Homeworking is the Biblical Lifestyle for Christian Wives

Homeworking is the Biblical Lifestyle for Christian Wives

Here are a few paragraphs from Mary Pride’s excellent book The Way Home

The movement toward outside careers is NOT a Christian invention. The American materialistic feminist tradition favoring women’s economic independence and socialized domestic work gave it birth in the nineteenth century. Like all religions, it has a Great Assumption. Christianity’s Great Assumption (which unlike other religions’ is verifiable by historical evidence) is that the Bible is true. Feminism’s Great Assumption is that woman is the measure of all things.

Homeworking is the biblical lifestyle for Christian wives. Homeworking is not just staying home either (that was the mistake of the fifties). We are not called by God to stay home, or to sit at home, but to work at home!…To call only women who leave the home working wives amounts to saying that women who stay home don’t work! This psychological word game is at the root of our modern career movement.

Careerism is based on an inferiority complex, as follows. 1) Only men’s work has worth. Women’s traditional work is useless. Therefore, 2) I must get a job to prove I am somebody. If all the action is out in the men’s “economic-opportunity sphere,” well then, we’ll have to crowd into that end of the bus.

Homeworking means working at home. We are not supposed to be the breadwinners – that’s the man’s job. But we are to make an economic contribution. You probably already make more money for your family than you realize…I calculated that every dollar saved by homeworking wife amounts to three earned, because you don’t have to pay tax, tithe, day-care, transportation, and a whole host of other expenses on money you save. Do you bake whole wheat bread or make your own yogurt?

The money saved on medical bills from proper nutrition is no small change, and the amount you save by cooking from scratch can also be quite substantial. It’s not uncommon for a homeworking wife to save her family thousands of dollars a year on their food bills alone. And wives who teach their children at home instead of paying for Christian school can save $10,000 a year or more, depending on family size.

Picture a housewife coming home with bags of food, having stopped off at the supermarket first, then the health food store (because yeast and other bulk items are cheaper there), and the produce market (for fresh fruit and vegetables), and you’ve got it. This the the picture of the Proverbs 31 woman is trying to convey.

Wives who join food co-ops, who trek out monthly to a nearby farm to buy eggs, honey, and grains in bulk, who carefully sift over the radishes before putting any in their shopping basket, who have learned to stretch a dollar farther and buy better food with it – these are the women this passage describes.

She looks well to the ways of her household, and eats not the bread of idleness.
Proverbs 31:27

Painting by Laurts Tuxen

14 thoughts on “Homeworking is the Biblical Lifestyle for Christian Wives

  1. Lori,
    When I was in college I took a Women’s Studies class. I think that you would have enjoyed it. We learned about the lack of respect for women’s labor at home and how women’s work at home actually contributes to the economy despite the lack of a wage. Although this class delved deeply into feminism and women in the workforce, it was not dismissive of women’s work at home and for those who did not grow up with a view on biblical homemaking, was actually very eye-opening! Women who work all day at home are doing 10+ jobs! Perhaps churches should offer classes like this for young men and women who will not be attending/taking them in college … I say men too because I believe if more men realized the value of women working at home they would be less inclined to assume their wife will work full time.

  2. Lori,

    I love the title “Homeworking is the Biblical Lifestyle for a Christian Wives”!! The Unfallible Word of God has made it clear on God’s perfect design for wives.

    Last year I read both of Mary Pride’s The Way Home and All the Way Home. Thank you so much for your encouragement. There are many promises the Lord has given in His Word to those who uphold His ways and follow the narrow road. Thank you!!!!!!!!

    PS The other day I was discussing with a sweet friend your post on how grandmothers need to be Keepers at home. Although I would love it for my young children (who are homeschooled) if their grandmother was a homemaker and not a worker outside the home and could spend more time with them, I so look forward to the time (if the Lord tarries and if He wills), that in my older age I will be available as a homemaker to be a blessing to my children and grandchildren!!!

  3. I LOVE being a grandma and spending time with my grandchildren! It’s a huge blessing to me.

    We’re going to be going through The Way Home in the chat room beginning this week so you’ll probably seeing a lot more quotes from it!

  4. I agree, Kate. Men’s lives are so much easier if they have hard-working wives at home tending to the children and the home. Their lives become much more complicated if their wives work. I don’t understand how a man would want anyone other than his wife raising their children. None of feminist’s ways make sense to me.

  5. Before we married, over ten years ago, my husband had a son, a house, and was building his career. Because of this he had a nanny, a maid, and dry cleaning services for his work clothes. After we married he discontinued those services and I took them all on. As I look back on this I realize that I was of great value to him! Haha!

  6. Yes! My husband often tells me how much he appreciates all that I do, and how I do so much for our family, how much of a help I am to him, and that he couldn’t do this all without me. I feel veey much valued and loved!

  7. Nicely worded by Mary Pride. The point in Genesis 3:6 and 3:16a is that the woman insisted on being the measure, the interpreter, and in control of all things, and that is the way to Hell, the way of Feminism. God’s point throughout scripture is that the way to Heaven is that the man will measure all things, and most specifically measuring her in Gen 3:16b (and the likes of “Prove all things”) and he must not hearken to her voice — her measure, her interpretation, noted in Gen 3:17. The man is the keeper of God’s Word and is why the wife is to obey him and why she seeks his interpretation at home (can’t recall that verse).

    This “woman is the measure of all things” is ultimately what the church believes IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS in marriage and most other topics, and is the effective worship of women. But God said for the woman to worship the man, “calling him ‘lord’ 1 Pet 3:6 and ‘glorifying’ him 1 Cor 11:7, and the man worships and glorifies the Lord. You worship who you obey; they ‘lord’ over you. You respect them; this is why husbands are not commanded to respect wives …but only wives, husbands.

  8. Also, as Mary Pride well noted, not only does a working wife have to pay for all those things noted, but the tax dollars support devilish causes like Planned Parenthood, etc. And there are less cars on the road so less societal costs; and if you believe ‘climate change’ then less ‘greenhouse gasses.’

    And as a man, I have always fixed almost everything, including building my own house, in part for some of the reasons Pride mentions: there is no tax on what I do. Much of the reason to get women [and men] out of the house is because they can be controlled through the transfer of wealth and are then a (un)natural source to fund the world’s agenda.

    God had REAL purpose behind His every word. If we don’t understand, then we must blindly follow …which is just fine.

  9. This is awesome
    God bless you and your family .
    This is what i believe all long from the day i gave my life to the Lord .
    God bless you .

    Do you have any audio cassette or video teaching on the topic?

  10. Only yesterday at my church i had to get up and tell the truth in our Bible studies , they have been studying the book of 1 Timothy nearly a year now and my heart grieved me .
    I had to tell them a that the church need to be taught sound doctrines
    And our young men and women need to be taught their respective biblical role .
    Because a husband should be the bread winner of the family and the wife should guard the home , and should not be out working like men .

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