Marital Duty - The Husband
I’ve been reading a great book on marriage entitled "Reforming Marriage" by Douglas Wilson. It is an unapologetic description of marriage as defined by scripture. I call it "unapologetic" because I am unacustomed to hearing some of the language and concepts when speaking of modern marriages. I have reproduced a portion of the book here for you to read in it’s entirety. I’ll post the rest of this chapter next week. It’s an eye opener.
Don’t neglect to check out the discussion starter list at the end of this post too.
from "Reforming Marriage" by Douglas Wilson
The Privileges of Marital Duty
In thinking about marriage, we tend to think that spontaneous actions are genuine while others performed from a sense of duty are stifled, artificial, and contrived. We especially think this way if we are considering questions “of the heart.” Doing one’s duty is thought to be restrictive to true love.
But the Bible defines love as a whole-hearted keeping of God’s commandments. The greatest act of love was certainly the death of Christ for His people, and that act of love was not offered on an emotional high. It was a bitter grief for Christ to drink the cup of God’s wrath, but that grief does not take away from His love for us; rather, it adds to it.
When we come to our duties gladly, it helps us to discipline our emotions. When we come to our duties with the knowledge that God has framed them for us and has assigned all marital duties appropriately, we can rejoice in His goodness. The result is not a negation of spontaneity, but rather a disciplining of it.
Biblical Duties of the Husband
In both the Hebrew of the Old Testament, and the Greek of the New Testament, the word for husband is usually just the word for “a man,” with the context showing that it is a husband who is in mind. However, another fairly common word in Hebrew for husband is baal, which means “master, or lord.” And in Greek, there are at least two instances of this sort of usage: kurios, which means “lord,” and hupandros, which means “man above.” The English word husband is a wonderful word which encompasses all of these biblical descriptions of a married man. There is the connotation of lordship, but it is a lordship involving great care, sacrifice, and tenderness.
A husband must always remember that as a husband he is a living picture of the Lord Jesus. This remembrance is his first duty in marriage. Since, as a husband, a man is speaking constantly about the Lord’s relationship to His people, he ought to seek to speak truthfully as well. The way the man treats his wife will determine whether he is speaking the truth about Christ or not. But he does not have the option of remaining silent; he is speaking all the time. This is because the Lord is a husband, and all husbands are therefore a representation of Him.
Because his relationship is speaking of Christ and the church all the time, he must learn to imitate Christ in character as well. This points to a man’s second duty. The Bible is very clear that the Lord is a husband to His people. “For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name .“ (Is. 54:5; cf. Jer. 31:32; Rev. 21:2; Eph. 5:23).
As a man seeks to imitate the Lord in his duties, he must be a husbandman to his wife. This means he must nourish and cherish her in the same way that he cares for his own body (Eph. 5:29). The word “nourish” is ektrepho, which means “to feed, bring up to maturity.” The word “cherish” is thalpo, and means “to keep warm, to cherish with tender love.” A man who does not take particular and tender care of his wife, and who then expects her to be fruitful and lovely, is not being a true husband at all; he is a dolt—the Greek word for this is probably meathead. A man must love his wife sacrificially (Eph. 5:25), and he must not expect anything but weeds unless he tends the garden with extraordinary care.
This is related to a third duty; which is that of jealousy. This perhaps jars our modern sensibilities; we are accustomed to view jealousy as a personal problem, rather than as a virtue to encourage and cultivate. This opinion, or reaction, is simply more evidence of how far we have fallen from biblical convictions concerning marriage. A husband must be jealous and protective. Paul uses this image of a good husband to exhort the Corinthian Christians to faithfulness. “For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2). In following the Lord, Christian men must remember that God’s name is Jealous. “. . . the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exod. 34:14). It is true that jealousy can be wrong and destructive whenever it is driven by any bitterness, resentment, or malice. But the same could be said for many other attitudes; if mixed with sin, they become sinful! Jealousy does not need to be mixed with sin. And under numerous circumstances, it is a sin not to be jealous.
But there are also very mundane duties involved with being a godly husband. For example, a husband must supply his wife with the food she needs. We can see this in a law given to ancient Israel, where a man was not permitted to defraud his first wife of certain marital rights through his polygamy. “If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights. And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go out free, without paying money” (Exod. 21:10—Il). We see here that one of the duties of a husband is to see to it that his wife has the money she needs for groceries. Put another way, a man may not shake himself free of certain basic marital obligations simply through taking another woman. It follows that the provision of food is one of those obligations. In the New Testament, we see that a man who does not take care of his extended family is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8). What then can we say of a man who does not take care of his immediate family, by neglecting his wife? Neglect of a man’s wife in this fashion is the equivalent of apostasy—it is a denial of Christ, who feeds His bride. In the same way, the Bible requires that a husband must supply his wife with the clothing she needs (Exod. 21:10).
A husband must also meet his wife’s sexual needs (1 Cor. 7:3—4; Exod. 21:10). In this regard, his body belongs to her. Paul uses very strong language with regard to this; he says that this is an area where the wife exercises authority over her husband. “Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (1 Cor. 7:3—4).
As one aspect of this, a husband must not deny his wife an opportunity to bear children. “And Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother.’ But Onan knew that the heir would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother’s wife, that he emitted on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother” (Gen. 38:8—9). The Lord struck Onan down, not because of a particular sexual act, but rather because of the fraud involved. It is necessary to remember that sexual activity is not seen in the Bible as merely a recreational indoor sport. It is not just recreation; it is recreative. The duty to provide wives with an opportunity for having children may seem “bizarre” to the modern mind. But this simply shows us how little modern husbands nourish and cherish their wives.
The Bible is very plain about another duty of husbands as well. A husband must be content with his wife (Prov. 5:15—23; Mt. 5:28). He is prohibited from coveting the wife of another man. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” (Exod. 20:17). Not only must he not long after the wife of someone else, he is positively commanded to be content with the wife he has.
Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well. Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be only your own, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; and always be enraptured with her love. (Prov. 5:15—1 9)
Specifically, a man is commanded to be satisfied with his wife’s breasts and to be enraptured with her love. To compare a woman with others, whether silently or aloud, whether with words or actions, is always destructive. And the more comparisons are made, the less contentment is possible. A husband must be content in all areas; consequently, comparisons must be avoided in all areas, whether involving beauty, cooking, intelligence, imagined sexual responsiveness, whatever.
For men it is particularly important to be content in the sexual area. This is much easier if a husband is doing what he should be doing in his other areas of responsibility.
Another duty involves the ongoing responsibility that a husband has to review and approve commitments made by his wife. Every vow and every binding oath to afflict her soul, her husband may confirm it, or her husband may make it void. Now if her husband makes no response whatever to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all the agreements that bind her; he confirms them, because he made no response to her on the day that he heard them. But if he does make them void after he has heard them, then he shall bear her guilt. (Num. 30:13—15)
We should recognize that when a husband says nothing, he is approving and leading by default. Whether he speaks or is silent, a man cannot cease being the head of the home. He can do it badly or well, but he cannot escape from the responsibility God has placed upon him.
So…Talk!
Ever get stuck for a subject when your spouse just wants to talk about something? Here are some questions that will definitely start a talk - how it ends up is somewhat dependent upon your own communication skills, but you will learn a few things in any case. Here’s the list: discussion starters
