YMMV / Book of Proverbs

• Misaimed Fandom: The Wife of Noble Character is an Composite Character of all the roles a "respectable" woman of that time and place could play. Unfortunately, some take this to mean that a "worthy" woman must do it all, or that if she's infertile/Hollywood Homely/not a shrewd businessperson/whatever, she's unworthy or not a "real" woman, or that she must be a mother first and foremost even if she doesn't want to be a mom, or that a woman's place is in the home (despite the Wife of Noble Character very clearly not remaining solely in the private sphere). It should be noted that she was created not to tell women what they should be doing, but to encourage men to appreciate the work done by the women in their lives, the way her husband does.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The passages involving beating children can be this to modern readers.
  • Also, some of the "things the world cannot bear" include "a servant who becomes king" and "a maidservant who inherits from her mistress," which is especially jarring to those who are used to Rags to Riches stories.
• Values Resonance: Seeing as most ancient and medieval people saw animals as automata without rational souls, the explicit promotion of animal rights in verse 12:10 is remarkably ahead of its time. While some ancient thinkers (namely in Greece and India) advocated animal rights, their views never really made it to the mainstream. This passage stands out in that regard.

---