The Word of a Woman

Recently I read an article about Asia’s “missing women” problem. These are not women who went missing. They are women who were never born.

In Asia there is a strong cultural preference for baby boys. Sons are valued because they inherit the family property, carry on the family name and care for their parents in old age. Girls often are considered a liability, especially in rural areas, in part because of the need to provide a dowry when a daughter marries.

The female birth rate in Asia has been artificially lowered for decades through selective abortion: Couples abort a female and try to conceive a male. Neglect and inadequate medical care, and even infanticide, also have reduced the number of baby girls. China exacerbated the problem with its policy of limiting families to one child, an example of social engineering that is now bearing bitter fruit. The policy was recently abandoned.

By some estimates, there are more than 100 million missing women in Asia, and their absence is causing grave social and economic problems. Many young men cannot marry because there are too few marriageable women. That means too few women to bear children and reverse the demographic trend. Populations will decline, and national economies will suffer.

Asian nations are taking steps to address the problem, for example, by banning prenatal sex detection and by promoting better care of girls. Societies that disdained baby girls are now prizing them. It will take years to turn the imbalance around, but male-to-female birth ratios are moving toward normal levels.

The story has stayed on my mind, not only because of the tragic problems it made me aware of, but also because I read it just before Advent began. I couldn’t help thinking about it in relation to Advent and Christmas.

During Advent it seems as though all of us are awaiting a birth. We know that the Savior is coming, and we know how much we need him. Nature itself conveys the message: the growing darkness of December, the shorter days and longer nights, seem to symbolize the despair of a world trapped in sin. But the candles we light on the Advent wreath are a sign of hope, a reminder and a reassurance that redemption is near. Emmanuel, God-with-us, will come to save us.

His coming once hung for a moment on the word of a woman.

Scripture tells us that the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she was to bear the Son of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. It was not a divine command, however; Mary was free to say yes or no. The angel did not leave her until she spoke her consent: “Let it be done to me according to your word.”

By saying yes to the will of God, Mary made salvation possible in the way that God had ordained. Her yes changed the world. And although her Son is the focus of the feast of Christmas that we celebrate, she is inseparable from him and from the feast. That is why so many paintings and illustrations of the Holy Infant show him in the arms of his mother. She made it possible for him to be born as man. In one sense, she gave him to the world. Years later, from the cross, he would give her back to the world as the mother of us all.

The world has never needed her more. It faces so many problems, bears so many sorrows, reels from so much violence. It needs the prayers of Mary, and her comfort, and her love. She is the woman who changed the world. She can help us to change it now.

We need to pray for the peoples of Asia. Perhaps the absence of the missing women will bring about a realization of the value and dignity of women, the importance of welcoming every new life and the wisdom of saying yes to God, all of which we have learned from Mary.

Merry Christmas.