The role of a wife

I grew up in a family where marriage…as I remember…wasn’t something that was highly valued. I can remember several divorces that happened among family members during my growing up years. I can remember fights…sometimes physical…between husbands and wives. The message I walked away from my childhood with was that marriage was something people did but that it didn’t necessarily require any real commitment. Despite that I held a different view.

In my teen years I remember wanting to be married forever. I had virtually no experience with boys at that time and yet I knew when I married I wanted it to be forever. Even as I observed the less than ideal marriages among family members I knew marriage was something special…sacred…and that I wanted mine…when it came…to be forever.

What I didn’t understand was that marriage was more than the worldly relationship that we view it to be. Even as I was surrounded by examples of what marriage shouldn’t be….I had a deep longing for what marriage should be. Back then I had no idea that Scripture lays out for us exactly what marriage should be.

Right now, as I write this, I have a long time friendship that may not be a friendship anymore. I don’t know…can’t know…what will become of that friendship. I don’t know what happened to turn such a good friendship into a quickly deteriorating friendship. It just sort of…fell apart…mostly without warning. This friendship got to a place where things weren’t what they had always been and it was kind of like the aftermath of a disaster…although it was a disaster that wasn’t seen. All of a sudden, with little to no warning, things blew up, got damaged, and fell apart.

This may be the Lord’s way of removing me from that friendship or it may be a test of the friendship. I don’t know. Only time will tell what is to become of it. From where I’m standing though…I’m left looking back on all the years of friendship, looking at the last weeks and days of friendship, and left wondering…what happened? Where did it go? How did it get to this so fast?

This friendship has no bearing on marriage whatsoever. But it is a good example of how things can go so wrong. So fast.

I doubt any of my family members dreamed of getting divorced on the day they married. I doubt that they thought that this new union would come to an end. I doubt they even thought that there would come a day when things would fall so completely apart with this person they were pledging their life to.

But it happened anyway. Like a tornado hitting an area where tornado’s aren’t supposed to hit, divorce hit these marriages. Trouble came, the marriage fell apart, and the couple were left standing in the midst of the wreckage, scratching their heads and wondering what happened.

I’m going to go ahead and say that the couples in these marriages weren’t regenerate. They didn’t belong to Christ though they may have thought they did.

When I was 12 years old I spent the summer living with my grandparents. One day, while my grandparents were gone, my aunt and uncle who lived on the same property began to fight. I knew nothing about it until my six year old cousin came to me crying that ‘Daddy’s hitting Mama.’ I had no idea what to do. I had never been in a situation like that before. I was scared. All I could think of was to get the kids away from it…they were 6, 2, and under 1. A child myself, I did my best to protect the children.

Looking back on that day I can clearly remember so much of it. It left a lasting impression on me. I remember how scared I was. How much I wanted to protect the kids. How much I wanted to make things better for my aunt after it was all over. I set with her while she cried, spent the rest of the day by her side. I gave her the dog I loved because I knew he would protect her. It was all I could do.

The day that happened, before my cousin came to me, I was sitting in the house safe, happy…secure. Then out of nowhere disaster struck and it left a lasting impression. What, exactly, the impression was, I don’t know. All I know is that memory is one that has stayed with me all these years. And that it did leave an impression.

That was probably the worst example of marriage I grew up with. The rest were more cases of arguing and indifference. During my growing up years all of my uncles got divorced and so did my mother. While I was in my 20’s my grandparents got divorced.

There were no examples in my family for the sanctity of marriage. It was much like the cheap items bought at one of those everything’s-a-dollar stores…bought, used until it’s not desired anymore, then thrown away.

But I walked away from that with a different belief in marriage.

I know now it was the Lord’s doing. I understand that there was just something in me that made marriage something sacred. It is the one relationship that we have in life that is truly sacred. It shouldn’t be messed with. Not by outsiders. Not by ourselves.

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:9 esv

I was told recently that my marriage was a choice I made but Scripture clearly tells us that marriage is a union created by God. It also says that man is not to separate that union. Man. As in any of mankind. Man or woman.

Including the man and woman in that very marriage.

This wasn’t a lesson I was taught in my childhood…but somehow the belief was deeply instilled anyway.

Marriage with my husband came easy. The relationship was easy. Rather it…he…came out of the blue one day when I didn’t expect him or the relationship. From the moment we met Someone bigger than me had hold of it and everything just happened until…I was married.

From the moment my husband and I shared that first smile things were easy between us. It was just…right. My husband and I are both Christians, we both seek to serve the Lord, and in doing so…we serve each other.

But even in an easy marriage, even when everything just flows, we still have our place…our role. Things we should do. Things we shouldn’t do.

Maybe…we have that role more so in an easy marriage, a good marriage. Because…maybe…we have more power to hurt each other. There is no one in the world that has the power to hurt me like my husband does. Because things are so good between us I know I can trust him with anything…with everything. And trust him I do. Completely. But that means he holds a power over me…one he never abuses…that no one else has.

But that role…that place…even when it comes easy…is still there. Scripture defines the roles of husbands and wives.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, ⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands…Titus 2:3-5

The King James Version puts that verse a little differently…

The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

How can we teach younger women to love their husbands if we don’t first love our own husbands? So much of the influence we have on others is through example. We must love our husband in order to teach someone else how to love theirs.

And our husbands will know if we love them. He will feel it in everything we do.

Recently my husband was away from home. I was going to meet him and was preparing for that meeting. I got a message from him that said I might want to bring a pair of jeans with me. I asked him after I met up with him what, exactly, he thought I would be wearing. He said, ‘I knew you would be wearing this. My favorite outfit.’

I had no idea that what I had on that day was my husband’s favorite outfit but I knew he liked seeing me in skirts so I wore one to please him. I wanted to please him in my choice of clothing for the very simple reason that I love him.

But there is another reason…as a wife…that I should try to please my husband…

let the wife see that she respects her husband…Ephesians 5:33

It wasn’t my intention that day to show respect to my husband…I simply wanted to please him. But in trying to please him I was showing respect to him. And he knew me well enough to know what I would be wearing even when I hadn’t said anything to him about the clothes I intended to wear.

Because that wasn’t the first time I had worn that skirt…or a different one…for the sole purpose of pleasing him. I do it often. I know he likes it and it’s an easy enough thing to do to give him joy.

We are to be discreet…self-controlled. Scripture doesn’t define when or where we are to be discreet or self-controlled, it just says that we are to be.

When I was 9 I met a girl that would become my best friend. She and I were good friends into high school. I remember well how, in our teens, she became very loud and would often yell out, scream, or whistle at others. It was embarrassing to be around her. She could be walking along talking quietly and would…without warning…make loud noises. Sometimes it seemed as if she did this for no other reason than to draw attention to herself.

I don’t want to be that kind of wife. Not in actions, not in manners, not in dress. If there’s anything in me that brings embarrassment to my husband or makes things harder for him…I don’t want to do that.

We are to be keepers at home…working at home.

Before my husband and I married we talked about wives working outside the home. We both agreed that was something that a wife shouldn’t do unless the family was truly not able to make it without her working. A few months after we married I told my husband that I could bring in money by selling things through an online auction site. He quickly told me I didn’t need to do that and we didn’t discuss it again. I knew from his answer that he didn’t want me doing it.

I am to be the keeper at home.

It’s what my husband wants me to be and it’s what I want to be. I have no desire to work outside the home. I read somewhere that when a woman works outside the home she must please a man other than her husband…as she will generally have a boss or manager that is a man. She is then under the authority of a man that isn’t her husband. Sometimes that man…that boss…will have more authority over her than her husband does as she will try to please her boss in order to keep her job…even at the expense of her husband and family.

I worked outside the home for a few years in my teens and early twenty’s…before my husband and I married. I did it out of necessity but I never did it because I wanted to or because I got joy or fulfillment from working. Even as I worked I knew that I didn’t want to have to work when I married.

My sister and I were talking recently…this sister works and is unmarried…the conversation turned to working and I told her I didn’t want to work because it would take my time and tie me down. What I didn’t say was that it would take my time from my husband and children and would keep me from being able to be who and what they needed me to be at any given moment. I can’t be wife or mom if I’m at work somewhere.

When I told my husband of that conversation he shook his head before I finished it. Then he said I don’t need to. I know my husband doesn’t want me working. Not only because we discussed it before we married but also from those little instances that have come up in conversations.

I am to be the keeper at home.

It is my job. It is my role.

When I’m home I’m available to my husband when he needs me. I’m available to our children.

Yesterday our ten year old daughter asked me if I could walk in the yard with her. I was waiting for my husband to call and had to tell her I couldn’t walk just then. She said…’you could take the phone with you.’ Just that simply she knew that I could be available to her and to dad.

I couldn’t have been available to either one of them exactly when they needed me to be if I had been working outside the home or preparing for a job outside the home. Because my husband and my children are my focus I can be there when they need or want me to be.

A wife is to be obedient…submissive…to her own husband. We see that in Titus 2 and we see it in Ephesians 5:22esv

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

A couple of months after my husband and I married he told me something that has stuck with me to this day. He said that he needed me to submit to him…even if he’s wrong.

My husband doesn’t make demands on me. He doesn’t even tell me to clean the house or cook a meal. If I fail to do something he either leaves it as is or does it himself. I clean in ways I might not do if it were just me…or me and the kids…because I don’t like to see him clean up something after he finishes working. I like to make his day easier by fixing him something to eat or getting his coffee. Submitting to my husband is that much easier because he doesn’t make demands on me.

Marriage for me comes easy. Part of that is my husband…because he makes being his wife easy…part of it is me….because I like being a wife. And so much of it is the relationship my husband and I have with the Lord. Because we seek to please Him, we can please each other.

But in that…there is still a role. I have one. My husband has one. My husband is a great provider. He is a great protector. He takes care of us and provides for us in all that he does. He loves me and I know it. He shows me daily how much he loves me and how important I am to him.

He’s said I’m spoiled.

My sister said I’m spoiled.

I am spoiled.

But…I still have a role in marriage. I have a responsibility. How long would my husband show me the love he does if I didn’t show him love? How long would he feel wanted and needed if I pushed him away…physically or emotionally…every time he came around?

How long would marriage come easy if I acted that way? How long would it stay good if I failed to be a keeper at home? If I failed to submit to him? If I failed to respect him?

There are roles to be ‘played’ in marriage. My role as wife is to keep my husbands home, submit to him…to respect him. That is the role of a wife. Because I love my husband I want to please him, but pleasing him falls into those three categories. Because I love my husband I want to keep house for him, do his laundry, fix him meals…but doing those things is being a keeper at home. Because I love my husband…it’s easy to respect him.