
Anne, great post, as always.
Anyways, I always took the “helpmeet” to be a more positive thing. Like our husbands somehow “need” us. Sometimes it’s best for the family situation for the wife to be working and sometimes it isn’t, but that is up to the marriage to decide, no?
I think being called to help our husbands out is a pretty big deal. Think of it. We are called to keep them from spending insane amounts of money on electronics (which many, not all, husbands do). We can help them in making big decisions about which career path to choose or how to spend money wisely. We are a huge influence on our family and our husbands. Sometimes we are the ones that God has put there to stop a problem from turning worse. We can often be the voice of reason to our husbands in some situations and we offer a different perspective of the situation (an outsider’s view) than how our husband sees it. Of course, our husbands can serve us as well in the same way.
I think too often the term “helpmeet” is used to mean something as a maidservant to the husband when in fact, Biblically, it is not. The wives in the Bible were true helpers to their husbands, but they were not simple maidservants to them.
Every other time Ezer Kenedgo is used in the Bible (and it is about 20 times,) it is *God* who is the helpmeet.
Yes, God is our helpmeet in 19 of the 20 times the word that was translated into, “Helpmeet” was used.
What, inquiring minds may be asking, is the problem?
The words Ezer Kenedgo was translated “Helpmeet” once when the helpmeet was Eve and “Help” or some other form of strong help or mighty help in every other instance.
Women chafe at helpmeet (like she’s a piece of meat,) for a darned good reason. Not because of the perfectly good Hebrew word that implies that Adam desparately needed Eve’s help but because the male translaters decided to prejudice the word by giving it a demeaning English rendering for Eve and giving it a much more empowering tone when the very same word was an adjective for God.
Great post! Well done!
Sometimes, it helps to know the history of a word …
WORD HISTORY …
The existence of the synonyms helpmeet & helpmate is the result of an error that was compounded.
God’s promise to Adam in Genesis 2:18, as rendered in the 1611 King James version of the Bible, was to give him “an help [helper] meet [fit or suitable] for him.”
This needs to be emphasized … meet = fit or suitable
• The poet John Dryden’s 1673 use of the phrase “help-meet for man,” with a hyphen between help and meet, was one step on the way toward the establishment of the phrase “help meet” as an independent word.
• Another was the use of “help meet” without “for man” to mean a suitable helper, usually a spouse, as Eve had been to Adam.
Despite such usages, helpmeet was not usually thought of as a word in its own right until the 19th century.
So the error ridden phrase “help meet” probably played a role in the creation of helpmate, from help and mate, first recorded in 1715.
… isn’t it amazing that the folks that say they love the Bible are not even aware simple errors?
Jennifer wrote: “these silly women speak as though their husbands are jealous of anything they do for other men. I’m wondering if most of the patriarchal husbands are really like that …”
excellent point … also it kinda speaks to some insecurity about who they are & what their role is as men in the Lord
isn’t it amazing that the folks that say they love the Bible are not even aware simple errors?
This is partly the fault of the KJV-only advocates who put such great stake in the King James translation of the bible that folks begin to think that there are no errors in that translation. In fact, those in the KJV-only camp typically will say that there are no errors in that translation.
Newer translations do not use the words “help meet.” They use words such as “helper suitable” or “helper comparable.” These translations no impression that the woman is a lesser being who is intended for the enjoyment and pleasure of the man, but rather that she is the completion of the man — that together they are what God intended for humans to be.
Maybe we should adopt the patrios’ opinion about this, but take it to the logical conclusion that ANY employee is a “help meet” to his or her employee. How would they think of the mayor’s chief of staff, for example, if he was the new father of triplets? Thinking here of how “disgusting” it is to the Baylys’ band musicians when men “posture themselves as women” in worship. Well, if wives are help meets, and wives are women, and men are not help meets, then it follows that only women are help meets, so if a female employee is a “help meet” to a male employer, then what does that make a male employee?
Or am I just not “getting it,” and a male employee by virtue of his anatomy or his Y chromosome is incapable of being that help perfectly suited to his boss?
Or (as I believe), should we continue to point out the absurdities in so many of the patrios’ silly proof-texted beliefs, in their apparent obsession with real and imagined “sex differences”? Too bad they don’t put a tenth as much thought into men’s and women’s common humanity as they do into inventing rules concerning men’s and women’s differences!
Psalmist wrote: “if a female employee is a “help meet” to a male employer, then what does that make a male employee?”
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww … good point
so, is a male cheating on his spouse when he is employed, especially if the “boss” is a female?
what if the “boss” is a male? Does that make the male a sodomite?
this is just squirrely
RichardD … good point
personally, I like the KJV Bible … but I am NOT dumb … I realize that words change over time … that does NOT mean the Bible is infallible … it simply means that human beings are fallible words change … words change definitions, spellings, etc. …
just because words change, it does NOT mean that there is a conspiracy out there
when was the last time you used the terms “anon” or “peradventure”?
both of these words are used in the KJV of the Bible … yet, I would NEVER dream of building a whole theology around these words! yikes!
this is just purile thinking!
Militarywifey ~ I think our husband’s do need us. I know I have a number of outlets for meeting my emotional needs. My husband, family, and girlfriends are all there for that. My husband has me for that. I’m the one that he shares that kind of vulnerability with.
Debra ~ Thanks for the info on the words used. I think we are a powerful force in our husband’s lives and am thrilled to know that the same word is used for the help given by God.
RichardD ~ I’ve heard KJV Christians call it the “Inspired Word of God in English” accepting no errors in translation. It kinda makes me sad for them. Because they’ll miss things.
OWHBB ~ I think when men work they’re furthering their personal vision and supporting their family. When women work they’re leaving their God-given sphere and going against God’s law. I bristle at that.
Another thing that a help meet is, or at least what my husband found when he looked in the concordance, a help meet protects.
This would line up with God being our helper.
I know that men can and do protect women.
But I’m not sure people realize how the wife can protect the husband, or women in general, protect men.
I have seen this in particular concerning the things of the heart.
Major example might be women recognizing female predators (those females who use their femininity as a weapons against men). These women come in with charm and barely veiled sexuality to control an manipulate. Another woman can see right through that.
Some men can, some men can’t.
But more personally, I’ve seen times of great emotion like grief over a death compounded by rejection. I’ve seen sons of a recently deceased father stagger under the weight of his rejection in his last will and testament, not knowing what to do. Whereas the daughters held strong and “tied strings” as the Pearls would say, to get through the double greiving process.
Those brothers needed their sisters and their own wives to guard and strengthen their hearts to overcome the hurt and rejection handed down to them by the father who should have blessed them.
Being single and not as familiar with Biblical principles like many of you here, I might not be the best person to define helpmeet. But here is my somewhat secular take on that term. To me, being a helpmeet means taking a look at your family’s situation and doing what it takes to make sure your family is healthy and thriving. And if this means taking on a job so be it. No one should work 60-70 hours a week. It’s not good for one’s physical and mental health (believe me, I know) And I think it would cause a husband to feel some resentment after awhile.
As someone who has been working full time my entire adult life, I can safely assure that my homemaking duties do not fall to the wayside. I do not live in squalor, and I make dinner for myself nearly every night. And I’m sure many of the ladies on this board live the same way. A lot of it has to do with budgeting one’s time wisely. Am I the perfect homemaker? Hardly. But no one can say that I don’t care about making my apartment a comfortable and warm place to live.
And it’s interesting that the blog Generation Cedar was brought up. I’ve been researching anti-feminism, and Kelly Crawford’s blog is one I have studied. I’ll be honest. I do not like her, and it’s not because she has strong opinions I don’t agree with. She has, as my yoga instructor would put it, a very negative aura. She comes across as very self-satisfied, arrogant and spoiled in her various posts. And she doesn’t seem to very compassionate, understanding and empathetic towards other people’s situations. Plus, she can’t handle any disagreement or dissent. Every time she gets a comment that doesn’t kiss her a**, she writes a condescending comment. That’s not acting like a child; that’s acting like a petulant child.
Anne said: “I think our husband’s do need us. I know I have a number of outlets for meeting my emotional needs. My husband, family, and girlfriends are all there for that. My husband has me for that. I’m the one that he shares that kind of vulnerability with.”
Excellent point, Anne!
I also like Mara R.’s point about the meaning of an ezer including being a protector. I protect my husband from a lot… sometimes even himself. ;^D
No one should work 60-70 hours a week
A bit off topic here, but I average 85-95 hours per week and never work less than 65 hours in a week. My wife is my helper in part by keeping me on focus regarding things outside of my job. I don’t have much time to concentrate on those things so my wife keeps me efficient.
My daughter works 80 hour weeks and her husband is her helpmeet. He does all the cooking and most of the cleaning.
((lurker coming out of the shadows))
I have really enjoyed reading this blog for the past few weeks.
I just wanted to add that the “helpmeet” mindset is not limited to the patrio circles and can be found and is quite popular in the broader evangelical thinking as well. It may not be the same terminology used but the thinking is similar. We are told that we are to submit to our husbands and that good mothers stay home. James Dobson is a huge proponent of this with books to guide you on his website. I’m not saying that I’m anti Dobson but simply stating that I think that it is damaging nonetheless. What’s really sad to me is that most of the division I have seen has been between the “working” and “stay at home” moms in my own church! With the economy the way it is right now, we need to find a way to support each other working, at home and everything in between.
Thanks for a great place to mull over the issues.
Very well put.
[...] Tyrol I’d like to encourage any readers to take a look at Anne’s BRILLIANT post “What Exactly is a Helpmeet?” when considering how to think about Sarah Palin’s nomination for the Vice Presidency and why [...]
You know, I think I’ve found the root of the reason why these people are so dead-set on women not working or being “helpmeets” to other men. It’s because women, to them, are like cattle: every man wants at least one prize heifer, ripe for breeding, and another man is not allowed to use his heifer. With the patrios, every man’s entitled to one submissive and compliant wife; once he gets one, he needs a guarantee that she’ll only be a good submissive girl for him and no other man. In short, the patrios don’t want to share their little followers with any other man; if one husband finds his wife complying with another man’s orders, he starts to feel emasculated; somebody else is using his heifer and enjoying her obedience! No fair!! That’s the rub, essentially: these men are like big boys, boys who don’t want their toys played with by other boys. Their wives are their maids, their sexual playmates, their servants, their milk-giving cows, their little soldiers. And every man’s entitled to one; if his toy/cow/wifey starts obeying another man, she’s breaking the rules.