Woman's Place in the Home
“Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives: while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned them.selves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.” — i Peter iii. 1-7.
‘HERE were pure and virtuous homes in the old classic world, of which the fragrant memory lingers to this day. Who can forget Panthea, who, as her husband left her to fight under the renowned Cyrus, said? — “If ever there was a woman that regarded her husband more than her own soul, I am that woman.” Who can forget the refusal of Cornelia to accept one of her many and even loyal suitors, because she insisted that her inarriage with her noble husband, Titus Gracchus, was not annulled by his death? Who will be untouched by that exquisite description from the hand of the great Pliny, who, speaking of his wife, said? — “She loves me, the surest pledge of her virtue; and adds to this a wonderful disposition to learning, which she has acquired from her love to me. She reads my writings, studies them, and even gets theip. by heart. You would smile to see the concern she is in when I have a cause to plead; and her joy when it is over. She finds means to have the first news brought her of the success I meet with in court. She accompanies my verses with the kite, with no master but love, the best of instructors. Her affection is not founded on my worth or person; but she is in love with the immortal part of me.”
But these were isolated instances, canonized in history because so exceptionally rare. The poets and historians of the Roman Empire paint in the blackest colours the utter disregard of the marriage tie; the abominable and shameless immorality which sapped the foundations of the State, and led with inevitable exactness to its fall. These descriptions are more than substantiated by the revelations of the walls of Pompeii. Into such a world of stygian darkness, lit by a few stars, came the religion of our Lord, and among its very first creations was that of the family and the home. For these, its earliest and most precious gifts to the age of its inception, and to all ages, mankind must ever own itself indebted to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus.
Even the Jewish people had become grossly lax in their notions of the obligations of wedded love. The rabbis permitted divorce on the most trivial pretexts. If the husband were not pleased with his wife’s behaviour, or if she spoilt his food in cooking, or were stricken with a grievous bodily affliction, he might put her away. It was held indeed that this facility was a special privilege granted to Israel, but not to other nations. That such was the state of society brings into startling emphasis the words of Christ, who repeatedly went back to the primeval institution of marriage, one woman for one man, and insisted that these two must live together in the home, in a relationship which could only be dissolved by death or by unfaithfulness.
It is necessary that these words of Christ and his Church should again speak in the ears of the world. The growing revolt of the classes and the masses from the simplicities of Christianity is being followed closely by an increasing disregard of the ties of marriage and the bonds of home. How rapidly the business of the divorce courts is increasing. We must have, forsooth, looser divorce laws. We must not be too puritanic. We must admit with Strauss that the New Testament contains “ascetic” notions concerning marriage: that the Sermon on the Mount is deficient in the knowledge of human nature; that the scientific method is in colHsion with the Bibhcal ideal. And we are asked to condone the offences of certain great thinkers and brilliant writers of our time against the sacrament of marriage, as if their genius relieved them of moral obligation, or put them under some special regivie.
From such lamentable laxity, which is doing so much to dislodge from its position the key-stone of our national greatness, little heeding the lessons of the past, or realizing the full measure of disaster which must crown the success of its endeavour, we turn with relief to the high, pure, and divine conception of the place of woman in the Christian home, her adorning, and her treatment.
I, Her Position. — It is true that she is bidden to be in subjection. But then we must also remember the peculiar circumstances under which these Epistles were written, and the revolution which was afoot.
Women had been degraded for centuries, as they are degraded now throughout the Orient, and where Christianity has not come — supposed to be destitute of souls; the drudge and slave, or toy; a piece of property, valuable or not, as the case might be. But, like a ray of dawn, there came the teaching of the Gospel. Woman was declared to be the helpmate of man, taken not from his head or feet, but from his side, to be his companion. In Christ was neither male nor female. The Holy Spirit showed no partiality in his operations, but endowed the women of the early Church equally with the men. The Lord Himself had admitted women to the inner circle of his blessed friendship, and had called out their noblest attributes. Before the eyes of the world there hung the memory of the Virgin Mother; of the women who ministered to Him; of those who broke their alabaster boxes on his person; of those who were last at his cross, first at his grave. The miracle at the peasants’ marriage was a sign of the Master’s smile on this holy rite. And, as these visions passed before the retina of woman’s heart, she responded to the call of Jesus with glad delight; she flung herself at his feet with the rapturous cry, “Rabboni”; she pressed into his Church, where she was welcome; and there was a danger lest in the new-found ecstasy she might break loose from those sacred obligations which were as old as Paradise, and which no Gospel could sever or relax. Christ had not come to destroy the primeval rite, but to fulfil, and to show that it was a pattern of that eternal and indissoluble union into which He enters with his Church.
This was the origin of the command to be in subjection. It was, primarily, addressed to those who since their marriage had become Christians. There was considerable hesitancy in the early Church, as to their duty under such circumstances. “Should they leave their husbands?” “Should they alter their behaviour to them?” “Should they assume any superiority?” “No,” said the Apostles, “stay where you are, however painful your position, and uncongenial your surroundings, and trying your husband’s conduct. Be chaste, gentle, loving, submissive, winsome, so that hearts may be softened, which have never heard a word of Gospel preaching, and may be won by the beauty of your holy and unselfish lives.”
Of course, where true love subsists between husband and wife, and where both are Christians, such a command as this is hardly needed. There is no room for subjection, where there are no masterful commands; no standing up for rights; no jealous strife for independence. The sensitive instincts of love define exactly, as no words could do, the respective position of husband and wife; and, altogether apart from such an injunction as this, it is perhaps rather the nature of woman’s love to yield, to lean on one stronger than itself, and to give itself away in deeds of loving ministr)’.
If all Christian women would live like this, there would be less need of preaching to their unconverted husbands. “Without a vlord, they would be won by the conversation of their wives.” Won! “A soul converted is gained to itself, gained to the pastor or friend or wife or husband who sought it, and gained to Jesus Christ; added to his treasury, who thought not his own precious blood too dear to lay out for this gain.” And what more ii6 Wioman’s ^lact in tire %amt,
precious guerdon could reward a wife’s chaste and God-fearing behaviour than to know that her husband was to be a jewel in her crown, won for her Lord!
There is nothing here for those who desire to marry out of the Lord. They are clearly forbidden to be unequally yoked with unbelievers; and they will find, to their cost, how bitter a thing it is to disobey a distinct command. No hope is held out of either winning the other, where from the first God’s Word has been set at nought. But where conversion has taken place after marriage in the case of one partner, there is every reason to cherish hope for the other.
Oh, brokenhearted women, disappointed and of sorrowful spirit, ready to despair, disposed to abandon heart and hope, be not weary in well-doing; be yours the love that never faileth; remember that, in dark places, you are to exemplify that love for the sake of the dear Master, who is looking on and will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able to bear; dare to trust Him for the future, and believe that God will yet give you your dearest who sail in the ship with you over the stormy waves.
What a lesson is here for all! We cannot all preach by lip; but we can by life. And such preaching is mighty in results; whilst the effect of it abides long after the life has passed from view into the ministries of the upper sanctuary.
IL Her Adorning. — It does not seem that the Apostle forbids plaiting the hair, or wearing of gold, any more than he does the putting-on of apparel. Religion does not consist in the presence or absence of these things. If we wear them, we are not better; if we abjure them, we are not worse. It makes surely very little difference to the Saviour whether we dress in silk or calico, in colours or drab. The one law is — to dress as becomes the station in which He has placed us, and in such a way as not to attract notice to ourselves.
Of course if a certain style of dress is associated only with the worldly and irreligious; or if it exercises an injurious effect on those who minutely watch and exaggerate what they see in us; or if it attracts excessive remark, and makes us self-conscious — we do well to discard it, and lay it aside. But where this is not the case, it is well to keep moderately in the wake of custom and usage, lest we attract as much attention by our prudery as our pride, and so minister to our accursed love of singularity. But it is very pitiful when the Christian conscience becomes morbid on these points. Some are so constantly questioning what dress their Lord would have them wear, that they miss much of his company. Of course, we ought to select our attire under his eye, asking for his guidance in our choice, and his grace to indicate his taste for us. Surely the Master has a right to say what his slaves should wear, and how they should spend his money! And He will indicate his will in the gentlest and most delicate manner. Cast the responsibility more utterly on Him, and then occupy yourselves much more with Himself than with your attire, so occupied with Him as to be almost oblivious of it.
The great point with each of us should be: Where is my adorning? If it be without, then indeed we are in evil case. But if it be within — in the hidden man of the heart, in the cultivation of a meek and quiet spirit — we may leave outward matters to shape themselves very much as they may; and they will cease to attract an undue share of our attention or thought. Great is he, says Seneca, who enjoys his earthenware as if it were plate; and not less great is the man to whom all his plate is no more than earthenware. Plenty are there whose outward body is richly decked, but whose inner being is clothed in rags; whilst others, whose garments are worn and threadbare, are all glorious within. It is a solemn question: What are our garments in the sight of God? Do we know anything of this meek and quiet spirit, so precious in his esteem, so restful and blessed amid the tumult of the world?
The clue to its possession seems hidden m the suggestion that the holy women in the old time trusted in God. Turn your heart towards God; and the result will show itself in such wholesomeness of behaviour, such consistency in well-doing, such freedom from sudden fear, as will commend the Gospel, and attract the smile of God.
III. Her Treatment. — These words to husbands may well ii8 ‘^toman’s lace in tljc %amt.
be extended by the addition of the words spoken to them in the Epistle to the Ephesians, in which they are bidden to love their wives as Christ has loved the Church, nourishing and cherishing them as their own body.
But three striking and beautiful suggestions are made here which will suffice: —
(i) Give honour to the wife as the weaker vessel. — All bear on their nature the touch of the great Potter’s moulding hand; but some are stronger than others, and in Christ’s code the obligation to consider the other always rests with the stronger. Politeness, high-breeding, chivalry, courtesy — these are mimicked in society; but their original types are found only where Christianity has wrought her perfect work. No man can fully acquire them until this Gospel is written in his heart; they pass from within outwards, not from without inwards. And many who have never been admitted to so-called good society are God’s own gentlepeople.
(2) Remember that you are heirs together of the grace of life. — There is no such union as that of those who are wedded in the love of God, and to whose love his love gives depth and meaning and a touch of infinitude. Of a relationship like this we may well repeat the motto on Charles Kingsley’s grave, summing up a life of exquisite married bliss: we love; we loved; 7ve will love. Let thoughts of the common grace of life attemper and ennoble your relations.
(3) See that your prayers be not hindered. — There is no test so subtle as a good man’s prayers. When he kneels before his God, He will know in a moment whether or not he has contracted defilement during the preceding hours; and, if so, where. And he is bidden to leave his gift at the altar, and go to seek reconciliation, ere he returns to offer it. Whatever then arises in the hour of prayer, and breathes on the mirror of the heart, is thereby proved to be injurious and wrong, and must be put away. Whatever makes husband and wife unable to pray together alone, or at the family altar, must be dealt with mercilessly as a hindrance. And if only we are faithful and true in these daily particulars of conduct, our prayers will not only be unhindered but helped, and we shall gain such conceptions of the love of Christ to us, amid all our failures and imperfections, as will make the wedding bells ring out a perpetual chime of love within our hearts, and we shall understand another phase of his love which passeth knowledge.
There is nothing which tests us so much as the daily discipline of the home life. It is much easier to stand amid a crowded asseinbly calling Christians to entire consecration, than, on the following morning, to bring those lofty principles to bear on the small details of the breakfast-table, when the radiant light of the Transfiguration Mount has been exchanged for the grey of an autumn day-break, and the excitement of the crowds for the simple presence of wife and child. It is not so difficult to live like saints where we are set free from the ordinary friction and responsibilities of daily life, and surrounded by those who interpose as many pillows of loving consideration as possible between us and anything which would fret and annoy us. At the same time, if our religion breaks down here it breaks down utterly. If we are not right, so far as in us lies, with our nearest, it is very questionable if we are right with God. Love to God involves love to man. And if we do not love with a warm, sunny, attractive, and unselfish love those who live within our home circle, we may gravely question whether we have tasted of the love of God. For even if we have come to the end of our love we may become the channels through which His love may flow down to bless and save.