In the last few days, I’ve come across two different discussion threads online about the problem of Christian wives disrespecting their husbands in public.
One case involved a pair of friendly couples from the same local church. The first couple had observed on several different occasions the way the wife of the second couple treated her husband in public. The first husband and wife (surprisingly) agreed that this woman’s treatment of her man was inappropriate, unchristian and a terrible testimony to anyone watching.
Readers floated a few suggestions: maybe the observing husband should talk to the disrespected husband; maybe somebody should talk to church leadership about the problem, and so on.
The one thing NOBODY suggested is that a godly older woman who had observed the conduct of the wife speak directly to the wife about it, confronting the problem at its source. I thought that interesting.
And On, and On
We should never be surprised when we encounter male-bashing in 2025, including in the church. Generations of TV and internet husband-hammering have thoroughly propagandized young women growing up in Christian homes. For that matter, their mothers probably experienced the same song and dance in their own generation and may well have helped inculcate bad attitudes toward their future husbands in their own daughters. I remember it going on in my childhood as I watched The Flintstones at lunchtime: Wilma was always right, Fred was always wrong. TV comedies from the same era all the way to today have preached the same hyper-feminized message to viewers: husband dumb, wife smart. Always, and with no popular exceptions.
So, when you run into a Christian wife these days with what appears to be an attitude problem toward her husband, she gets plenty of sympathy from yours truly. Nothing about the media or the popular culture in which she grew up will encourage her to respect her husband or to cultivate realistic and reasonable expectations of him. Depending on where she goes to church, her pastor may not either. Unless she has seen gracious, submissive behavior modeled by her mother and other women of mom’s generation, or unless she is in her Bible regularly and committed to obeying everything she reads there, she probably doesn’t think that in having roast husband for lunch she’s doing anything remotely outrageous, let alone does she anticipate correction from anyone else. She’s acting on what has become effectively the social default: “Men, you know what they’re like!”
“Let the Wife See”
No matter how countercultural it may be, the scriptures plainly teach that public humiliation of her husband should never be a weapon in a wife’s arsenal. Most Christian women, including the disrespectful ones, know these verses well. I don’t need to belabor those, surely. “This is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.” Or how about “Let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Most women brought up in believing homes have learned quite well by now that it doesn’t pay to retort, “Well, Paul was a misogynist” to that, as feminist so-called Christians do. The lecture from her in-laws will only continue; the argument is ridiculous coming from anyone who claims to follow Christ; and it’s not just Paul, it’s Peter as well.
Nevertheless, for many a Christian wife, these words penned by the Holy Spirit don’t sink down and touch her conscience, possibly because she simply doesn’t see them playing out and making a difference in the lives of most other couples around them. There’s a gulf between interpretation and application that few relationships manage to bridge. Rarely does anyone call out a wife when she crosses the line from affectionate teasing into ritual humiliation. I’m actually shocked to see Christians recognizing and discussing the problem online. It never happens in person. Not to me, anyway.
Take the Husband Aside
What strikes me as most interesting is that almost everyone passing comment on the subject thinks the solution is for someone from outside the situation (a man, invariably) to appeal to one biblical authority figure or another. “Take the husband aside,” they counsel, “and give him a gentle word about his obligation to push back.” (Hubby ought to assert his biblical right to his wife’s respect. Good luck with that strategy!) Others say friends should get the pastor involved to assure a more scriptural relationship dynamic is working itself out. The truculent wife may not respect male authority in the person of her own husband, but she’ll surely respect the pastor, right?
Hmm, maybe.
I’m not sure whether the instinct to bypass direct conversation with the wife about what she’s doing is a product of the fear of confrontation, or not wanting to be perceived as a busybody, or the instinctive appeal to authority that comes from a lifetime of expecting governments and functionaries to fix everything that’s wrong with the world. I have no idea where it comes from. I just observe it’s very common. Everybody wants to jump right to Stage Three or Stage Four without ever considering Stage One: having a personal, discreet talk with the offending party.
Of course not. That might cost you something.
Or Maybe Not
For several reasons, I have a hard time getting comfortable with either authority-figure approach:
One: Running to leadership behind the scenes rather than confronting the situation directly is not really the scriptural pattern we observe. The Lord’s teaching in Matthew 18 concerns a brother who sins against you, not a sister who sins against her husband, but the underlying principle of keeping the circle as small as possible while (ideally) solving the problem applies to every act of loving correction in which we might engage. Does not love cover a multitude of sins?
Two: Pointing the problem out to the beleaguered husband to address is not likely to be very effective. He is probably already trying, and the fact that you’ve noticed his failure to successfully modify his wife’s conduct in public only adds to the poor guy’s grief. Be assured you are not telling him anything he doesn’t already know. By the time a woman has reduced herself to humiliating her husband in front of others on a regular basis, she is not about to listen to what he has to say when he opens the scriptures and takes her to Peter or Paul to correct her conduct.
Three: As for running to the pastor, assuming he is willing to broach the subject with the wife at all (I would be profoundly disinclined in his shoes), perhaps you may see some exterior modification to her conduct. She will not want the label of a “bad wife”. But you haven’t really addressed the underlying problem, which is attitudinal.
Four, and probably the most important of the bunch: Is it not the older women in the local church who bear the responsibility of training the young women to “love their husbands”? It seems to me a private word from a respected sister in Christ is far more likely to have a positive effect than any kind of clumsy, male-sponsored intervention. A woman who has practiced submitting to and building up her own husband over the years can highlight from personal experience the obvious advantage to that approach: it is vastly more effective than nagging, chiding or sniping. She can point to the positive results in her own marriage.
Running to the Pastor
Any woman who has ever tried it knows it to be true: a man who feels loved and respected is far more likely to go out of his way looking for ways to please his wife than the man who feels belittled and rejected. There is almost no way to go wrong by showing a man respect. It can only work in a woman’s favor. I suspect the only reason so many wives don’t realize this is that they imagine their husbands are motivated by the same fears and concerns they are. But with a few rare exceptions, men care far more about receiving the respect of our wives than about appearances and public opinion. We are also far, FAR more likely to respond to a carrot than a stick, which tends to inspire real males to double down on whatever they were doing. In any case, the tactic of tackling our differences while clothed in humility is thoroughly scriptural.
In the end, I am convinced godly women handle such tricky situations best. Spiritual men can teach the basics from the pulpit by faithfully sticking to what the scriptures teach, and not losing courage in a climate that rejects “patriarchal” truth. But it takes a woman gifted in the art of rhetoric to translate time-tested spiritual principles into the nitty gritty of day-to-day interaction without compromise. I say if your church is fortunate enough to have a godly older woman you can call on to help out, why not let her have a go? You might be surprised at the results.
You will probably also be surprised how little you have to tell her about the problem. She will already know.
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