The number that is bandied about is 50%. The average man has 50% greater brute strength than the average woman. She is a “weaker vessel,” as the Bible pointed out 2000 years ago (1 Pet. 3:7). Watch a WNBA game and observe the players struggle to get off the ground as they leap for the basket. Or go to an exercise facility and compare their lifts with men in the military or bench presses. The difference is pronounced. Women simply lack the muscle mass. This is why the world of men is a scary place for women, absent civilizing norms that prohibit male violence against females.
What have women through the centuries learned to do to protect themselves? Use words. Studies from a generation ago also used the figure of 50 percent. The average woman uses 50 percent more words than the average man. Women have developed facility with words. They can talk. With words they are able to protect themselves and persuade. Many, many women in a domestic argument can talk circles around their husbands, leaving them confused and disarmed. Or annoyed and frustrated. The Proverbs, undoubtedly written (under Divine inspiration) from a male point of view, liken the words of some wives to a “dripping faucet” (Prov. 27:15). They say,
It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. (Prov. 21:9)
No doubt this is why Peter counsels Christian women to win their unbelieving husbands to Christ “without a word” (1 Pet. 3:1). Every strength is a weakness. Women are good with words. However, they will tend to rely on words, overuse words, and thereby defeat the cause they mean to champion, whether it be for the conversion of their husbands or competition for their attention.
Typically, it takes Emily five seconds to ask a question that I can’t answer. I’ll come home with a story. I earnestly will have tried to relate the details. Once I complete my narrative, or before, she will respond with three “what about…” questions for which I have no response. Why don’t I know the answers? Because I didn’t ask. Because I failed to talk, to investigate, to inquire about multiple rather obvious areas of interest or concern. Yet she did. Instinctively. I can only respond lamely, “I don’t know.” Not only do I lack the words with which to provide sufficient details, but I also lack the perception into human relations that would prompt the questions in the first place.
I recall fondly Emily on the phone with her mother. Her words would flow with machine-gun like rapid-fire from her mouth. Suddenly, the stream of verbiage would stop. She had paused for the splittest of split seconds which allowed “Netsi” to seize the mic. Emily would listen, leaning forward on her toes, awaiting the slightest pause in her mother’s monologue in which she could grab back the mic. On and on it would go, back and forth, torrent of words upon torrent of words.
No doubt there are those who want to complain that I am citing anecdotal evidence, not recent scientific studies. This I readily confess. Yet my anecdotes are something like the common knowledge of humanity since Adam. Conduct a Bible study at my house from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The men’s study clears out by 8:45 p.m. The women continue to “visit” past 9 p.m. At 9:30, the incredible buzz in the other room continues. At 10:00, the volume has declined only slightly. Finally, by 10:30, all is quiet on the western front.
Men and women are different. Marriage is the union of those with complimentary differences. This is the strength of good marriage. Marriages are strong when the temptation to ridicule or despise the differences is resisted. Jokes about women who never stop talking are proverbial. The typical father-husband type featured in the typical sitcom is dumb. He is backward, culturally unaware, always the last to know, made to look foolish, laughed at not with.
Men want to provide and protect. Men are wired that way. Their bodies are structured for that role. This desire to provide and protect is built in. It’s in our DNA. The wise woman will figure out how to carve out that space for her husband to do so, even in this day of non-farming, non-factory assembly line white-collar predominance.
Women want to communicate. They want to talk. They like to “share.” They are good at it. It is built in. It is in their DNA. The wise man will figure out how to carve out that space for his wife to do so, particularly in this fragmented, virtual, and plastic world.
What have women through the centuries learned to do to protect themselves? Use words. Studies from a generation ago also used the figure of 50 percent. The average woman uses 50 percent more words than the average man. Women have developed facility with words. They can talk. With words they are able to protect themselves and persuade. Many, many women in a domestic argument can talk circles around their husbands, leaving them confused and disarmed. Or annoyed and frustrated. The Proverbs, undoubtedly written (under Divine inspiration) from a male point of view, liken the words of some wives to a “dripping faucet” (Prov. 27:15). They say,
It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife. (Prov. 21:9)
No doubt this is why Peter counsels Christian women to win their unbelieving husbands to Christ “without a word” (1 Pet. 3:1). Every strength is a weakness. Women are good with words. However, they will tend to rely on words, overuse words, and thereby defeat the cause they mean to champion, whether it be for the conversion of their husbands or competition for their attention.
Typically, it takes Emily five seconds to ask a question that I can’t answer. I’ll come home with a story. I earnestly will have tried to relate the details. Once I complete my narrative, or before, she will respond with three “what about…” questions for which I have no response. Why don’t I know the answers? Because I didn’t ask. Because I failed to talk, to investigate, to inquire about multiple rather obvious areas of interest or concern. Yet she did. Instinctively. I can only respond lamely, “I don’t know.” Not only do I lack the words with which to provide sufficient details, but I also lack the perception into human relations that would prompt the questions in the first place.
I recall fondly Emily on the phone with her mother. Her words would flow with machine-gun like rapid-fire from her mouth. Suddenly, the stream of verbiage would stop. She had paused for the splittest of split seconds which allowed “Netsi” to seize the mic. Emily would listen, leaning forward on her toes, awaiting the slightest pause in her mother’s monologue in which she could grab back the mic. On and on it would go, back and forth, torrent of words upon torrent of words.
No doubt there are those who want to complain that I am citing anecdotal evidence, not recent scientific studies. This I readily confess. Yet my anecdotes are something like the common knowledge of humanity since Adam. Conduct a Bible study at my house from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The men’s study clears out by 8:45 p.m. The women continue to “visit” past 9 p.m. At 9:30, the incredible buzz in the other room continues. At 10:00, the volume has declined only slightly. Finally, by 10:30, all is quiet on the western front.
Men and women are different. Marriage is the union of those with complimentary differences. This is the strength of good marriage. Marriages are strong when the temptation to ridicule or despise the differences is resisted. Jokes about women who never stop talking are proverbial. The typical father-husband type featured in the typical sitcom is dumb. He is backward, culturally unaware, always the last to know, made to look foolish, laughed at not with.
Men want to provide and protect. Men are wired that way. Their bodies are structured for that role. This desire to provide and protect is built in. It’s in our DNA. The wise woman will figure out how to carve out that space for her husband to do so, even in this day of non-farming, non-factory assembly line white-collar predominance.
Women want to communicate. They want to talk. They like to “share.” They are good at it. It is built in. It is in their DNA. The wise man will figure out how to carve out that space for his wife to do so, particularly in this fragmented, virtual, and plastic world.