Isaiah 3:16-24 - Homiletics

The share which women have in producing the ruin of a nation.

The influence of women upon men was intended to be helpful ( Genesis 2:20 ), purifying, and refining. Woman is naturally more pure than man, more modest, more retiring, more instinctively right in her moral judgments. Good women exercise an extraordinary influence over the best men, who continually consult them in the most difficult crises of politics and diplomacy. They read men far better than men read one another, and are excellent counselors on many of the most important occasions. But as the power for good which they wield is great, so is their power for evil. Corruptio optimi pessima . Bad women are far worse than the worst men; and the ruin of a state is always partly, sometimes mainly, caused by its women. The sins of women chiefly noted by Isaiah in this passage are:

1. The vanity and love of admiration which show themselves in excessive attention to dress and ornament.

2. The wantonness and immodesty which sometimes characterize their conduct.

3. The pride and haughtiness which under certain circumstances they display. All these are corrupting influences in a state, and help forward its decay and ruin.

I. VANITY AND LOVE OF ADMIRATION , AS SHOWN IN EXCESSIVE ATTENTION TO DRESS AND ORNAMENT . The desire to please is not in itself wrong, and attention to dress within certain limits is to be commended. A woman does not prove herself perfectly virtuous by being a sloven. But there is an attention to such matters and a quasi-devotion to them which is plainly excessive, and which has often the most injurious consequences. A tone of frivolity is engendered by much consideration of matters so trivial, which unfits a woman for dealing with the difficult problems of life and action. The management of her household and the training of her children, which are the principal duties, at any rate, of married women, are apt to be neglected by the woman of fashion, who dresses five times a day, and passes half her time at her toilet-table. Serious inroads are made upon a husband's means, sometimes to the extent of actual ruin, by the extravagance of those who cannot bear to see any one better dressed than themselves. Selfishness, worldliness, littleness, are impressed on the character, all higher aims being set aside, and nothing sought but the admiration of the other sex.

II. WANTONNESS AND IMMODESTY often follow on the love of admiration and grow out of it. A woman who courts admiration forgets the reserve which becomes her sex, and is tempted to enhance her charms by an indecorous display of them. Once let the limits of modesty be overstepped, and one defense falls after another. Facilis descensus Averni . Wanton glances (verse 16) are succeeded by immodest words, and these lead on to immodest deeds; and at last every barrier is thrown down, and the world sees a Messalina or a Lucrezia Borgia. General immodesty in the women of a state is of infrequent occurrence; but where it occurs, is an almost certain indication of approaching social dissolution. The most flagrant instance is that of Rome. There, from the time of the establishment of the empire, the disorders of married and domestic life were excessive. "A kind of rivalry in impurity grew up between the two sexes; and there were more seducers than seduced of the female sex". "In Rome the women, deprived of all moral support, became just what the men made them, and so sank with them incessantly deeper and deeper". Historians generally, ascribe the fall of the Roman empire to no cause more than to the corruption of the Roman women.

III. PRIDE AND HAUGHTINESS are not natural vices of women; but, when developed, they attain vast proportions, and lead on to great calamlties. Jezebel and Athaliah in Old Testament history, Amestris and Parysatis in Persian, Tanaquil in Roman, are examples of the power of women for evil, when they step out of their sphere, assume to direct the policy of states, dispense life and death, and lord it over the people of a kingdom. In such cases their haughtiness outdoes that of men, and provokes a more intense feeling of dissatisfaction and resentment. Revolution often follows, or in any case disaffection towards the government; and an additional element of danger is introduced, which becomes fatal under certain circumstances. Altogether, it would seem that women have quite as much influence as men towards producing the ruin of states, and are quite as responsible for political catastrophes.