She stoops to conquer....The story of Queen Vashti, the expressive woman

I believe I have an expressive, open personality. Sometimes, I love that about me and other times, I hate that part of me the most.

This brings me to the topic. The issue of self-expression of women in their relationships. Can this truly be possible for a long-lasting peaceful relationship?

Queen Vashti was a very beautiful queen. She was also organized, classy and fashionable. She is supposed to be one of the noted queens in history....but is not for one thing....She was also an expressive woman.

Her husband was the ultimate emperor before the time of Christ. He ruled over mordern day Iraq and most of mordern day Europe and North Africa. His name was Xerxes...(yes, he was the man who Sparta refused to bow to in the movie ''300''... Google him, he was interesting)

Xerxes decided to throw a very grand party for all his subjects in his palace and had so much wine for everyone to drink as they liked. Of course, most of them got drunk including the king himself. In his drunken, slurry, probably dirty state, the king ordered his beautiful wife to appear before all his subjects so they could behold and admire her beauty.

Now, as an expressive woman, who would refuse to pretend to tolerate such nonsense displays, I think most of us may have done what the queen did....she refused. She refused because she knew her husband was in a drunken state and probably did not know what he was really doing (embarassing himself and putting his wife at risk amongst hundreds of drunken, sexually active men)...she refused because she felt humiliated...she refused because she probably did not want to appear as just a ''trophy wife'' but as a woman of principle...she refused because she just did not want to go and she stood her ground. 

Queen Vashti (Source: Wikipedia)

How did that end up? Queen Vashti never saw the king again and was replaced. No one knows of her except  for the story of Queen Esther, the wise queen who took her place, did as she was expected to behave and in the end, had the king licking off her feet to the point of his offering her half of his kingdom. For those of you who are christians, You all know Queen Esther right? The one with a chapter in the Bible named after her? Yep....she was the replacement for an expressive, stand-her-ground-for-her-rights woman. 

Queen Esther (Source: Wikipedia)

Esther has always been a woman to study for most christian women and too many people have forgotten her predecessor and her obvious similarity with the mordern woman. They also forget that as mordern as women may be, the man is not so mordern. Indeed, the man of today is so much like his ancestors. They adore the appeasement of their egos. They bask in the praises of their contemporaries and subordinates...and women. They detest to be insulted, disobeyed and put down by their women...no matter who she may be. 

This issue of expressing our every mood, desire, want, need, worry, opinion.....etc...is really a very sensitive and even more important issue. Most men, believe it or not...do not understand that part of an expressive woman. As a wife, or partner, you have to pick your battles. You cannot stand for every single right you can come up with and expect Mr. man to understand, accept and implement. You have to pick the ones you truly cannot tolerate and express them to Mr. man in a way that Mr. man will never guess he is being corrected or attacked. Esther showed us how by planning a feast for Xerxes for 3 days, keeping him on his toes trying to guess and figure out what she was thinking..and then after getting him all waxxed up and happy to the point of offering half of his kingdom, Esther made her request.

To us, the expressive kind who are honest and open, and refuse to divulge in ''games'' (as we may call them)... and refuse to use a man's weaknesses against himself, we may think this is just mean and cold-calculated to get a man to do what we want. We believe in ''convincing'' a man to consider our feelings and adapt out of ''love''. This is not possible....not for a hard-working, successful, providing man. I repeat, this is not possible.

My mother once made a comment when I was younger and had just exploded about some random issue I had...she just said ''She stoops to conquer''. I did not understand then what that meant. Now I do. Indeed, a woman must stoop to conquer the heart and emotions of a man. It is either you fight and express yourself in the wrong way and in turn stir up the wrong emotions of non-chalance, 'defence', lack of communication, the death of passion...etc....or you stoop and be wise and play the game of men. 

What path will you choose? Time to wise up Ladies!!