Wives in the Work Place (Part 2)
Today we continue our series of a biblical examination of wives in the workplace. In our part 1 of our series, I wrote that although this is a complicated and controversial question, it is an answerable one. So let's dive in and take a closer look at the pertinent Scriptures that provide reasonable and balanced applications.
We begin with …
A Wife’s Role in Marriage
What is a wife’s priority? She is a woman who must follow God and His kingdom first, but she is also pledged to her husband to please him. God’s kingdom is the highest priority for all Christians (husbands, wives, and the unmarried) according to Matthew 6:33. Jesus taught us all to pursue first God’s kingdom. His purposes taught in Scripture are the greatest priority for any Christian. But what does pursuing God’s kingdom first entail for Christian wives in the home?
From Genesis 2 and Ephesians 5, we can discern God’s declared role for wives in marriage. Their role is both to be supportive of the husband and submissive to his leadership. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:9, “… for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.” This is what the account in Genesis 2 & 3 affirms. Eve was made after Adam and from Adam and for the purpose of helping Adam. His was the leadership role. Hers was the supportive role. This is also what Ephesians 5:22 directly declares, “Wives submit to your husbands.” Submission is the Greek term hupotassō and means to place oneself under the authority of another. In this case God has invested the authority of the home in the man. When the man is specifically addressed, never is he told to submit to his wife, but to love her, i.e. Eph 5:25. This does not make the man better or superior to the woman, as the world belittles the idea of submission, but it does mean they have different roles - each vital to the success of the home. This supportive role in marriage is the female or feminine role. Without it the home becomes dysfunctional. Submission is crucial to the marriage and to the home.
This leads us to another question: What does it mean to be feminine in distinction from being masculine, and how is femininity to be expressed in marriage? In the book Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood John Piper, assimilating a lot of scriptural guidance, spells the differences in the two sexes this way, p. 35-36, “At the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man’s differing relationships. ---- At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman’s different relationships.”
Another helpful quote comes from Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth, p. 45, “There is something in a man that says, ‘I don’t want to be dependent on a woman to provide for me in the long term. I want to be the one responsible to provide for the family, the one my wife looks to and depends on for support.’ I have never met a man who does not feel some measure of shame at the idea of being supported by his wife in the long term. I recognize that in many families there is a temporary reversal of roles due to involuntary unemployment or while the husband is getting further education, and in those circumstances these are entirely appropriate arrangements; yet the longer they go on, the more strain they put on a marriage. I also recognize that a husband’s permanent disability, or the absence of a husband in the home, can create a necessity for the wife to be the primary provider, but families in which that happens often testify to the unusual stress it brings and that they wish it did not have to be so. On the other hand, there is something in a woman that says, ‘I want my husband to provide for me, to give me the security of knowing that we will have enough to buy groceries and pay the bills. It feels right to me to look to him and depend on him for that responsibility.’ I’ve never met a woman who did not want her husband to provide that sense of security for her.”
To show how the Scriptures consistently bear out this distinction in roles between the man and the woman in marriage consider the following quote from Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, p. 44, “Biblical support for the husband having the primary responsibility to provide for his family and the wife having primary responsibility to care for the household and children is found in Genesis 2:15, along with 2:18-23; 3:16-19 (Eve is assumed to have the primary responsibility for childbearing, but Adam for tilling the ground to raise food, and pain is introduced into both of their areas of responsibility); … Biblical support for the idea that the man has the primary responsibility to protect his family is found in Deuteronomy 20:7-8 (men go forth to war, not women, here and in many Old Testament passages); 24:5; Joshua 1:14; Judges 4:8-10 (Barak does not get the glory because he insisted that a woman accompany him into battle); … Jeremiah 50:37 (is the disgrace of a nation when its warriors become women); … Matthew 2:13-14 (Joseph is told to protect Mary and baby Jesus by taking them to Egypt); Eph 5:25 (a husband's love should expand the event to a willingness to lay down his life for his wife, something many soldiers in battle have done throughout history to protect their families and homelands); … in addition, there is the complete absence of evidence from the other side.
Nowhere can we find Scripture encouraging women to be the primary means of support while their husbands care for the house and children. Nowhere can we find Scripture encouraging women to be the primary protectors of their husbands. Certainly women can help in these roles as time and circumstances allow (see Genesis 2:18-23), but they are not the ones primarily responsible for them.”
So submission to and support for a husband as the leader and provider in the home is the will of God for all wives.
How does this then connect to the question of women working for pay outside the home?
Before we conclude that it is always wrong to work outside the home, we need to bring in the fuller teaching of Scripture so that our applications do not curve too narrowly.
Tune in to the next blog post for part 3 in our series to broaden your biblical view as we look at what the Proverbs 31 woman has to say on this subject.