A virtuous woman; one whose portrait is beautifully traced in Proverbs 31:1-31. The term is applied to Ruth (Ruth 3:11). The Vulgate renders, diligens; Septuagint, ἀνδρεία. The expression means one of power either in mind or body, or both. The same idea is contained in ἀρετὴ and virtus. Such a woman is not simply loving and modest and loyal, but is a crown to her husband; is an honour to him, adorns and beautifies his life, making, as it were, a joyous festival. So St. Paul (1 Thessalonians 2:19) calls his converts "a crown of glorying." The allusion is to the crown worn by the bridegroom at his marriage, or to the garlands worn at feasts (comp. So Ruth 3:11; Isaiah 61:10; Wis. 2:8). The Son of Sirach has much praise for the virtuous woman: "Blessed is the man that hath a good ( ἀγαθῆς) wife, for the number of his days shall be double. A virtuous ( ἀνδρεία) woman rejoiceth her husband, and he shall fulfil the years of his life in peace" (Ec 26:1, 2). She that maketh ashamed; "that doeth shamefully" (Proverbs 10:5; Proverbs 19:26); one who is a terrible contrast to the woman of strong character—weak, indolent, immodest, wasteful. Is as rottenness in his bones (Proverbs 14:30; Habakkuk 3:16). Such a wife poisons her husband's life, deprives him of strength and vigour; though she is made "bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh" (Genesis 2:23), far from being a helpmate for him, she saps his very existence. Septuagint, "As a worm in a tree, so an evil woman destroyeth a man." Here again Siracides has much to say, "A wicked woman abateth the courage, maketh an heavy countenance and a wounded heart: a woman that will not comfort her husband in distress maketh weak hands and feeble knees" (Ec 25:23). Thus runs a Spanish maxim (Kelly, 'Proverbs of All Nations')—
"Him that has a good wife no evil in life
that may not be borne can befall;
Him that has a bad wife no good thing in life
that chance to, that good you may call."