Rachel Held Evans has a great post about the real story of Esther and Vashti. Some commentators have held up Esther as a model for what a good, “submissive” wife is supposed to look like — which is a bit like saying that Pharaoh’s enslavement of the Israelites teaches us good management practices. Rachel writes:
I never learned in Sunday School that Esther, whose Jewish name was Hadassah, was forced, along with perhaps thousands of virgin girls from Susa, into King Xerxes harem. Or that the king had banished his first wife, Queen Vashti, for refusing to publicly flaunt her body before his drunken friends. Or that, in response, he had issued a ridiculous kingdom-wide decree that “all the women will respect their husbands, from the least to the greatest” and that “every man should be ruler over his own household.” Or that under the care of the royal Eunuchs, Esther and the women of the king’s harem each took a turn in the king’s bed to see who would please him best. Or that the women received just one night with the king, after which they were transferred to the eunuchs in charge of the concubines, with the instruction not to return to the king’s chamber unless summoned by name, under the penalty of death.
You can read more here.
Ben Irwin 