By Benedict Ahanonu
Change is one thing that is synonymous with life on earth and right from the beginning, women have been major agents of change. It is indeed true that when women prosper, their communities prosper and when they suffer, so do the communities in which they live. Perhaps, this explains why there is underdevelopment in most regions of the world where women are subjected to various forms of deprivation and subhuman treatment.
By the divine plan of God, the family is built around the woman. She bears children and plays crucial role in their upbringing especially during infancy. She could nurture her children rightly or wrongly. The woman also wields huge influence over the man.
Immediately they join together as husband and wife, she becomes the second mother of the man. She cooks for him and takes care of him in several other ways including meeting his sexual needs. Often women have used this as a bargaining chip to extract what they want from men. I have even heard of women going on sex strike. It happened recently in Ghana and the aim is to effect a change in the society.
Most leaders fail or succeed due to the kind of wife they have. You can now see why they say that behind every successful man there is a woman.
Women can make or mar a nation, build or destroy a community, hold or scatter a family.
In Nigeria, it was the Aba Women’s riot of 1929, which forced the colonial rulers of that time to rethink their taxation policy. In the United States, it was the black woman, Rosa Parks’ refusal to be subdued in a bus that ended the discrimination against blacks in public transportation.
The Bible is replete with accounts of women who brought both negative and positive changes to their families, communities and the world.
First, it was the woman, Eve, who changed the divine scheme of things when she led the gullible man, Adam to also eat the forbidden fruit and their eyes opened unto change.
The woman Rahab brought a change to her family’s situation by sparing the lives of the two spies, whom Joshua sent out of Shittim. When the wall of Jericho eventually collapsed and the city was taken by the Israelites, Rahab and her family were saved and they became part of the glorious nation of Israel.
It was Jael the wife of Herber the Kenite that stopped Commander Sisera who was up against Israel and that singular act of bravery brought peace to the whole nation at war. What of Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth that judged Israel?
Ruth was a Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, whose father, Elimelech, had settled in the land of Moab. On the death of Elimelech and Mahlon, Naomi came with Ruth, her daughter-in-law, who refused to leave her, to Bethlehem, the old home from which Elimelech had migrated. There she had a rich relative, Boaz, to whom Ruth was eventually married. She became the mother of Obed, the grandfather of David. Thus Ruth, a Gentile, became part of the maternal progenitors of our Lord (Matt. 1:5). She brought a change.
Worthy of mention also is Esther the queen of Ahasuerus, and heroine of the book that bears her name. She was a Jewess named Hadas’sah (the myrtle), but when she entered the royal harem she received the name by which she henceforth became known (Esther 2:7). It is a Syro-Arabian modification of the Persian word satarah, which means a star. She was the daughter of Abihail, a Benjamite. Her family did not avail themselves of the permission granted by Cyrus to the exiles to return to Jerusalem; and she resided with her cousin Mordecai, who held some office in the household of the Persian king at “Shushan in the palace.” Ahasuerus having divorced Vashti, chose Esther to be his wife. Soon after this, he gave Haman the Agagite, his prime minister, power and authority to kill and extirpate all the Jews throughout the Persian Empire. By the intervention of Esther this terrible catastrophe was averted. Haman was hanged on the gallows he had intended for Mordecai. Esther appears in the Bible as a “woman of deep piety, faith, courage, patriotism, and caution, combined with resolution; a dutiful daughter to her adopted father, docile and obedient to his counsels, and anxious to share the king’s favour with him for the good of the Jewish people.
Abigail, the wife of the churlish Nabal, who dwelt in the district of Carmel, was another woman that brought change. She showed great prudence and delicate management at a critical period of her husband’s life. She was “a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance.” After Nabal’s death she became the wife of David and was his companion.
The list is endless. Mary, the wife of Joseph, the mother of Jesus, called the “Virgin Mary,” though never so designated in Scripture, brought change to this world by giving birth to our Messiah who is the reason for this season.
Indeed, women are specially gifted in so many ways. They are the sunshine of the world. They bear the brunt of men. They tend to be more patient and understanding.
Women as real agents of change bring glamour to the world and most men agree that this world would have been so boring and miserable without the presence of women.
Benedict Ahanonu, Abuja-based social commentator, editor, author, poet and columnist can be contacted via: 08033944198 or email: bahanonu@yahoo.co.uk
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