What the Husband Expects from His Wife
What the Husband Expects from His Wife
A wife, domestic, good, and pure,
Like snail, should keep within her door;
But not, like snail, with silver track,
Place all her wealth upon her back.
– William Walsham How
Even in the happiest choice, where fav’ring heaven
Has equal love and easy fortune given,
Think not the husband gained that all is done;
The prize of happiness must still be won;
And often the careless find it to their cost
The lover in the husband may be lost:
The graces might alone his heart allure;
They and the virtues meeting must secure.
– Lord George Lyttelton
First and foremost, her husband, according to the unequaled description of the ideal wife given in the closing chapters of the book of Proverbs, must feel that he is able to safely trust her. Everything hinges here. She should not tell his secrets or discuss him with her confidantes; she should be faithful and careful in the administration of his money; she should be absolutely innocent in her relations with all other men, not seeking their admiration or accepting their private adoration. The surest way to forfeit a man’s love and heart is to be unfaithful to him. The surest way to keep them is to lock up his words and secrets as in a golden casket, giving the key to no one, but wearing it in the heart. Happy the husband who can safely trust his wife; he will always have a quiet, sheltered haven in which to repair his tempest-driven bark. And happy the woman who knows how to listen, how to draw out, and how to keep her husband’s secrets. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
A woman should not use her knowledge of her husband’s matters to help him in her own way. I remember a case in which this was done. Knowing her husband’s difficulties with a certain individual, without consulting him she sent for this person and tried to adjust matters. This resulted in greatly aggravating the situation, for this man’s first thought was that the husband was a coward for not dealing with him directly. He finally lost his temper with the wife for presuming to meddle. Then, when the husband learned of what had happened, it seemed to shatter his trust, and from that moment until years gone by had healed the wound, he could not resume the old perfect interchange of thought. You may mend a fractured globe of glass, but there will always be the crack.
Fenelon says of the duties of a wife: “Let her love her husband next to her God; let her submit to him with mildness and obey him with cheerfulness; let her deserve his confidence by her discretion, her modesty and reserve.” There is no doubt that, in the view of the New Testament writers, the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ should be of every man and must be of His church. And that shunned word obey is certainly and unhesitatingly used by the apostle Peter, while submission is stressed by the apostle Paul. I am not unaware of the attempts which have been made to minimize the force of these words by the suggestion that they emanated from men’s prejudices and were colored by the usages of the time. My belief in the power and teaching of the Holy Spirit forbids my diluting the instructions that He has inspired. And from first to last, all Scripture gives the impression that, except where her duty to God interferes, the woman’s nature should yield to the man’s.
In that rarest of all mausoleums erected for love of woman, the magnificent Taj at Agra, in which the dome of pure white marble soars high in the clear air over the tomblike monument of a tenderly loved wife and queen, I noticed that the slab above her remains was fashioned like a slate. However, the slab above her husband’s, who was interred nearby, resembled a pen box, because according to the thought of that age, the woman presents her nature to her husband as a slate, on which he may write what legend he will. This thought is in harmony with the Scriptures we have quoted, and both agree with the ordinary instinct of human society, which almost considers it a breach of nature when the woman, as in Burma, takes the lead and does the business, while man is effeminate and weak.
But in a rightly ordered marriage, these issues never occur. Or at least, relations must have become terribly strained when they do. No loving husband will command his wife, and no true wife will hesitate to count his wish as law whenever it is clearly expressed and consistent with her loyalty to God, the nature He gave her, and the children to whom she has given birth. But none of these considerations could be ignored by a true man.
They were so one, it never could be said
Which of them ruled, or which of them obeyed:
He ruled because she would obey, and she,
By obeying him, ruled as well as he.
There ne’er was known between them a dispute
Save which the other’s will should execute.
That a woman should love her husband need hardly be repeated; only let it be noted that such love will find expression. A woman must carefully maintain the little arts and tendernesses of the courting days – not coy, nor artful, not peevish, nor irritable. She needs to not push needlessly her preferences and dislikes, or make much of insignificant and trifling trials; but she needs to be sweet, bright, tender, inviting the caress, and quick to respond to the first movement of love and return it. Perhaps she might not always wait for him to woo her, but go to him with welcomes that speak in sparkling eyes, outstretched arms, and kisses that are as fresh as the breath of the sea.
Whatever may have been the trials and worries of the day, the wife should try to greet the husband with a loving smile. Let her run to welcome him at the door as she once did, and accompany him to the doorstep when he must go forth to meet the world. “The soul’s armor is never well set to the heart, unless a woman’s hand has braced it – and it is only when she braces it loosely, that the honor of manhood fails.”
And why shouldn’t she dress herself as tastily and daintily now as she did when on tiptoe she listened for the step of her lover? She must not spend their common money on trifles or extravagant dresses, but she can always dress neatly, tastefully, and prettily. And if she must wear the same dress till its colors are somewhat faded, a woman will always find a way of making it appear different – with a flower, a ribbon, or a piece of lace. But it is good to keep the habit of dressing to receive him when he comes home tired and wearied. Not that he cares about the dress, but he cares much for the love that prompted the thought.
And then, how necessary it is to be punctual, to have everything ready, to be on the spot! To miss that first moment is to miss the froth of the new milk, the dew of the young day! How good to have some thoughts ready to keep the fire of conversation from dying to gray ashes. How wise to be able to look on the bright side of what has depressed and tested the agitated worker and to avoid adding to his worries by enumerating the vexations of the day! He will be willing to hear them presently, when the worries of the day have receded. Then he should hear them, or there is the danger of an estrangement creeping in. How marvelously a wise and prudent woman can extract the sting from the wound or the poison from the hurt, and how often a wife’s wise counsel has averted a mistake and suggested a prudent and sound policy, thus fulfilling the ancient couplet of the sage:
She openeth her mouth with wisdom;
And in her tongue is the law of kindness.
– Proverbs 31:26
There are dark, sad days in all our lives, but a wife’s love shines then as the lighthouse beside the fort. Bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring all things, her love, like God’s, never fails. Her idol may have been shattered. She may have awakened to find her husband further than she expected. She might sit among the ruins of her hopes, not daring to tell another her sad secret. But she will unburden her sorrow to God and pray, and be patient, and wait; she will continue to do her duty in the home and for her husband, as she did when all the landscape was bright. She will do so until her task is done, and either her love will conquer, or God will take her to His bosom where broken hearts are forever comforted and healed.
Many a husband expects from his wife more than he has any right to expect – that she should always yield to him; that she should always be sweet, cheerful, patient, and forbearing; that she should be willing to mind the home while he goes out to his politics, his religious meetings, and his pleasures. Take care, husbands, lest you bend the bow to breaking and stretch the worn string till it snaps. Remember, there must be a reciprocity in the give-and-take of married life, and if you ask for so much, be sure to accept it with thanks, frank acknowledgment, and the renewed expressions of endearment which cheer lonely hours and make a light like heaven’s smile hover over your vacant seat the many hours you are gone from home.
6
7
8
Extracts from The Religious Works of Monsr. Francois Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray,
9
Sesame and Lilies