Section 6

The wife, then, is a second authority. She possesses authority and a great equality of dignity, yet the husband has a certain precedence. This ordered relationship is a chief safeguard of the household. Paul used the example of Christ not only to teach the husband to love, but also to shape and guide the life of the home: “so that she may be holy and without blemish.” His language about “flesh” teaches love, and “he shall be joined to her” likewise teaches love.

If you help make the life of your household holy and without blemish, everything else follows. Seek the things of God, and human affairs will follow much more easily. Give good order to your marriage, and the household will be held together. Listen to Paul: “If they wish to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home.” If we govern our own homes in this way, we will also be fitted for oversight in the Church, for the household is a little Church. In this way husbands and wives who become good can rise to great virtue.

Consider Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and the three hundred and eighteen servants born in Abraham’s household. See how the whole house was held together and how full it was of reverence for God. Sarah fulfilled the apostolic pattern and reverenced her husband. Hear her words: “It has not happened to me until now, and my lord is old.” Abraham in turn loved her so much that he listened to her in everything. Their child was virtuous, and even the household servants were admirable. They did not hesitate to risk their lives with their master; they did not delay or demand explanations. One servant who stood over the others was so trustworthy that Abraham entrusted to him the marriage of his only son and a journey far beyond their own land.

As with a general whose army is well ordered, so that the enemy finds no place to enter, so it is in a household. When husband, wife, children, and servants all care about the same good things, the home has great harmony. When this is not so, one bad servant can sometimes overturn and destroy everything; a single person may ruin the whole household.

Let us therefore take great care for our wives, children, and servants, knowing that in doing so we make our own responsibility easier and that our account before God may be gentle and favorable. Then we may say, “Behold, I and the children whom God has given me.” If the husband is admirable and the head is sound, the rest of the body will not easily be harmed.

Paul has spoken carefully about the proper disposition of wife and husband: he exhorts the wife to fear her husband as the head, and the husband to love her as his wife. But how can this actually be accomplished? He has shown that it ought to be done; now I will tell you how. It happens if we despise wealth, if we look to one thing alone—the virtue of the soul—and if we keep the fear of God before our eyes.

What Paul says when speaking to servants applies here as well: “Whatever good or evil each person does, he will receive the same from the Lord.” Therefore do not love your wife merely for her own sake, but above all for Christ’s sake. Paul hints at this when he says, “as to the Lord.” Act, then, as one obeying the Lord and doing everything for His sake. This is enough to persuade us and prevent needless quarrels and division.

Let no one be believed simply because he slanders a husband to his wife. Nor should a husband readily believe accusations against his wife. The wife should not scrutinize every coming and going without reason; yet neither should the husband give her legitimate cause for suspicion.

Tell me: what if you give the whole day to your friends and only the evening to your wife, yet even then cannot reassure her or free her from suspicion? If your wife complains, do not become irritated. Her complaint may come from love rather than arrogance—from intense affection, passionate attachment, and fear. She fears that someone may have stolen her marriage bed, deprived her of what she regards as the chief good of her life, taken away the one who is her head, or violated the security of her marriage.

There is another source of petty jealousy. Neither spouse should seek an improper degree of personal service from the household servants: the husband should not become overly attached to a maidservant, nor the wife to a male servant. Such behavior is enough to create suspicion.

Think again of that righteous household. Sarah herself told the patriarch to take Hagar. She gave the instruction; no one compelled her, and Abraham had not initiated it. Although he had spent so long without children, he had chosen rather to remain childless than to grieve his wife.

Yet after all this, what did Sarah say? “May God judge between me and you.” If Abraham had been like many other men, would he not have become angry? Would he not have raised his hand and said something like, “What are you saying? I did not want to be with this woman. The whole thing came from you, and now you accuse me?” But Abraham said nothing of the kind. Instead he replied, “Behold, your servant is in your hands; deal with her as seems good to you.”

He surrendered the woman who shared his bed so that he would not grieve Sarah. Nothing ordinarily creates a stronger bond than sharing the marriage bed. If even sharing a table can make robbers feel fellowship toward one another—as the Psalmist says, “You who shared sweet food with me”—how much more should becoming one flesh draw people together. Yet Abraham did not allow even that bond to overpower his loyalty to Sarah. He placed Hagar back into Sarah’s hands, showing that what had happened did not arise from his own initiative.

And still more: he later sent Hagar away while she was pregnant. Who would not feel pity for a woman carrying his own child? Yet the righteous man did not let this consideration turn him from what he believed was his first marital duty; he placed his love for his wife before everything else.