Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 32:4 (Autumn 2018)
Article: The Delight Of Daughters: A Theology Of Daughterhood
Author: Beulah Wood

PP 32:4 (Autumn 2018) p. 23

The Delight Of Daughters: A Theology Of Daughterhood

Beulah Wood

Beulah Wood earned a BA in Auckland, New Zealand, a BD in Melbourne, Australia, and a DMin through Gordon- Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. She is the happy mother of four daughters and four granddaughters. She has written books and taught preaching and theology of family in Bangalore, India. She now leads Carey Baptist College’s Ethnic Ministry Leadership program in Auckland and has recently become vice president of the Baptist Union of New Zealand.

Much has been written about “sonship” and being “adopted as sons” as descriptions of being brought into and belonging to God’s family. Focus is often on the privileges of adoption in Paul’s letters, noting the love, honour, and freedom that follow.1 In light of this masculine language, we should ask whether women and girls experience daughterhood as bringing privileges and rights in the way men and boys experience sonship? More broadly, do we have a theology of daughterhood?2

One study analyses the context and the stories of daughters in the Gospel of Mark.3 Another features father/daughter relationships in the OT and the honour/shame culture where daughters could maintain their father’s honour, as in some cultures today, by upholding virginity before marriage and faithfulness afterwards.4 Still another study notes the prophet Isaiah’s strong criticism of the haughty upper-class Jerusalem women, Daughters of Zion with bangles, headbands, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and veils (Isa 3:16–4:1).5 Recently, a Western author published “A Theology of Daughterhood” focused entirely on the duty of adult daughters in the twenty-first century to attend to the needs of the increasing number of aging parents.6

Feminist theologians have commented on the “texts of terror”7 and abuse of daughters in the OT. Daughters were at times traded like commodities in marriage, Aksah by Caleb (Josh 15:16–17; Jdg 1:12–13) and Michal by Saul (1 Sam 18, 25:44), for example. Lot offered his daughters to a mob (Gen 19); Jephthah sacrificed his daughter (