What's an Older Woman to Do?

What's an Older Woman to Do?

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. Titus 2:3-5 NIV

In the 1960s there were several revolutions that changed American society forever. While I am grateful for many of the outcomes those great movements accomplished I grieve the loss of what I will call “a sense of individual responsibility.” In the marriage relationship, for instance, equal has become same, same has become together, together has become reciprocal, and reciprocity has led to a mandatory fifty-fifty division of labor. Role definitions have become blurred beyond recognition. I am afraid that in that climate individual responsibility can be avoided if “my partner does not do his/her part.”

Before the revolutions, women’s magazines contained articles and stories about how to be a wife that were very useful. They would probably send today’s woman screaming from the room. In 1961 I was given a book titled "The Marine Officer’s Wife" (I was one) that sounded like instructions for a medieval serving wench. But, we may have thrown away some of the baby with the bathwater when we all became more enlightened.

Those books and magazines had helped us understand that “wife” really is, among other things, a job title. There are ways responsible wives should or should not behave regardless of the circumstances surrounding them. We must acknowledge that there is special power in owning your job description and submitting to the requisite training. It is this that makes firemen run toward a fire, makes paratroopers jump out of planes, makes a nurse or doctor touch the patient despite the damage and disease. A wife is a Wife. She needs to embrace the job, the job description, and the training. Since the revolution the training has been a hard thing to come by.

Some of the confusion is understandable. The terms “couple” and “one-flesh” certainly suggest the connection between two people united in marriage. “Marriage counseling” is usually defined as “couples counseling.” How can we work on the marriage if we can’t get both partners to come in? But that is only defines part of the relationship..

A few years ago I gave a talk at a women’s conference and women began to call to talk to me about their marriages. Some of these women were behaving very badly in response to the bad behavior of their husbands. It seemed unwise to allow a woman to believe she could not change her behavior or her circumstances unless she could get her husband to cooperate.

Looking carefully at Scripture I found that there were no provisos, no reciprocity, no quid pro quo. Each person was expected to behave according to the instructions, the job description, written for them in the Word regardless of the behavior of the other spouse

So, a woman would come to see me. She would tell me about her husband’s behavior. Some of these stories were agonizing to listen to, but I refused to be overwhelmed by the tale. (This assumes there is no physical abuse.) Then I would ask about her behavior. We would determine what God wanted her to do, and I would send her off to do that. Invariably, if she persevered with all diligence she would report a difference in her situation. She would have changed the only person on earth she has the power to change. Herself!

This is not a guarantee that all marriages can be saved or even improved. But if a woman takes responsibility for her own behavior something changes. My work at this time focuses on helping women understand how to be a Wife. I try to pass on the training that keeps them from being dragged around by their emotions, their circumstances, or their limitations, or the behavior or shortcomings of others. I would like to begin a new revolution that elevates marriage to its rightful place in our hearts and minds. I am starting with women because I know them best. Besides, I have to start somewhere, before everyone forgets what marriage looks like.