Natural Freedom

Universal ‘wisdom’ about women

Discussing proverbs about what it means to be a man or a woman contributes to building bridges across cultures. This website makes cross-cultural searches possible and easy.

Proverbs provide us with an intriguing cross-cultural history of humanity, a history that has to do with all of us, in its bewildering views of men and women. People tend to believe that cultures are mainly marked by differences, but there are striking global resemblances in people's proverbial thinking about women as mothers and daughters, widows, mothers-in-law, and so forth. Are such cross-cultural similarities in ideas, and even in images, just coincidental?

To answer that question, Mineke Schipper collected, over the past fifteen years, proverbs about women (which are no less eloquent about men). She examined thousands of proverbs originating from all continents, and wrote a book about this topic.

Women’s Advice
Woman’s advice brings total chaos. (Sanskrit)
On every continent, large numbers of proverbs warn men against women’s advice. Ap-parently female influence is so strong that there is a general clamour against it. Inproverbs a woman’s (and especially a wife’s) advice is presented not only as suspect butas ruinous; it provokes chaos and catastrophe. Therefore: ‘He who listens to a woman’s advice is a fool’, according to a Tamil proverb from India. The usual argu-ments justify this view: her supposed ignorance makes her a bad judge, and herwickedness turns the outcome into evil.
Women’s advice results in evil (Icelandic), itwill kill a man (Digor), or drown him (Fulfulde).
There is a lack of trust and a lot of fear.An Arabic proverb from Morocco first warns men not to follow up the advice of a wife,and then adds that should a man do so, she would rule over him. There are many,many examples implying such fear of disaster. Here are just a few more, picked ran-domly from various parts of the world:
Taking women’s advice causes: ‘Oh, that I had known!’ (Hausa)
If a cow leads the herd, all the cattle will fall into the pool. (Venda)
Women’s intelligence brings destruction. (Sinhalese)
To consult women brings ruin to a man. (Persian)
The advice of a woman is like dust. (Tibetan)
The advice of a clever woman will ruin a walled city. (Chinese)
Such messages about female advice – belittled as much as feared – complement theambiguous views held about female knowledge and intelligence.

A few proverbs admit that in some cases a woman’s advice is not always totallyworthless. Without specifying anything in particular, a Swedish proverb concedesthat: ‘Woman’s advice can be good sometimes’, and this is confirmed in Czech: ‘Evenwomen’s advice is sometimes good.’ In Turkish it is observed that a woman’s advicecan be useful, but not for men: ‘Women’s advice is good for women.’ A Hebrewproverb advises men to take a woman’s advice into account: ‘Consult your wife abouteverything. If she’s small, bend down to her.’ It is not sure at all, though, what the out-come of this respectful listening is meant to be, as other Jewish proverbs recommendsomething else:
Ask your wife’s advice and do the opposite. (Ladino-Jewish, Iraq)
Whoever listens to his wife will lose his job. (Kurdish-Jewish)
Arabic variants stress the same idea: ‘Consult your wife and do the opposite.’ And anItalian version of the same message sees the marital consultation as just a polite ritual,a routine to make the wife feel that she is taken seriously, but without having furtherimpact on the man’s decision: ‘Praise the advice of a woman but don’t act on it’ (Ital-ian). Behind all this male advice on female advice lurks the fear of women’s hiddenpower and influence.Several proverbs refer to the intimate discussions between husband and wife in bedwhere ‘The word of the night annuls the word of the day’, as it is said in Berber; or, inRussian: ‘I consult with my pillow and then I confer with my wife.’ A Hebrew proverbalso reveals the impact of women’s advice: ‘The night-time counsellor wins over thedaytime counsellor.’ At the complete opposite of the bulk of scornful statements aboutwomen’s advisory capacities, such proverbs, although they are a small minority, sug-gest that an intelligent (or even not so intelligent) wife has an impact on her husband’sdecision making. Indirectly, then, the strong outcry against women’s advice mightconfirm the exceptional Korean message arguing that ‘There is no man who would notlisten to his wife.'