The Cultural Life Setting of the Proverbs

Often, readers and commentators read the Proverbs as timeless observations and recommendations regarding human nature, valid for all cultures and places. This blunts their cultural relevance, argues John J. Pilch.

For example, proverbs regarding the good wife and the quarrelsome wife take on different meaning in a context where a married couple were rarely in close daily contact, and the predominantly masculine language used in the Proverbs points to the different cultural spheres of men and...