First, I have to explain why we are doing this gimmick with gnomes and not some other creature.

My mom used to have this little pair of porcelain statues that she kept in her china cupboard. You may have seen this type of thing before. They were shaped like a little Dutch boy and girl in stylized traditional costume, and they were both leaning forward adorably with their eyes closed. You were supposed to position them facing each other so that they appeared to be kissing …. which, of course, Mom always did.

I didn’t think much of these figures when I was younger. I took them for granted, as one does. They were readily available in Holland, Michigan, near where we lived.

But this year, as I was reviewing Mary Harrington’s book and thinking about the Prov. 31 woman, it occurred to me that those little figures were teaching us a profound lesson. I thought I would like to photograph them for a blog post.

But alas, the Dutch boy and girl were either in storage, or lost.

The next step was to buy a similar pair of my own. It was around Thanksgiving, so I thought the home decor store might have such a set. Boy and girl Pilgrim? Boy and girl Indian?

Long story short, the closest I could get was football-fan gnomes.

This isn’t a complete disaster. I like gnomes, and Mr. Mugrage and I are now football fans (though these gnomes are not wearing the colors of our sons’ team).

But anyway, if you find kissing boy-and-girl sculptures (especially Dutch ones), please send them to me. In the meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Gnome will do nicely for our illustration of a matching set.

You see … this is not patriarchy. A man by himself cannot be a patriarch.

And this … is not matriarchy. A woman by herself cannot be a matriarch.

You see, term “patriarch” OR “matriarch” implies the existence of a household. It implies that the “-arch” has had children and possibly grandchildren with a member of the opposite sex (hence the patr- or matr- part), to whom they are married, and with whom they are now ruling over this household (hence the -arch part), seeing that it prospers. This situation is simply not possible without either the mom or the dad. If the dad is a patriarch in the true sense of the term, then he has a matriarch beside him, and as the -arch implies, she is receiving just as much honor in her motherly role as is he in his fatherly one.

See, like this:

What those little kissing Dutch figures were trying to tell us is that patriarchs and matriarchs are a matching set.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all you gnomes out there!