Wives to be Submissive

     I was pleasantly surprised at the positive comments I've received
about last weeks article on submission in the family.  All comments
that were from women and agreeing that it was important that the wife
be submissive to her husband.  My wife encountered one group of ladies
who were in the middle of discussing the article and they asked what
she thought about the matter.  She answered them by saying that she
felt that way about marriage long before she ever met me.  In fact,
this was one of the first conversations that we had soon after we had
met.

     One sister in the Lord told me that she could agree that the wife
should submit to her husband, but, "What is the woman supposed to do
if her husband refuses to accept his God given leadership of the
family?"  Hers was a good question and one that I had anticipated
being asked since this is often the case in many marriages.

     When the scripture says that the wife is to submit to her
husband, we need to realize that this is the ideal situation as God
designed marriage to be.  Unfortunately, life doesn't always live up
to God's ideal plan for mankind, so we must deal with matters as they
are so that hopefully we can with His help, come up to the ideal that
He has set for us.  Still, we come up painfully short.

     For many men, it is just not in their nature to take the
leadership role.  Because we live in a sinful world and are far less
than we should be, they haven't developed that side of their nature. 
Then because decisions must be made, the woman is pressed to take the
lead for the sake of the family.

     We also run into families where the woman is a believer in Christ
and the husband not.  Not being a Christian, he is probably not
concerned with what God wants.  The wife then must take charge in
areas in which he is lacking.  Then too some husbands may have jobs
that require extended absences from their families, or many times the
family is disrupted by major illness or even death and the wife is
forced to take charge.

     The difficult part for many women in this is being able to step
back again into submission again when the husband is once again
available and wanting to fulfill his role.  She likes the feeling of
independence and may refuse to step back.  The danger is that if she
goes too far in this search for independence, the husband may get the
feeling that he is not needed any more and the marriage dissolves. 
These feelings of rejection may cause him to start looking elsewhere
so that he can once again feel that he matters to someone.

     Of course we have not covered all the different problems or
situations that can happen in a family but these are ones that are all
too common.  We can perhaps even see where we need to face up to some
of these things in our own families.  Together we must start to look
to Jesus and only then can we begin to put our families into the order
that God intended all along.  It may not be easy, but I will guarantee
that it will be better.

Frank Cooke