"Your System…Makes Women Helpless

“A housewife depends on her husband for a meal. There is no check on what he can do to her, and even if he beats her she can’t leave him because she’ll starve to death. She has nothing but his good graces to keep her alive. Look, males are not saints. They’re human and prey to the same faults as women are. Your system gives males completely unchecked power and makes women helpless.”

This comment from a reader reflects a common misconception of God’s order and design of marriage.

It sounds like a reasonable argument, and therefore one of the reasons given for the importance of women pursuing a career and forsaking the traditional role of homemaker.

This comment is a great example of a deeper issue…the need of a Savior. The above comment certainly has validity, if the housewife and husband aren’t believers, governed by an absolute law of truth.

The “check” for a husband and wife is not their own whims and desires; the check is the Holy Spirit of God in their lives. It is acknowledging that God’s ways are right and being willing to submit to His plan.

Isn’t this the whole crux of the matter? Isn’t this why feminism and humanism and relativism are driving our culture? Because if the Word of God is not your starting point, if a husband and wife relationship is not held together by God’s grace and mutual love, if we are not living out the ultimate tenet of the Christian faith–“love your neighbor as yourself”, then it doesn’t make sense!

Apart from Christ, none of what I talk about here makes sense. Apart from Christ, yes, a husband could take only what he likes about the Scripture “wives, submit yourselves to your husbands”, and become a brow beater, thus distorting the whole face of Christianity.

But in Christ, you have a mutually dependent relationship. The husband loves his wife and lays down his life for her. The wife respects her husband, which drives him to serve her all the more. She does depend on him (according the Scripture, dependence is a GOOD thing!) for taking care of her, and he depends on her for creating and maintaining the home, nurturing his treasures (children) and for many, many things like friendship, counsel, and intimacy.

He doesn’t want to be without her, and she doesn’t want to be without him. He thinks she is a jewel, and she thinks he hung the moon.

(Yes, I know, even Chrstians struggle with this picture, but mostly because we are so infected with feminist thinking ourselves!)

In Christ, a husband and wife is supposed to be a picture of Christ the Groom, and His church, the Bride.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Thank you Kit, for creating the need to make this point.