Jump Start # 1447
Proverbs 21:9 “It is better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman.”
Those wonderful Proverbs! Don’t you just love how plain forward they are? Our passage today is found in the section of Proverbs where each verse is a separate thought. There doesn’t seem to be very many links between these verses. Contention means to argue, fuss, disagree. The contentious brother was to be marked is what Paul told the Romans. But here in Proverbs, we are dealing with a marriage. The woman is contentious. She argues. She barks. She demands. She’s not happy and she makes everyone around her join in her misery. She is mostly contentious towards her man, her husband. This poor guy gets it all the time. He can’t do anything right to please her. He works long hours but doesn’t make enough money, so says the contentious woman he lives with. Their house is too small. Their furniture is outdated. They need new carpet. All of this costs. So the guy works longer to make more. She’s not happy because he is never around. There are things that need to be fixed in the house, but he has to work so he can get the things that she has been harping about to him. The guy is stuck. He’s trapped. He gets a larger house, newer furniture and has more debt, but she’s still not happy. More contention.
The Proverb writer brings up the nagging wife several times. In one place she is compared to dripping water. The constant nagging and nagging wears on a person. Here in our verse, it’s better to live in the corner of a roof than to life with contention. The corner of the roof, for most of us, would be the attic. We are not talking about a nice bedroom fixed up in the attic, we are talking about the attic. In the summer it’s unbearably hot and in the winter, at least around here, it’s freezing. You can’t stand up in many attics. They are dark. Modern attics are full of insulation that makes breathing hard and is death to your sinuses. No one would choose to live in their attic. It’s not comfortable. It’s not suited for dwelling. Yet, that is seen as a better proposition than living with that contentious woman down in the house. That’s how bad it is.
The nagging wife (and understand, this can well be a nagging husband or worse, spoiled kids who are nagging their parents), never sees what she is doing to the spirit and soul of her man. She is wearing him out. She believes that her nagging is necessary to get him to do things. This is the only form of communication that she knows. She finds a subject and she stays on it until she gets the results she wants. She justifies her contentious ways because he is lazy, or, he can’t make up his mind. She feels that her way is the only way that things will get accomplished in the home. The guy becomes beaten down. Early in the marriage, he did what she said to please her. Later in their marriage, he would dig his heels in and they would argue. She’d still win. She’d get loud, pout and push until she got what she wanted. Now, later in marriage, he realizes that it doesn’t do any good to say anything, so he just does what she wants to keep her quiet. The problem is, she is never quiet. She moves faster than he does on to the next item that she now becomes contentious about. The years pass, and the guy becomes tone deaf to her and shuffles around in misery. He doesn’t even enjoy her company any more because she never stops. She never stops. Never.
Some of our readers might be thinking, how does he know this? He has described our home. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen this in the church. I’ve seen this in homes. It’s easy to see the tension, the misery and to hear the nagging that goes on. The man becomes beaten down. He can’t drive the car right to satisfy her. He doesn’t eat right. He doesn’t groom right. He doesn’t fix things right. On him all the time, until he ceases to be him any longer, or, he just walks out. He gets to a point where he can’t take it any longer and he leaves. He walks, never to return. The marriage to him, died a long time ago. He files for divorce, even though he has no Biblical basis to do that. He’s simply tired of being treated like a dog. He’s beaten down. Most folks never saw it. Most see him as the bad guy for leaving her. The truth be, she drove him away by her constant complaining, nagging, pressure and contentious ways.
This isn’t a pretty picture. It’s not a happy home. This is not a picture of Christ and His church as Ephesians uses marriage. Children grow up with this image of what a marriage should be—the wife nags and nags until she gets her way. The husband doesn’t lead, he caves in to the pressure, even if it is unreasonable, unaffordable or just not right. That’s the picture the kids get. And guess what? They carry those thoughts into their marriage years later.
So, what can be done. My first thought is to fix up your attic and get ready to move in there, but that doesn’t change things. That is really running from the problem. If she nags her husband, she’ll nag her kids and probably does.
The best hope would be for the contentious person to see how the are treating others. This is a relationship issue and a spiritual issue. Look in the mirror. But this solution is too simple and rarely works.
Next, open communication and possibly a great marriage counselor. Get books on communicating. Talk without having to beat the drum over and over. Talk without raising the voice. Talk and then listen. Listen to what the other says. Listen carefully. Explain yourself clearly. Understand in a marriage it’s two becoming one. Two streams merging into one. There may be a bit of turbulence when it merges, but it smooths out down stream. No one gets their way all the time. There are reasons to put things on hold. The budget, the times, the big picture, the needs of the other—all of these need to be taken into account and considered.
Third, the nagger doesn’t realize how harmful they are to the relationship. They don’t get it. But sometimes the nagger gets frustrated because the other person doesn’t do anything. Laziness and nagging seem to meet often. I am a pusher. I know that. It drives me crazy when I run into someone who just doesn’t want to move. Stubborn meets the pusher and fireworks follows. It just burns my biscuits. Why don’t they see what I see? Why don’t they do what I asked them? Why…why…why? So the contentious person resorts to nagging. Nothing else has worked. If the other person would move a bit or at least come up with a reasonable reason, then there might be grounds for a discussion and a meeting in the middle.
Fourth, notice these things in dating. A high maintenance, demanding person, who is stuck on self often is the first to turn into a nagging, contentious mate. See this. Think about this. Instead of dreaming of island get-a-ways, you will be dreaming of moving into the attic. Is that the life you want? Pretty or handsome as they may be on the outside, it’s the insides that will make or break your marriage. You marry what they are, not the ideal that you want them to be.
Our verse doesn’t give us any solutions other than the attic. I’d hope that we can do better than that. Can we stop the contentions? Yes. Can we communicate without nagging? Yes. Can we do better? Yes. Now, will we? That’s up to us.
The attic is no place for anyone to be. They need to dwell in your heart. Can you do that?
Maybe for a starting point, you can share this with the contentious person in your life. Have them read it. They will deny it. But use this as a starting point to talk. You are not wanting to hurt, but rather to improve the relationship.
Roger