Blog Challenge: Day Seventeen - Guest Blog!

Today's blog is the first guest blog for the Trust Challenge. I invited Jake Robertson, a family member on my husband's side, to be the first guest blogger. I read through it a couple of times, and I thoroughly enjoyed his take on the true worth of a woman. Here it is for your reading pleasure!

The Worth of a Woman

So, Jacque asked me to do a guest blog about the worth of a woman.
I am a bit concerned speaking of “worth” where women are concerned; have we not rejected the metaphor of woman as chattel, as of cows, bought and sold for milk or meat? Must we continue to speak of her as though we talk of treasures dug from the earth, distraction for men’s eyes and men’s hands? Perhaps, if we must, we might compare her to commodities: it matters little where commodities are mined; commodities resist market trends regardless what well the midnight oil was siphoned from; a commodity’s worth remains a constant.

Perhaps we recall fondly that proverb that a virtuous woman’s worth is far above rubies. So this is what it comes to? When we speak of woman’s worth, we mean her market value—the operative metaphor of a telestial world, which gives virtues an exchange rate. . .

And were we to speak of unvirtuous women, what then? Is lack of virtue a diminishing of value? Does she have no worth? Is she not a worth-while investment opportunity? And what if this unvirtuous woman were to be made aware of the riches buried somewhere on her property? Might she not dig deep to uncover her own worth, buried though it might be? What wealth might we then discover in her? Shouldn’t we mine wherever we can, markets being what they are, so volatile? We have to think of the future, after all.

It’s a sentimental metaphor to call a woman “the heart of the home;” as I think it, I think that to speak it properly requires that I don a breast coat and carry a walking stick and grow a bushy handlebar moustache—the very picture of Victorian privilege—or else the metaphor might not work quite right. Of course, I couldn’t grow a handlebar moustache even if I wanted—which I don’t: does that make me less of a man?

Is sentimentality any worse than metaphors that make a possession of a person? Might sentimentality not inform us, somehow, of something that we’re missing, something the stock market doesn’t see?

Housing prices skyrocketed because people thought they could make a quick buck before thinking of making a home; but when the market took a tumble, the value of “homes” rather than mere houses became self-evident.

What is the worth of a woman? Might I move away from ugly markets and monetary metaphors? Might I wax a little sentimental?

So let us say, for the sake of argument, for the sake of leaving ugly golden metaphors behind, that a woman is the heart of the home. What is a heart worth? Can you calculate it in Euros or Yen? What’s the going rate for keeping house and making homes? What’s it worth to keep the body going—blood flowing, synapses snapping, oxygen spiriting through capillaries like corridors carrying heat from a well-tended hearth?

“A woman’s place is in the home” is only an insult if you think there’s someplace more important to be.

Hearts often go unnoticed; we’re rarely aware of them, working as they do behind the scenes, their regular rhythms only occasionally drawing our attention. But what if a heart rots? Do we notice then? Do we not search far and wide for the best physicians. Will we not drown in debt to keep that organ beating? Do we not suddenly realize what she is worth?

The body never really recovers from a rotten heart, you know. Oh, yes, there are transplants, expensive operations—but hearts, real hearts, not the shiny, plastic things Dow Chemicals produces, but the flesh and blood kind—

What is the worth of a woman, you ask? Hearts are priceless.

While there are options for replacing hearts, don’t think you’ll be running any marathons with batteries pushing blood through your body; don’t think your limbs will love you for letting their heart wither and die; each day they’ll cry: “Why? Why? Why could you not see her worth before this?”

Take a moment; sit inside; breath; place one hand on your breast and breathe and feel the heart keep the home fires burning. Breathe in and feel the steady rhythm of her life, of your life, and reminded yourself it’s her that keeps you alive; without her, life ceases—no more home, no more hearth, no more heat, no more heart, no breath, no more spirit, no more life.

What is a woman’s worth? At her worst her worth is far, far above rubies, this heart, this home, this life, this love.

And, with proper care, I’m told she’ll last a lifetime.