We have a strong custom that the man should ask the woman to marry him. Ruth asked Boaz to marry her and did it in an unusual setting. Her mother in law Naomi planned it. She told Ruth to make herself presentable, then go to the threshing floor, note where Boaz lay down to sleep, then lie down at his feet. Ruth did so, and at midnight Boaz woke up and found a woman lying at his feet. She said she was Ruth and asked him to marry her. He praised her for not demanding a young man and for her kindness to her dead husband, told her he would give a closer relative a chance the next day, but otherwise he would marry her. Before daybreak, he told her to leave, lest someone know that a woman was on the threshing floor. She went home with a large gift of grain from Boaz, which she gave to her no doubt sleepless mother in law. “Now wait,” Naomi says, “and we’ll see how things turn out. He won’t rest until it is settled today.” There is more than an echo of Ruth’s proposal in Lonfellow’s poem about John and Priscilla, two 1620 pilgrims, in which Priscilla says to John, “Speak for yourself, John, speak for yourself.” Note how the Bible gives freedom to women in contrast to the many places, even in today’s world, where child brides are married off by their families with no say in the matter. |
