logician,
“if I have a stimulating Torah thought, my wife will often be the wrong person for me to turn to for sharing”
That’s ok. When my husband has a torah chiddush I’m the first person he turns to. And vice versa as well. You can think it’s odd. And my husband has some impressive credentials i will not list here.
As per the ramabam, he was portraying a sitation that existed in his days; duh…most women were not capable of learning for whatever reasons, such as, lack of education for women in general, tremendous amount of time needed to be spent on homemaking (not necessarily child-rearing, as in those times raising children was not considered a full-time endeavor)
But today things are DIFFERENT. I’d say that the amount of women who are capable of learning is not a minority anymore.
The rambam’s words are not absolute. Listen to his tone… he is saying that we don’t teach women BECAUSE their minds are not up it. NOT because it’s some absolute principle that needs to be adhered to.
Ben Levi,
By career, I mean a creative endeaor OTHER than the home and raising children. For me to be pre-occupied with running a home, and my husband agrees, is a waste of time. And by the way, I do a fantastic job at it. We are hoping, when the family gets larger, to have full-time help that takes care of as much of the household tasks as possible, so that I have more time to focus on my career which we think is more important than washing dishes. For me, running a home is like what cleaning a room is for a teenager. It needs to be done so you have the peace of mind that you are in a clean, organized environment. Period. There is nothing so holy about it. I am not the cohen gadol in the beis hamikdoes. And in no way is it something to be glorified as an occupation.
As per raising children, that’s different than household chores. But still, raising children is something we do as part of being wholesome human beings. But it’s an equal endeavor between a man and woman. If I end up spending more time with the children for whatever reasons, its for practical reasons that I can do something better. Not because in theory we believe that women should be involved in child-rearing the majority of the time.
People may find themselves being a full-time homemaker and parent at points in their life, but I don’t see that as an ideal to strive for.