“If a wife has in her soul noble womanly qualities, if she has true thoughts of life, if she has purpose, strength of character and fidelity to principle, she will be to him an unfailing inspiration toward all that is noble and Christlike. The high conceptions of life in her mind will elevate his conceptions. His firm, strong purpose will put vigor and determination into every resolve and act of his. Her purity of soul will cleanse and refine his spirit.

“Her warm interest in all his affairs and her wise counsel at every point will make him strong for every duty and valiant in every struggle. Her careful domestic management will become an important element of success in his business life. Her bright, orderly, happy homemaking will be a perpetual source of joy and peace, and an incentive to nobler living. Her unwavering fidelity, her tender affectionateness, her womanly sympathy, her beauty of soul, will make her to him God’s angel indeed, sheltering, guarding, keeping, guiding and blessing him. Just in the measure in which she realizes this lofty idea of wifehood will she fulfill her mission and reap the harvest of her hopes.

“Such is the ‘woman’s lot’ that falls on every wife. It is solemn enough to make her very thoughtful and very earnest. How can she make sure that her influence over her husband will be for good, that he will be a better man, more successful in his career and more happy, because she is his wife? …” (I will finish this question in tomorrow’s post!)

As I was typing these words out, I thought about the women in the day that J.R. Miller wrote them. He wrote this book Homemaking in 1882. Did women balk at his words like women do today? I seriously doubt it. They probably were convicted and challenged. They probably wanted to be the kind of wife that he wrote about. Most of the women were wives, mothers, and keepers at home. There was no birth control, so married women who weren’t infertile had children, most likely many children.

They still had to be taught, however, how to be a godly, supportive wife. It doesn’t come naturally, but because feminism wasn’t in the air they breathed, they probably accepted his words willingly. They made sense to them. They didn’t mock and ridicule them as woman do today. They probably desired good, strong marriages and wanted to be good homemakers. I am sure he had a lot easier time teaching women than I do today.

We can decide to build our homes up through our words and actions, or we can tear them down. What are you doing, women? Are you building your home up by building your husband up, or are you tearing it down with your actions and words towards your husband? You can’t have a good and strong home if your marriage falls apart. Work on becoming the wife that God has called you to become. You will reap many blessings from doing so.

Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.
Proverbs 14:1