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Now, I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but did you know that the Proverbs 31 woman was not a real person? She was one of those fantasy moms we talked about earlier. I know, I know—next thing you know I’ll be telling you that June Cleaver was just an actress playing a role, that Mayberry wasn’t real, and that Maria doesn’t actually live on Sesame Street. I am sorry to dash your dreams. But actually, as much as I like to joke about the Proverbs 31 woman being the figment of an optimistic mother-in-law’s imagination, that passage really wasn’t written to guilt women into acting a certain way. If you read through Proverbs, you’ll see that wisdom is often personified as a woman. Proverbs 31 is the capstone of the book, and the Proverbs 31 woman is a literary 11 Busting the Motherhood Myth personification of a wise life well lived, fleshing out the concepts taught within the entire book. Do you know what that means? It means that Proverbs 31 is about making wise choices that promote healthy human flourishing, whatever that looks like in our context, and that it was written to guide and instruct men as well as women! But only women seem to obsess over it and use it as a checklist. We’ve been taught that’s what godly womanhood looks like, in those Better Homes and Garden Bible studies. And sometimes it does! There’s a lot of wisdom in those verses. But godly womanhood can’t be measured by externals. It’s like 1 Corinthians 13 says. We could do everything right, check everything off our Proverbs 31 checklist, and still have hard, unloving hearts that are far from God. Or, we could fail to live up to the standards, stereotypes, and expectations that this world—and even the church—sets for women, and still be godly women, passionately pursuing our calling as image-bearers. Godly womanhood is not about being conformed to the image of the Proverbs 31 woman. It’s about being conformed to the image of Christ.

⁠— Armstrong