The biblical book of the Songs of Solomon speaks to the importance of catching the foxes, the little foxes, before they ruin the vineyard.

However, even though the society that is our vineyard has been all but eaten down by the progeny of crime and coarseness of the little foxes that have emerged from the erosion of values and attitudes over several decades, there’s time yet to salvage something.

That’s why we are unperturbed by the amount of time that was spent dealing with Mr KD Knight, the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) senator’s behaviour towards Ms Dorothy Lightbourne, the leader of government business in the Upper House on Friday.

According to yesterday’s edition, Mr Knight, an experienced attorney and former minister of national security and justice, who also served as foreign affairs minister, called Ms Lightbourne “stupid” on March 19.

He, like anybody else, is entitled to his opinion, of course.

And it may be — as Mr Knight seems to believe — that if one searches Mr Thomas Erskine May’s famous treatise on parliamentary procedure hard enough, justification for such language may be found.

However, within the context of a society that has not done a credible job of protecting or promoting its women and children, where men beat and maim women without our mercy or remorse, we find Mr Knight’s invective against Ms Lightbourne — and, some years ago Mrs Portia Simpson Miller, the leader of the PNP — disturbing and disappointing.

For a man of Mr Knight’s stature must know that a stupid person is one who lacks intelligence, understanding, reason, wit, or sense.

Are we really to accept that of all the adjectives in the English dictionary, this was the most fitting word that he could find to express himself with regard to Ms Lightbourne, a woman who, like himself, is qualified to practise law at the Jamaican Bar?

What justification can there be for such churlish behaviour on the part of a man who is no stranger to diplomacy, considering his experience and exposure?

Isn’t he just as bad as the man, who having not had the benefit of a good upbringing, lashes out at a woman with his fists or a cutlass, in order to express himself?

Sir Hugh Ollivere Beresford Wooding, a former chief justice of Trinidad and Tobago, spoke to the matter of men who felt justified to disrespect women years ago in a defamation case that we are sure Mr Knight would have had the benefit of studying during the course of his practice.

Speaking within the context of the appropriate factors to be taken into consideration assessing the level of damages to be paid by a man who had levelled particularly vulgar and defamatory abuse at a woman, he said: “The sooner that people understand that they cannot licentiously use bad language to women… the better for all concerned. This court will demand for the women of this country respect from their menfolk…”

We will not go into the merits of the debate and subsequent motion to suspend Mr Knight, as despite what in our opinion was the right outcome, the vote seems to have taken place upon purely partisan lines.

Suffice it to say that if three hours of parliamentary time is what it took to at least begin to appreciate Sir Hugh Wooding’s point, it was time well spent.