More Than Just A Housewife…
My beloved spoke and said to me, “Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, come with me. (Song 2:10)
by P.J. Stratton
So, your Prince Charming gets down on one knee and proposes marriage to you, His Princess! Dreams of happily ever after fill your heart while your future husband is dreaming of the perfect housewife: home cooked meals served at 5 pm sharp daily after a very long day of spic and span cleaning of his castle.
“What?” you say? “I am more than just a housewife!” Yes, that’s right; you are according to Proverbs 31.
Proverbs 31:26-31 26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. 27 She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. 28 Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” 30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. 31 Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.
You are an amazing woman that is capable of almost anything! However, for thousands of years there has been a mindset among men that women become their property when they are married. These amazing wives become their husband’s possession and permanent maid and personal chef.
Then, add birthing and raising children to the mix and the fun begins. Or should I say that’s when a prison sentence begins if your prince is not kind, compassionate and of a Godly nature, instead of being a mean Svengali with a swirling tongue bossing you around.
Perhaps, the enemy slipped a counterfeit into your life who behaved like a Prince while courting you and now, lo and behold he’s now a Svengali! Do not be deceived or tricked by the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Men and women may change their behavior after they marry!!
Please do not beat yourself up if this has happened to you. You will live to love again! Yeshua has a great sense of humor while on our journey and light overtakes darkness, not the other way around.
His greatest plan for marriage between a man and a woman is building a lifetime partnership together. In Him, with Him, about Him and of Him until death do you part…your marriage vows to each other. This is a trinity of Yeshua and husband and wife; the three together just as the Father, His Son and His Holy Spirit.
That is why Ephesians 5:25 warns husbands:
“For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.” Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” … He who loves his wife loves himself.
Not only does God command the husband to love his wife and reminds him that they are ONE FLESH the Lord demonstrates through the ONE FLESH analogy that the husband should highly value her as he values himself with all her amazing gifts and efforts! Without her, he is half a person, ineffective, incapable of being completely productive, and successful.
SO, WHAT IS A WOMAN’S VALUE MONETARILY?
According to the 2013 Business Insider, a housewives value in addition to any outside jobs she has is as follows:
Amazing statistics aren’t they? However, despite the many years contemporary society has attempted to blast past stereotypes of women “belonging in kitchen, barefoot and pregnant” while performing all the household labor, the inequity still exists, even in Christian marriages.
I ask you, how much economic value does domesticity really have? How much is the wife’s entire domestic labor worth? Extrapolate this number over a 50 or 60 year marriage and the view from this vantage point is the exact opposite of God’s template for Adam and Eve in the ‘Garden of Eden’.
Angela Davis gives a prime example of this stigma, “In advanced capitalist societies when all is said and done, the housewife, according to bourgeois ideology, is quite simply, her husband’s lifelong servant”.
This is truly a sad commentary from the world but often seems to reflect the truth. Christian families should be different, right?
Here are a few Bible references for your viewing pleasure…
| REFERENCE | MARRIAGE/ONE FLESH |
| Genesis 2:24 | Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. |
| Proverbs 5:18-19 | [5:18] Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. [5:19] Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. |
| Matthew 19:5-6 | [19:5] And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? [19:6] Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. |
| Matthew 22:30 | For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. |
| Mark 10:8 | And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. |
| Mark 12:25 | For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. |
| Luke 20:35 | But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: |
| I Corinthians 6:16 | What? Know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? For two, smith he, shall be one flesh. |
| I Corinthians 7:3-5 | [7:3] Let the husband render unto the wife her due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. [7:4] The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. [7:5] Defraud ye not one another, except it are with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. (incontinency – want of self-restraint) |
| Ephesians 5:25-32 | [5:25] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; [5:26] That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, [5:27] That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. [5:28] So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loved his wife loved himself. [5:29] For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: [5:30] For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. [5:31] For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. [5:32] This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. [5:33] Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. |
I am Beautiful:
You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you. (Sol. 4:7)
She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. (Prov. 31:25)
You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. Is. 62:3
My beloved spoke and said to me, “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. (Song 2:10)
She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. (Prov. 31:26)
Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. (Ps. 34:5)
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! (Ps. 139:13-16)
Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it. (Psalm 139:13 – 14)
For we are God’s masterpiece… (Eph. 2:10)
I am Valuable:
…Created to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph. 2:10)
Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her! (Lu. 1:45)
God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. (Ps. 46:5)
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. (1 Pet. 5:10)
And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? (Es. 4:14)
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; (1 Peter 2:9)
For our citizenship is in Heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phil. 3:2o)
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. (1 Sam 16:7)
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Mt. 5:8)
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Cor. 12:27)
You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. (1 Cor. 6:20)
I am Created as Beloved and Christ Lives in me:
She is worth far more than rubies. (Prov. 31:10)
But by the grace of God I am what I am. (1 Cor. 15:10)
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands… (Is. 49:16)
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)
And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Cor. 6:18)
For in Christ Jesus you are all sons (and daughters) of God, through faith. (Gal. 3:26)
…the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col. 1:27)
I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (Jo. 15:15)
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. (1 Cor. 15:58)
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (Jo. 1:12)
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:3)
And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph. 4:24)
So God created mankind in his own image… (Gen. 1:27)