One meaning for the word "ruth" is to feel bad or sorry for one's own weakness of character or abilities. What we now call a Pity Partier. Did the Biblical Ruth Feel Sorry for Herself? Did a woman who left her own country and culture to live with her mother-in-law, who adopted her mother-in-law's religion and cultural ways in order to feed them both, who married one of her mother-in-law's kinsmen in order to get him to support the two of them feel sorry for herself or at least feel bad about