Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?
— Genesis 18:12
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
— Genesis 3:16
Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:
— 1 Peter 1:22
For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?
— 1 Corinthians 7:16
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.
— Proverbs 11:30
For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands.
— 1 Peter 3:5
Reverence and Submission, by George Swinnock.
It is observable that the Holy Ghost, wherever He mentioneth the duties of husbands and wives, doth, in the first place, always set down the duty of the wife, as Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; 1Pe 3:1-3, of which a double reason is given by learned Davenant: first, because the duty of a wife is most difficult. Affection or love, which is the husband’s chief duty, is pleasant; but subjection or obedience, which is the wife’s main duty, is painful. Subjection is so much against the hair that many, like untamed heifers, kick and fling if the yoke comes near their necks; though the harder their task is, the greater is their credit if they perform it conscientiously. Secondly, because the love of a husband doth very much depend upon the subjection of a wife. Women cannot rationally expect that their husbands should affect them unless they obey their husbands. An obedient wife is the likeliest woman in the world to command her husband.
Reader, if God hath called thee to this relation, make His Word thy rule and godliness thy business in it: “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised” (Pro 31:30). Inward beauty is indeed praiseworthy: “She shall be praised.” A gracious wife is a credit to herself and to her sex a crown; a choice ornament to her second self (Pro 12:4). Both her holiness and her husband will praise her.
1. Her holiness: “Her works praise her in the gate” Pro 31:31. When others have nothing but the black beauty-spots of sin to set them forth, pride compasseth them about as a chain, and atheism covereth them as a garment. But for a virtuous woman, grace is her glory and godliness is her comeliness. Religion buildeth her such an honorable monument, that neither age nor hell can ever pull it down. How famous are many women in Scripture for their faith! “And some of them believed…and of the chief women not a few” (Act 17:4). When the apostles proved cowards, many women followed Christ to His shameful cross; and the Holy Spirit records it to their eternal credit: “And many women were there” (Mat 27:55). The feminine gender hath sometimes done more worthily than the masculine. The weaker vessels have held out in the hottest fires. In the Marian days, some women proved eminent martyrs. Though the philosopher tells us that woman is only “the aberration of nature,” and many vilify them as persons of no worth, yet Scripture, the Word of truth, dignifieth them as consisting of the same essential parts and capable of the same celestial perfections as men. How highly doth God commend them when they are holy! And for aught any man can tell, a woman, next to the human nature of Christ, hath the greatest place of any creature in heaven.
2. Her husband will praise her. A gracious wife satisfieth a good husband and silenceth a bad one: “Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her” (Pro 31:28)…
The wife’s special responsibilities consisteth principally in these particulars: First, in honoring her husband’s person…The wife, next to her husband, shines in her house far above all those stars that are fixed there. But God hath appointed that she give place to her husband and be willing to prefer him. Rebekah, when she approached Isaac, “took a vail, and covered herself” (Gen 24:65) in token of submission to her husband…That this veiling the face is a token of great reverence, we find in Elijah, who, when God appeared and talked to him in Mount Horeb, covered his face (1Ki 19:13)…
This respect must be inwardly, in her affections. She must love him as a member and fear him as a head. Her fear indeed must not be like that of a servant to his master nor that of a child to his father. From the former it differs specifically: for the slave fears the rod, not the person; the wife feareth the person, not the rod. From the latter it differeth gradually: according to the degree of the distance, such is the degree of respect. The child’s distance being much greater, his respect is, or should be, greater also; but her fear must be like that of the church to Christ: an acknowledgment of His superiority over her, an unwillingness to displease Him in anything, and a dread lest she should offend Him. When the judgment consents to the husband’s authority, the will resolves to own it in all her actions, and the heart hath a dread upon it lest she should disown it. Then she is said to fear him, and not before. The apostle Peter, writing to wives, wishing them so to live that their unbelieving husbands may be won, said, “Whilst they behold,” saith he, “your chaste conversation, coupled with fear” (1Pe 3:2). A respectful wife may possibly make a religious husband. The head may fare much better for the good temperature of the body. Fear in her may be instrumental to work faith in him. There was one woman famous, or rather infamous, in the world for the lack of this fear; but, reader, observe the sad fruit of it. Michal, David’s wife, despised him in her heart. Here was her fault: instead of fearing him as her head, she despised him in her heart, and that for his holiness (1Ch 15:29). But mark also the fruit: “Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death” (2Sa 6:23). God hath barren wombs for such bold, disrespectful women. If she slights her head, God will scourge her body. Barrenness in those days made women contemptible. Then when Elizabeth had a child, she triumpheth: “He God looked on me, to take away my reproach among men” (Luke 1:25). Now, because David was contemptible in Michal’s eye, God made her contemptible in every eye. And it is further remarkable that Michal, having no natural children, would of necessity have adopted some of her sister Merab’s children; but God punished her in them also. He disgraced her in hanging and bringing them to disgraceful ends. Barren Michal hath many daughters, who despise their husbands; but let such consider that they shall one way or other feel God’s anger. Though they will not fear their dying husbands, yet they shall find that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (2Sa 6:23; 21:8-9; Heb 10:31).
This reverence must be outward in their expressions and actions. Sarah called Abraham lord (1Pe 3:6), not out of flattery, but to acknowledge his authority; not as desirous to humor his pride, but as willing to know her own place. Jezebel and Zipporah are both stigmatized in holy writ for their saucy, sinful language to their husbands (1Ki 21:7; Exo 4:25). If a woman answers her husband, it must be with humility; if she would advise him, it must be with gentleness; and if she admonishes him, with much lowliness of mind. If she speaks of him, it must be respectfully; if she speaks to him, it must be respectfully. The humble posture of her body upon all occasions should speak the respectful temper of her mind. The fault of some wives is very foul, who, out of disrespect, refuse to call their husbands by their names, but have some passionate periphrasis to describe them by—“this man” or “this fellow” or, it may be, “this fool”; as Saul in derision called David, “the son of Jesse” (1Sa 22:9, 13), and the Jews in contempt called Christ, “the carpenter’s son” (Mat 13:55).
The woman is called “the glory of the man” (1Co 11:7) because it is a high honor to him that so excellent a creature as a woman should be in submission. Surely, then, wives that refuse this respect are their husbands’ shame and disgrace. When once a woman harbors contemptible thoughts of her husband, this one evil weed will so overrun and spread in her words and actions that no good thing will grow by it. Oh, it is a most doleful living, when the wife, instead of respecting, is always railing at and wrangling with her husband. There are wives that are worse than their dogs: though their dogs bark at strangers, they will not bark at their master; but they spare not the husband—the master of the house—in their cursed peevishness and passions. Nay, the very devils have order amongst themselves: they will acknowledge a prince, a superior among them; but these wives will acknowledge none above themselves, but must rule all or else the house must quickly be made too hot for their husbands. A serpent is as good a companion as such a wife; for a serpent, if it kill, doth it suddenly; but such a wife makes her husband die lingeringly, for his whole life is a civil death. I thank my God that I never so much as tasted those sour herbs; but truly I have pitied from my heart some husbands, whose outward beings have by such wives been made as miserable as is almost possible on this side of hell. It is a thousand pities that the tongues of such shrews have not as many blisters as their jaws have teeth. It is never better with their husbands than when they are hoarse; and it were well if such blemishes of their sex, such monsters in nature, and such plagues to a family, were gagged until they had learned better language…
Indeed, the titles given to the husband in Scripture speak both his superiority and her submission. He is called her lord (1Pe 3:6), her master (Est 1:17), her guide (Pro 2:17), her head (1Co 11:3). How many reasons are laid down for this respect?
1. Because the woman was made after the man. Therefore, she should not go before the man. That which was first in this sense must not be last; and that which is last, first. “For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (1Ti 2:13).
2. Because the woman was made of man. “For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man” (1Co 11:8). She is a branch springing from him as her root and, under God, did receive her origin and being from him. Now, the effect is ever less noble and inferior to the cause.
3. Because the woman was made for man. “Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man” (1Co 11:9). In reason, that which serveth to any end is less than the end to which it serveth.
4. Because the woman was first in sin (Gen 3:16; 1Ti 2:14). Sin brings shame; therefore, she that was first in sin must not expect to be first in honor. Since Adam sinned in being ruled by her, it is fit that she should be ruled by him.
5. Because the man is the head of the woman (Eph 5:23). The members are subject to the head, without rebelling or reasoning. This duty of respect is natural as well as necessary.
6. Because the man is the image and glory of God (1Co 11:7). In man there is a resemblance of God’s dominion and authority, being lord of the world. The woman is the image and glory of God, according to her original creation, for she was made as holy and happy as the man. But this is not according to her personal relation to her husband; for rule, which is the man’s privilege, is God’s glory and prerogative, and not submission, which is the woman’s duty.
7. Because God hath given the man rule over his wife. “Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” (Gen 3:15)…
Reader, if thou hast any fear of God, I know thou wilt fear thy husband; then thy language to him and of him will not be rude but respectful. And thy attitude will not be pouting and gloomy, frowning and fuming, but such as is clothed with the garment of meekness. In obeying his lawful precepts, thy work is not to complain of, but to comply with thy husband’s commands; obedience will arise naturally from respect and is the best testimony of it. Many women are noted for questioning and quarrelling at their husbands’ authority, but few for obeying their husbands’ lawful desires…But holy women will be like Dorcas, full of good works, and know the role in which God hath set them. How infamous is that family where the wife, like Jezebel, rules the roast; and the husband, like Ahab, lets her do what she wills! If the moon gets the upper hand of the sun, the wife of the husband, the next thing to be expected is an eclipse of the honor of that house…“Wives,” saith the apostle, “submit yourselves to your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Eph 5:22-24). In which words, the Spirit of God gives women,
First, a precept to submission: “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands.” The word submit signifieth an…orderly submission of the wife to the authority of her husband. A commanding wife inverts the order of nature, as well as the ordinance of the Creator. A wife is made to be a help to a man, not to be the head of a man. Ahasuerus’ law was written in the tables of those heathen hearts that every man should bear rule in his house (Est 1:22).
Secondly, a spring of this submission: “as unto the Lord.” Her obedience to her husband must proceed from conscience to God. It will not be a sufficient excuse for her to say, “He doth not love me, therefore I will not obey him!”—for not the husband’s affection to her, but her affection to God, must be the great motive to subjection. “If my husband fails in his duty, I suffer; but if I fail in my duty, I sin.” The former is a cross, but the latter is a curse. If the husband does not mind his duty, but is wicked, the wife hath the more need to take her responsibility that she may win him (1Pe 3:1-2). Besides, it is God that commandeth this obedience, and He will requite it.
Thirdly, the ground or reason for this submission: “For the husband is the head of the wife” (Eph 5:23). His authority commandeth submission from her. It is natural for the body to obey the head. What an uncomely sight it is to see the shoulders above the head—the wife lording it over her husband.
Fourthly, the pattern: “Therefore, as the church is subject to Christ, let the wife be subject to her husband.” The obedience of the church is cordial; sincerity is her glory—she doth the will of God from the heart. The obedience of the church is constant; it runneth parallel with her life. “I have inclined mine heart to perform thy statutes alway, even unto the end” (Psa 119:112); thus should wives obey their husbands. Their hearts should accompany their hands, and their obedience should last whilst they live. As a fair, gilded mirror is of little worth unless it represents the image of him that looks into it, so a beautiful, wealthy wife is worth little unless she resembles her husband’s disposition in her attitudes and conditions—I mean, so far as she may with a good conscience.
Fifthly, the extent: “So let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing”—i.e., in everything that is lawful. If the husband enjoins what is inconvenient, she may meekly desire it may be waived and humbly offer her reasons; but if he persists, she must obey though it be painful. If it be possible, she must set about it. And truly, though thy husband be never so peevish, endeavor to thine utmost to please him; for though he take all thy actions ill, yet thy God will take them well. And in so doing, thou shalt be sure to please God, Who, the harder thy task is by reason of thy husband’s untowardliness, will take it the kinder at thy hands. Only, if he commands what is sinful, she may, nay, she must, refuse to obey him, for then he commandeth beyond his power. It is said, therefore, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord” (Col 3:19); mark, in the Lord, not against the Lord. As God must be loved above a husband, so God must be pleased before a husband. As thy husband is to be loved next to God, so he must be pleased next to God, but not before God. If a justice of peace command his neighbor to take up arms against the king, he is not to be obeyed. If his neighbor obeys him, they are both traitors. But what a justice commands an inferior officer in the defense of his prince, or in obedience to him, must be obeyed.
Indeed, sad are the consequences of unruly wives. When the order of nature is disturbed, there ensue great inconveniences, as earthquakes, thunders, and deluges; so when this order of the wife’s subjection to her husband is denied, there follow sad inconveniences. Their hearts tremble like an earthquake with jealousy of each other; their house is full of the thunder of brawling and scolding, and their whole lives with an inundation of weeping and bitterness.
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