“Better to dwell in a corner of a
housetop, Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.”
Proverbs 21:9.
As a pastor I
have encountered many men whose lives are made to be a form of living hell
because of their wives. These men usually handle it in different ways.
Some become
absolute shells of men, who though they would get some measure of respect in
their profession, anyone who sees them around their wife immediately recognizes
who rules the roost, and they can see the visible signs of it in the man’s
hunched shoulders. Think Richard, in Keeping Up Appearances.
Some men
react badly to a badly behaving wife and seek to tyrant over their wives. These
men can become abusive in direct response to years of sexual, emotional and
relational coercion, and something snaps inside of them.
Some men
adjust their understanding of masculinity. They rationalize it by concluding
that their wife is an “alpha” and they are just happy to be married, and they
give off a modicum of being content in the situation. These women write their
husbands emails of complaint, and make the decisions for him, and he is content
to let it happen. His wife, or more often he, will generally tell people that
he is the head, but she is the neck. Every now and then you will see a shadow
in this man’s eye of pain at the level of disrespect he experiences on a daily
basis.
Another subset
of this previous group is men who are so lazy, emotionally, relationally, and
in various other ways, that they actually do genuinely enjoy that their wife is
the leader. It is easier. They have less conflict, because he simply concedes, “Yes,
dear.” He probably even believes that men who say he should lead are at best
closet misogynists, and he will avidly advocate his situation to anyone who
asks. “We are a team,” he says, knowing full well that his wife is the Captain
and the Referee.
To summarize,
I have encountered more men who are dominated by their wives, than men who are
abusive. And I expect the numbers are far more weighted in that direction than
we realize, because women are far more likely to talk about their situations than
men are, and there is very little, if any, stigma for a woman to share about an
abusive husband. Even in our claimed egalitarian age, it is still quite
shameful for a man to admit to not being the man of his house. So many men suffer
in silence and are often shut up when they try to speak.
What I want
to do in this piece is address how to avoid falling into such a situation. I
want to give some practical advice to men about how to stop their wife from
becoming a difficult woman. It is my contention, that in the right context,
most women can become the difficult woman. But it is not my contention that
this is necessarily the man’s fault. Women have agency, and this is often
ignored by people who discuss these issues. However, that does not mean there
are not things that a man can do to change that likelihood, and balance things
in favour of a submissive and comparative godly wife.
As for men
whose wives have already completely subjected them? Well, perhaps they can implement
some of this as well. But their job is harder, much harder. Life long
relational patterns are hard to break out of, they do not develop overnight,
nor come out of nowhere. Not every man is a leader, and not every man has the
ability to change his environment. A leopard cannot change its spots, right?
But God can do miracles. We live in light of these two realities. Just
recognize that men in both of these situations are going to have to prepare
themselves for conflict. Both, because it will happen, and secondly, because
you don’t want to go too far. There are plenty of men who have gone too far in
seeking to reign in a domineering woman, and they have suffered the loss of any
moral authority as a result. So, be wise gentlemen.
I want to
begin with something Paul says in Titus. He gives this advice to the younger
church leader,
“1
But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: 2 that
the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in
patience; 3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not
slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they
admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to
be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the
word of God may not be blasphemed. 6
Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded,…” (Titus 2:1-6).
This is
advice for a church leader, on what he is to teach about the character of
various groups within society. There are some great principles for us to draw
from here in beginning this discussion.
Firstly, men,
if you want to avoid your wife becoming the difficult woman, you need to
recognize how much almost every woman in this society has been robbed of the
kind of environment they needed to become the kind of wives that Paul envisions
in this passage. For one, whether they were raised in the Church or not, they
have almost certainly been raised to either not know what this passage says,
or, in the case of many Christians, to actively reject it, and call some of its
elements outdated and sexist. Hence, from a very early age, the vast majority
of women have been raised, either explicitly or implicitly, to rebel against
being the submissive woman.
The vitriol I
have heard in the mouths of some women about that term “submission” is
incredible. I can bring to mind various examples, but I was once sitting at a
conference lunch table just listening to the conversation around me, and the
way one of the women just spat out how much she hated teaching which said women
should submit to husbands, was quite telling. Especially considering it had
nothing to do with any of the conference talks. I had no idea how the topic
came up. She is only one example. I have seen this countless times.
Men, look at
this, “3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not
slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things…” You need to
recognize that most older women that surrounded your potential wife or wife as
they developed into a woman did not fall into any of these categories. Women
like Paul describes do exist. I know plenty, but you have to look for them. In
fact, our culture kind of likes to brag about women not being reverent. It rewards
women who slander either their competition or even the men in their life, for
at least sympathy from their friends, or worse, to gain his possessions. The winebibbing
older woman is a staple represented in film and media. And “teachers of good
things…” What have the vast majority of women been given over to teaching,
since feminism became the dominant ideology, not just of our women, but of society
in general?
So, you need
to start from this basis: the woman in your life, who you want to marry, or are
married to, has been terribly robbed by a culture that had no intention of
teaching her how to be a good wife. In fact, the term “the good wife” has
become a derogatory term in our modern culture.[1] So successful has been the
Luciferian inspired feminist movement, that even many Christians think of the
biblical wife as a lesser thing. You need to start from this basis. Just assume
that, to some degree, your wife’s social context, her education, likely her
family environment, and more, are antagonistic in some way towards her being
the kind of wife you might have expected.
What Paul
advises is that the older women need to be “reverent” and “teachers of good
things…” He is not contradicting his teaching in other letters where he says
that men should direct the teaching in the church, because he goes on to
explain what he means, “4 that they admonish the young women to love their
husbands, to love their children,…” In other words, Paul is saying that the older
women need to be respectfully focused on teaching the younger women to fulfill
their role. How the church needs this today, in increasing measure.
Hence, men,
now that you have recognized that your wife has been robbed of the kind of
encouragements and upbringing that most women of previous generations got, you
need to find a church environment where she is going to be surrounded by older
women who will teach her these things. If, and these women do exist, she learnt
this from her mother and her mother is still a part of her life, then that is a
boon to you. That is something to celebrate. Feminism has not achieved full
acceptance in every household, hence there are oases in this cultural desert.
But still, you need be intentional about this.
You need to
recognize that that the divorce rate in the churches being roughly similar to
the divorce rate in the culture is not an accident. It comes about in large
part because most Christians simply do not have a Christian worldview. I cannot
get this across to you strongly enough, you need to know this, the men I know
who are going through either the destruction of their marriage or their
marriage turning into a sexless wasteland, all have something in common: they
usually stopped going to church, meaning that their wife’s social context got
shrunk down to her co-workers and other secular contexts. And many of them were
part of churches where the women were dominant over the men, and hence their
church context was not very different to secular contexts anyway.
A lot of men
think they don’t need church. And, there are probably a small minority of
Christian couples out there who are in this situation who can keep a relatively
good marriage, while living an unbalanced Christian lifestyle; for it is
impossible to be a healthy Christian and ignore the one-another passages in the
Bible, that assume we are living in the context of the fellowship of believers.
But the overwhelming observational evidence points to the opposite effect. Men,
you might not feel the need for church. Your desire for interaction with other
people, with whom you disagree on a host of things will likely go down as you
age. But if your wife is disconnected from an environment where other women are
going to teach her how to better love and respect you, then you will suffer for
it. Many men overlook this, and they suffer as a result.
Similarly, if
you are in a church environment which encourages your wife to live like the
world, it will have a similar effect. I have lost count of the number of men
who have told me that their wife’s divorced friends have ruined their own
marriage. This is a well-known phenomenon. The reason that divorce statistics
are as high in the church as outside, is simply because many Christians ignore
what the Bible says about marriage and think that flying a Jesus bumper sticker
on their car will make all the difference. But it won’t. Christianity is not the
religion of lucky charms. As much as this kind of thinking often seeps back in.
Exceptional men might be able to make up the difference themselves, the average
Christian man needs this environment for wife to aid him and wife in their
marriage.
You need to
be intentional about spending serious amounts of time with other families who
take what Paul says to Titus seriously. And, if the pastor’s wife, or elder’s
wives, scorn what the scriptures say here, then you can be certain that your
chances of facing a world of hurt in marriage will increase. Hence, to avoid having
a difficult wife find a church gathering where the older women “admonish the
young women to love their husbands, to love their children,…” It is more
important than cool music. It is more important than a cool youth program. It
is more important than many of the surface things people look for in the
church. And those surface things can exist within a church that does this well,
but they do not necessarily go together.
You might find
it strange that Titus has to “teach or admonish” the older women to love their
husbands. But just consider how many women will kill their children in the womb
given the chance? Now consider how many women will kick out the father of their
children if given the chance? Here are just two indications that Paul, through the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, understood that loving her children and husband
is something that a lot of women need coaching and teaching in. Just as many
men need to be trained to love their wife. Paul also shows us that it is older
women who will be the primary teachers in this role, not their husbands. It is
natural for women to seek the counsel of other, wiser, older women. If your
wife is surrounded by bad women, then you will suffer. You will both suffer.
This goes
just as much for her being chaste and discreet. There is a bit of a
misunderstanding in our culture that men are more obsessed with sex than women.
Two things show this is not the case, 1) Go to the beach and look at how most women
will dress if social pressure or character does not restrain them, and 2) Look
at how women’s soft, and not so soft, porn dominates that reading market. Women
and men are both created to be and are sexual creatures. If your wife does not have
good influences in this regard, there is a strong possibility she will put
herself on display for other men. This culture has trained her to do it.
If a husband
has an attractive and desirable wife, which all men want, other men will be
interested in her. There is nothing you can do about that. But you can
challenge her flirting with them. But even better if she has responsible,
attractive and reverent older women to challenge her in this regard for you. A
lot of women want to be good wives, but as women are highly social creatures
that are very impressionable by their environment, they can come under terrible
influences from their friends. Be thoughtful about this. Her flirtatious,
vivacious personality might have drawn you to her, but if this is not properly
turned into discretion in your marriage, you might find yourself in for real
trouble. There are countless men who do not give two hoots that she is your
wife. She needs direction from wiser women on this as well.
And, of
course, this last one is rejected by most Christians: “good, obedient to their
own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.” I could tell you
stories of even pastor’s wives who scorn this one. I could tell you accounts of
older men and women who think this is too limiting for their grand-daughters or
daughters. But I don’t have to. You know this one is under attack from society
and the church. Some consider it sexist, out of date advice, others consider it
an unachievable goal that pastors should be embarrassed to hold to, because it
is out of reach to most working people today. Others just don’t care what the
Bible says, whether Christian or not, and still others would like to follow
this command but don’t know how.
If your wife
is in an environment where the women scorn this verse, remind yourself that she
and her friends were robbed of the culture that trained women to do this well,
and acknowledge how she and you are being robbed, at the present moment, by our
culture. Titus would not have to tell older women to teach this to younger
women, if it just came by nature. It doesn’t, at least not all of it. Humans
have some level of inborn instinct, but most of what we learn has to be taught,
and it can be untaught between the generations.
The culture
of women being culture-bearers in the home has been effectively cut off. Even
many women who would like to do this find themselves struggling to find other
women to partner in doing it with them, because all their friends work during
the day. Many of them are having to learn the skills of being productive in the
home from scratch. Even simple things like nutritional, affordable, meals, is a
skill many women are re-learning. If you just ask your wife to be a homemaker,
which is her role and you both believe it is, but you leave her to figure out
all this on her own, then you might find her getting frustrated and restless in
the home, and this has caused many problems for families and husbands. Even the
desire to do things God’s way can go wrong without good discipleship.
I find it
interesting how many women who do homeschooling, for instance, want to join
co-ops of other women to help their kids learn in community. I thought it was
supposed to be about schooling in the home? Often, these groups fracture,
because you have highly independent minded people seeking to come together for
a joint effort, a bit like Baptist church plants. But the reason they do this
is because of the strong desire for the women’s village that most women grew up
in, throughout history. Our society has stripped that away from most women, and
so doing things God’s way can be a lot harder. Just like it is harder for a man
to keep a pure mind when half the women around him dress like they are selling
themselves…which in many ways they are.
You need to
actively make sure you are reinforcing these standards in your home, but that
you are in an environment, where others will reinforce them for you. And, by
the grace of God, your wife will develop into the kind of woman who can help
train other women in this. Which is why it is important to note that Paul says
this to young men, “6 Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded…” It is
a very brief statement, compared to what he says for the young women. But
consider what he is saying.
Many young
men do not approach life in a serious way. In fact, many men take some time to
develop into their masculine role of providers and guardians of their home.
This is why car insurance is more expensive for young men, well into their 20’s.
But the sooner you learn to approach these things seriously and diligently, the
better off you will be.
But this also
helps a man with his wife. Because his wife is much more likely to take him seriously,
if he takes himself seriously. She is also much more like to take him seriously
if other men, and other women, take him seriously. Men who cut their family and
their wives off from a good church, often get themselves in trouble in this
area. Women like to see their men flourish amongst other men. A lot of men
think all they need to do is their job and centre their life around their wife.
But these men show they have no understanding for feminine nature. Women want
to see their husband measure up well against other men. If he doesn’t, this diminishes
her view of him, and he is more likely to find he has a difficult wife. This
one happens so often. Sure, there are exceptions, they can be found in the
comments sections of discussions like this across the world. But don’t think
you are so special as to be among the exceptions, you likely won’t be.
Take yourself
seriously, take your faith seriously, take your wife’s social environment
seriously. Many men think more to the social environment of their kids than
their wife, and that is their biggest mistake. They often don’t even realize it
is a mistake until their kids are out of the home and the wife has gone off to
discover herself, because her reading club, or co-workers convinced her to,
that it is her right.
A lot more could
be said about this issue. Men, you have been failed by our culture too, in many
ways. Especially in the area of learning how to steward a wife. Most people are
never taught this, and the most they learn is from their home environment,
which can be hit and miss. And in a culture of broken homes is much more miss
than hit.
I just want
to briefly mention one more area before I conclude: sex.
Solomon says
this,
“15
Drink water from your own cistern, And running water from your own well. 16
Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets? 17
Let them be only your own, And not for strangers with you. 18 Let your fountain
be blessed, And rejoice with the wife of your youth. 19 As a loving deer and a
graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; And always be enraptured
with her love. 20 For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral
woman, And be embraced in the arms of a seductress?” (Prov. 5:15-20).
Many men
think that the key to pleasing their wife is being subservient to her. But it
is not. I believe women are partially hardwired to joyfully follow a good man,
if she is trained by other women to do this well. I say partially because the
fall has corrupted men and women. I think if a man follows the principles in
this article, that come from scripture, his wife is more likely to want to
follow him, and they are more likely to forge together well.
But don’t
neglect sex in this equation, either. God has conditioned us to desire sex,
enjoy sex and even regularly crave sex, both men and women – unless of course
something has gone terribly wrong, which can happen in this world. If you build
a healthy physical craving for each other, by stewarding this well early in your
marriage, it will help bond you both together. Some men ruin this with porn, or
he or his wife put on weight, or the wife’s desire is ruined by
anti-depressants, or some other issues can get in the way. But if you are diligent
in being “enraptured” in each other’s love, you will likely still have
conflict, but you will come back together as one.
This area is
overlooked as a powerful remedy to conflict. A woman who sexually desires her
husband is much more willing to want to follow him. She might get things wrong.
You might get things wrong. But work, intentionally, to stir up this desire. It
will help you more than you know.
If this tap
has run dry in your marriage, you will already know how it draws a chasm
between both of you. This means you will have to work harder to get back to
where you should be. But I think these principles can set you on the right track
to getting back to a good place.
Of course,
you can seek to do the right things, and your marriage can still fail. We live
on the wrong side of paradise, so things can still go wrong. I do not believe
that because a woman turns bad it is guaranteed to be her husband’s fault. It
can be. But it could also be that you married a bad one. They exist too. But generally
speaking, there are good and wise things a man can do to help his marriage have
a better chance of success, and telling him to be more of a domesticated and
neutered servant, based on a demented understanding of “laying down his life”, is
the wrong advice.
List of
References
[1] https://www.fastslang.com/good-wife
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