A Wife’s Honor for Her Husband

I had the experience over the several few years of distantly observing a few ladies handle the approaching deaths of their life-long husbands. Some I just knew from afar and others I just heard about from people close to them. These ladies are from a different generation from my own and 2 steps removed from that of the young people getting married now. What I noticed with these ladies in particular was the honor they held for their husbands and the great efforts they went through to preserve their husbands’ dignity to the end. Please take note that in describing these men, people close to them didn’t say that they were “holy”; they didn’t even say they were “spiritual.” Most of the men were old-school. They had seen hard times (much harder than the “hard times” we see today), and had to push through those times with the support of these women in their lives. They were hard, coarse men. One might call them male chauvinists today. Simply put, they were REAL MEN. Regardless of how coarse they were, their wives respected, honored, and stayed by them for life. This is a generation of women that is fading away, and if the current generation of women doesn’t recognize and take hold of the wisdom of that generation, it could spell disastrous consequences for marriage and family beyond what we’re seeing today.

Of course I know of some ladies of my generation and the next who do honor their husbands in this way, but they are in a strict minority. Hopefully it’s coming back. What these wise women skillfully and prudently do is stoke their husbands to assist them in reaching their full potential in all areas of life: work, family, and religious. They don’t sit back and evaluate where he is in these areas and where he’s lacking and decide what areas, if any, they’ll allow him to lead. They love, honor, and obey their husbands as they willingly and freely vowed to do on their wedding day. Fr. Paul Marx said that the principal weakness of men is discouragement. This is because God wired him to succeed, to achieve. He gave man a helpmeet to stay at his side to encourage him, not to evaluate or discipline him. Instead of being the 60s women’s lib “I am woman, hear me roar” groupies, they are confident in their femininity and their relationship with their husband. They don’t feel a need to tell anyone what their gender is. They feel like they can get better results encouraging their husbands to succeed instead of trying to compete with him or do it for him.

This is not being taught on a consistent basis to young ladies and girls today, even in the Catholic community. Even Catholic schools teach girls to compete with each other and with boys and to shoot to become leaders. It should be a consistent and fundamental part of Catholic education to teach girls that their roles in marriage (which most of them will pursue) will be to be submissive to their husbands and to encourage them in their leadership role. But from a young age, girls are placed into competition with boys in athletics and academics and this plays on into higher education and into the competition in the work force. As there is more and more pressure through affirmative action for companies to hire women, men are passed over for jobs and promotions. One lady pointed out that this is very prominent in Australia and that the effect is very detrimental to men who have nothing else but to be providers in families. Women’s primary focus on the other hand is mothering in a family. The girl as the cheerleader instead of the competitor is much more fitting of her future role in marriage.

The common question or offering to this position is: Well, couldn’t a woman stoke her husband and go out and do it herself as well? That sounds good in theory, but I just haven’t seen that work consistently. Again, just check the divorce rate. We are talking about men and women and the way God made us. If a man’s not able to make it, it’s discouraging. If his wife has to go out and do it for him, it’s even more discouraging. Many men simply don’t last in this situation. He often takes the blame for not sticking it out. But the situation simply does not line up with the God-given roles of marriage. Regardless of the year in history and how “developed” and “progressive” we’ve become as a society men are still men, and women are still women.

Today’s young ladies need to be taught deference and respect for the man they intend to marry for life. She needs to be very selective in the young men she’s allowed to court. “Dating” which is merely a game, shouldn’t be practiced by Catholic girls. They should be allowed to court once they are ready to marry. They should be seriously counseled on the things to look for in a man who will lead and provide for their family, beyond being “cute.” Instead, girls observe marriages today where the wife runs the house and leads the marriage, which often results in marital tension and conflict often ending in divorce. I would think young ladies today would be yearning for something better. It’s there—it’s God’s plan for marriage, and it should be offered to them.

God bless you+