There are some people (me included) that you know have won the lottery of life. The phrase "punching above their weight" has been often applied to those men whom you know through either good luck, or insane divine providence, have ended up with a lady who is quite frankly better than they.
Then there are those cases where you see a stupid man with a smart wife. In some cases it really does my head in. How on earth did that happen? Cases like this defy all rational logic and it makes everyone scratch their heads and wonder about how they met and what the attraction was. As someone who as been adjacent to Family Law for more than twenty years, my view of the world and consequently people is one of suspicion. I want to ask all kinds of questions such as: If she is so smart, why did she marry him? Did he con her into marrying him? Did he somehow manage to keep his real self hidden from view, wearing a mask of charm or politeness, until she married him? Was she so overtaken with the joys of romance that she was blinded by love to the fool in front of her?
I'd like to make the distinction between intelligence and stupidity. There is no correlation between the two. There are also those people who have an intellectual disability, which is also unconnected to stupidity. Stupidity is a series of deliberate choices, which are unhelpful, unkind, unthinking, uncaring.
From my observation of the world at large, there are a lot of stupid men, who carry about their lives without reference to either anyone else or the world around then. I think that it is pretty evident that far too many men have turned out to be stupid, or continually choose to act stupid after their marriage. If a wife had known how stupid their husbands could be when they were courting, then quite possibly she would have never looked at him twice let alone married him.
Religious Warning: Back out now.
I can even name a couple pretty stupid men in the Bible that were married to smart wives. In fact there was one chap in the book of Samuel whose one mum decided to name him "Stupid" and in a case of nominative determinism, Mr. Stupid gets to at the head of the class for being stupid.
I'm not reaching for hyperbole here. Hitchcock’s Dictionary of Bible Names (yes, there is such a thing) has an extensive etymology on the name "Nabal".
Nabal - Fool. Senseless.
A certain man in Maon, who had property there at Carmel, was very wealthy. He had a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel.
- 1 Samuel 25:2
Nabal appears to be incredibly rich for the day. I do not know in what sense the Hebrew is using the word 'great' but it could mean anything from having a lot respect and recognition, to a description of his economic means (which running 3000 head of sheep and 1000 head of goats is pretty great), or it could even mean that he was incredibly fat.
The general description of him that we get is that not only was he 'great' (see above) but that he neither feared God nor Men, that he didn’t give a rip about helping others, and that despite being rich he was also harsh and evil in his dealings.
His name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband was surly and mean in his dealings—he was a Calebite.
- 1 Samuel 25:3
We get a massive contrast between Mr Stupid and his wife Abigail
She was Smart. She was Beautiful. She was Unappreciated. She was Ignored.
He was Evil. He was Wicked. He was master of all he surveyed. He came from a 'great' family (the house of Caleb).
What we also get from this is that money, status, heritage and background, isn't enough to buy class or decency. He was still stupid in his actions. He was churlish, rude, mean-spirited, discourteous, uncivil, impolite, and perhaps worst of all he in no way deserved his wonderful wife. Abigail was the very image of beauty, wisdom and grace.
Mr Stupid refused to listen to his wife or anyone else. I suspect that Nabal as indeed most stupid men view their wives as inferior. Cultivating such a horrendous attitude erupts in anger, irrational behavior and even domestic violence.
We are told in 25:17 that nobody could speak to him. No one could reason with him. He was always right, everyone else was wrong. The scary thing is that Nabal never learns, never changes, and in the end never got delivered from his nature which he cultivated.
Again in contrast we are told that Abigail is described as “intelligent” and she is praised in 25:33 because of her discernment but Nabal never benefits from his wife’s wisdom. Probably in his mind, they were never a team.
Abigail's actions and agency, merely prove that she was intelligent. She stopped the future King David and his men from attacking Nabal and killing him. She fell on the ground before David to apologize for her husband and beg for mercy.
She is evidently smart enough, rational enough, sensible enough for David (who in this instance is also pretty stupid) to listen to her. However, we are told that Abigail describes her stupid husband in a rather pathetic way when she made her plea.
Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool, and folly goes with him. And as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my lord sent.
- 1 Samuel 25:25
Basically Abigail says: “Please disregard my worthless husband, Nabal. His name means 'stupid' and that is exactly what he is."
Nabal point blank refused to feed the hungry men that were with David. All they had asked for a piece of bread.
He ordered them off of his property. However When Abigail heard what happened, she immediately went to David’s camp and apologized. To be perfectly honest, Abigail’s actions are the only thing kept David from slaughtering Nabal and his men. When she got home she wanted to tell her husband what she had just done but he was too blind drunk to talk to anyone. She had to wait till he sobered up the next morning, before she could speak to him.
Then in the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him all these things, and his heart failed him and he became like a stone. About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died.
- 1 Samuel 25:37-38
Can Anyone Fix Stupid? I don't think so. I think that one of the mistakes that a modern audience makes from looking at the Old Testament of the Bible in particular, is that they think that it's too hard to read and that there's nothing here for a modern audience.
I also think that this is one of those few instances in the bible where women generally do not need to learn anything because, let's be perfectly honest here, the mismatch of power structures has always been stacked against women in patriarchal societies and it does not help that men generally are stupid.'
The obvious take away is for men to actively learn the virtues of being able to take instruction. Be that man whom someone can talk to. Be approachable. Be humble. Admit we're wrong, especially to our wives and family. Don't let one's heart grow cold, turn to stone, or get clogged with cholesterol.
If you ever see a stupid man with a smart and beautiful wife pray for him because he's stupid. Pray more for her because she has the far bigger burden to bear in life.
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