Maid, Matron, Crone
The phases of a woman’s life are often marked by modern pagans as 3 spirals or three phases of the moon: maid, matron, crone. Whenever and wherever I first read about the 3 cyclical phases of womanhood, I fell in love with it. It’s such a good description. The image of the 3 circles or moon phases is such an apt metaphor. Women’s lives are cyclical, passing through the phases of waxing and waning, and often associated with the moon. Just because this was noted by pagans, or has been twisted by feminists into some female-power trip, doesn’t mean that there isn’t a kernel of truth about the way our lives as women flow.
Because I’m practicing some cultural misappropriation—taking an element of a culture and folding it into my own life, making it my own—I’m going to define how I’m using Maid, Matron, and Crone, from a Reformed perspective.
Maids: (Young, generally, unmarried women) In the past, this would have been girls in their mid to late teens. A woman of 18 or 20 getting married wasn’t unusual at all just a generation ago. In our day and age, the maid phase of womanhood is extending much further out. I’m out of step with my culture, in that I don’t think this is healthy. I think getting married young, having babies young is healthier and wiser. Granted, you need a support network to do this, but I have no issue with 18-year-olds getting married and having kids. You will never have that much energy again. You will be required to grow up and mature quickly, which is good for you. But a large number of maids are maids into their twenties and sometimes thirties. What should you do if you want a hearth and home?
● Practice: get your mom on board, or if you’re on your own, work, study, and learn to be a domestic artist. The worst thing that will happen is you’ll be a nurturing, homey (in a good way) spinster. The horror. This is a win-win scenario. You will either transfer your skills to your family or you will use them all your life to make your own little pocket of warm welcoming. These skills will not go to waste.
● Serve your church: don’t wait for people to come to you. Don’t demand special treatment. Be aware of your gift of time and money that many of your fellow church members don’t have. Seek out women and help them. Ask your deacons what needs doing. Reach out if you’re alone or struggling, but not just to other singles. Reach out to families. Get to know the children in the church, develop relationships with couples. Being married and having kids takes so much time and attention. Don’t wait for others to come to you. Go to them.
● Think about what to look for in a man. Get help from OLDER women about finding a man. Think about the kind of man you want. Pray, pray, pray. Be feminine. Be where a godly man will look. Serve your church faithfully so you can be there where a faithful man will be looking for a wife.
● Take advantage of your pastors and the older, godly men. Being a single woman can leave you vulnerable to fears and lies. Talk to your pastors and take their gentle rebukes. Talk to older women and distrust your opinions. Being single can make you selfish, lazy, ingrown, and far, far too much in your head. Balance between being in other homes and becoming a nuisance with the need to have iron sharpening iron.
Matrons: (Married women, and women close to or middle-aged) A matron is something we become at the moment of marriage, but also something we grow into, like justification and sanctification. In Christ, we are justified. We work at sanctification. A mature matron is the stage where you have a bit more experience, children who can start to manage themselves, and are pre-menopause. You’ve been married long enough to be settled and you’ve achieved a certain level of calm and control, both over yourself and your home. You’ve put in a lot of work both in your home and on yourself and are starting to reap the benefits. You have some experience.
Being the matron of your home is a huge achievement and requires endurance, study, and practice.
Did you notice there is a bit of a transition phase between maid and matron? A married woman and new mom isn’t instantly a matron. A matron takes a certain amount of time and forging. She’s a woman who has proven herself faithful in manning her part in the shield wall and applied herself in learning to manage her home. She is also a woman who has gained some self-control over her fears and her desire to be loud. She has found and forged calmness and courage in her heart. How?
● Garden Your Heart: Calm courage isn’t innate or magic. We live in the ugly world of “Karens” and the “girlboss.” Sharp and mean women who run rough-shod over everyone and think they know best are the heroines we’re supposed to follow. Ladies, we need to regain some humility and self-control. We need to listen to our husbands and accept their criticism. We need to listen to the older women and accept their criticism. Calm women don’t magically happen. Yes, some calmness is genetic, but a large portion of it is nurtured, grown, planted, and tended in our hearts. Do you see you’re loud? Do you see that you’re demanding and controlling? I don’t mean that having a big personality is wrong, I mean can you keep your mouth shut? Can you learn, wait to share your opinion, and when you do share it, do so humbly and gently? Practice, practice, practice! Don’t follow the world’s example. Learn to master yourself. Garden your heart!
● Persevere: If you want to be a Matron of your home you must persevere. Mastering laundry, cleaning, cooking on a basic level isn’t the time to declare yourself a matron and move on to giving advice or more ‘exciting’ work. You need to stay the course and dig deep. God has a way of tossing a wrench in things to grow our character. You need to prove yourself through these times of testing. You need to refine your systems and you need to go through more than one phase of homemaking before you declare yourself a matron. It’s like making it through your first year of marriage and thinking you’ve got it all down. Well, bless your heart. Give it like ten or twenty years and then you can start thinking you know anything about marriage.
● Title versus Reality: Being a matron is a title, yes, you are a married woman and manager of your home regardless of how well you do those jobs. Being a matron is also a certain level of experience and honed skills that require a long, hard fight to gain. Don’t let anyone tell you this job is easy. It is a job that only has deeper and deeper layers as you go along. Matrons may be soft and feminine, but each gray hair, wrinkle, and those hard-to-lose bulges is a battle scar of endurance and the terrible fight of guarding and gardening our hearts. It takes time and endurance to be the matron of your home. Don’t expect it to happen overnight. Stay in the fight.
Crones: (Older women who are now caretakers, possibly widowed) Your children, if so blessed, are grown, and you are in the stage of tending the slowly dying, and post-menopause. I know crone has some nasty vibes and many of us would rather have a pretty, more dignified word for old age. It calls to mind a long crooked nose and hunched-back, warty witch just waiting to devour unsuspecting children in deep woods.
The reality is many women don’t age well. Some of us, in this modern era of cream and dyes, can retain a bit of youth. Some of us have good genes and age splendidly, becoming more stately and elegant. But most of us will have to just get used to the idea of being gray, wrinkled, and short.
Part of aging gracefully—much harder said than done—is not allowing this to make us bitter. The only way to do that is to strike a balance between personal maintenance and not putting stock in our appearance. Always remember “good looks’ are short-lived, but a well-gardened soul is forever.
Crones have reached the stage where they either face widowhood or the long-term care of aging parents and husbands. And sometimes all of that at once. Crones are at a point where they’re only remembered as old ladies. Everyone who remembers them as maids and matrons is dying or dead.
Just when we think life should be easier, a never-ending cruise, the beautiful sunset of life, it gets harder. Yes, harder. Don’t look at the older women around you and think they have it easy because their husbands are retired or their children have grown. They don’t. Things in this fallen world only get harder. Crones, stay sharp. It’s easy for you to fall into this mentality as well because you’re tired, so very weary of the fight. What do you watch out for?
● Wasting: Unfortunately, I’ve seen many women at this stage become self-focused. They have the mentality that they’ve done their time and now they should get to play. They’re loud, brash, self-focused, and gaudy. They’ve turned all of life into a giant ‘me time.’ They do not invest themselves in the next generation or the women coming up behind them. They let skills atrophy and don’t share their failures. They don’t speak up against the lies of the world and leave the next generation to flounder. The ones with the skills check out to the detriment of all women.
● Bitterness: Some women do pour themselves into the next generation, but they pour harsh bitterness. Everything coming out of their mouths is angry discouragement at the world, their lives, and the lot given to them. They speak ill of their husbands, ill of their work, ill of the home, ill of raising children. Their mistakes haunt them or they believe the lies of the world that what they’ve done was a waste. Or, they’re now trapped in the hard task of caretaking. Instead of blooming, they’ve become twisted and stunted.
● Isolation: Ladies, older, seasoned ladies, develop friendships with younger women. Don’t just cut yourself off with women your age. It’s so easy to do. The older you get, the younger young people seem. It’s easy to want to hang out with people who listen to the same music, grew up in the same time, remember the same people, and get your references. Try, try, try to get to know young women, young mothers, and matrons. We need you. We need your experience, your insight, your perspective. We need your failures and your wins. Please don’t leave us to try and find our way alone.
● Invest in young women. Have them in your home. Talk to them at church. Find out what they love. Encourage them. Be someone who can hear marriage struggles without losing respect for the husbands and reminding the wives to keep that respect too. Encourage homemaking. Don’t be discouraging. Praise our efforts to love and tend our homes. We’re looking to you.
No matter what age you are ladies, start thinking about old age. Yes, being a fabulous old lady is a grand plan, but don’t think for one moment you won’t be tempted by regrets and bitterness. It’s good that old age helps us speak our minds, but never forget your mind is a sinful wasteland. Stay on guard and keep gardening your heart.
Read, even now, especially now before it is your time, the passages on widowhood and start thinking about what kind of widow you want to be and should be. A pleasant retirement on a golf course isn’t promised to us. In fact, at this point, it seems highly unlikely for most of us. Read Titus. This is the temptation you will face: throwing away everything because you’re so tired and life isn’t grand. Remember your hope isn’t here, keep preaching to yourself. Crones, be on guard. Many women lose their way when their husbands die. They listen to lies, cave into fears, and follow their emotions. Don’t let yourself do this.
And for the love of all that is holy, teach others! You are the ones called to teach the younger women. Take that seriously and submit yourself to God’s word. You will see many areas you made mistakes, share them with us. Be available and reach out. Maids and Matrons are busy and overwhelmed and so deep in the trenches they can’t see over the top. Reach out a hand, offer a cup of coffee, invite them in for a chat, and get to know the women around you.
Maid, Matron, Crone.
Each stage interweaves with the ones around it. Maids should never be tackling marriage and babies on their own. Matrons should not refuse to share their skills and experiences with others. The link between Maids and Crones has been broken between the generations, we need to repair it. Crones must teach and train and encourage. All of us are tempted to believe the lies of our hearts and the culture. All of us, young, middle, and old must stand together, shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield, garden to garden, and hold the line on church, husbands, homes, and children.
Maid, Matron, Crone.
The three stages of a woman’s life. All have struggles and all have blessings. All take work. The sisterhood of women is a great delight and blessing in this life. Make sure you tend and keep each other and the next generation!
