What is A Good Wife's Place These Days?

We are definitely in a time of confusion. Up is down, right is wrong, and left is right. Did the '60s or '70s send us spinning, or did it start much, much earlier than that?

The divorce rate is either leveling, or decreasing, and this is not necessarily good news. It reflects, rather, that heterosexuals are not getting married, but instead they co-habitate. Homosexuals, in the mean time are demanding, on every level, that marriage be for them! How ironic.

We chase our careers while refusing to allow children into our lives, only to find out that we have waited too long. With one or two children, obtained through great expense, we raise them on pedistals of our own construction, only to find that, "our children will choose our nursing home" one day. We die in our old age, as we lived in our youth, alone.

We lower the standards of education in High Schools, so that no one will feel like a failure, and then 90% of any graduating class goes to college for four years, going into debt to acquire a degree that enables them to manage a McDonalds, making barely enough money to pay off their loans, thus delaying marriage and family. So, our two-income economic system is set up to presumably support only upper class service jobs, two incomes per household and daycares raising the fewer and fewer children.

Then, when the marriage fails, when either or both "parties" are not getting from the arrangement what they bargained for, divorce is easy. "Incompatibility" not infidelity, is the only thing necessary for the schism. Not only that, but women are paying child support to men, and men, who try to demand visitation are guilty of child abduction!

Although I will claim laziness and dread as reasons for not working on the "right place" for the wife, the unraveling of the problem is mind boggling. I was a young child when this web began to be woven...or was I only in God's plans? Each of our objections must be held up in the light of Scripture. Each must be sifted as wheat, and the chaff must be burned.

Is there anything new under the sun? Was it my mother who taught me to rebel against my husband, or did my Mother Eve?

Is there any sin that is unique to our age, that is not dealt with in Scripture?

You thought you lived in a ball of confusion back then:

1, 2... 1, 2, 3, 4, Ow!

People moving out, people moving in.
Why,
because of the color of their skin.
Run, run, run but you sure can't hide.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Vote for me and I'll set you free.
Rap on, brother,
rap on.
Well, the only person talking about love thy brother is the...
(preacher.)
And it seems nobody's interested in learning but the...
(teacher.)
Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration,
Aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation.
Ball of confusion.
Oh yeah, that's what the world is today.
Woo, hey, hey.
The sale of pills are at an all time high.
Young folks walking round with their heads in the sky.
The cities ablaze in the summer time.
And oh, the beat goes on.
Evolution, revolution, gun control, sound of soul.
Shooting rockets to the moon,
kids growing up too soon.
Politicians say more taxes will solve everything.
And the band played on.
So, round and around and around we go.
Where the world's headed, nobody knows.
[Instrumental]
Oh, great GoogaMooga, can't you hear me talking to you.
Just a ball of confusion.
Oh yeah, that's what the world is today.
Woo, hey, hey.
Fear in the air, tension everywhere.
Unemployment rising fast,
the Beatles new record's a gas.
And the only safe place to live is on an Indian reservation.
And the band played on.
Eve of destruction, tax deduction,
city inspectors,
bill collectors,
Mod clothes in demand,
population out of hand,
suicide, too many bills,
Hippies moving to the hills.
People all over the world are shouting, 'End the war.
And the band played on.
[Instrumental]
Great GoogaMooga, can't you hear me talking to you.Sayin'... ball of
confusion.
That's what the world is today, hey, hey.
Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya. Sayin'...
ball of confusion.
That's what the world is today, hey, hey.
Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear
ya.Sayin'...
ball of confusion

.

Does the wife belong in the home? barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen? in a corporate office? in public office? in authority? We will definitely have to rely on Scripture for any meaningful discussion:

Genesis 2:18-25 (niv)
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make
a helper suitable for him."
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the
ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them
to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each
living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the
livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was
sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22
Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he
brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, '
for she was taken out of man."
24
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his
wife, and they will become one flesh.
25 The man and his wife were
both naked, and they felt no shame.

Matthew Henry on Genesis 2:18:

Power over the creatures was given to man, and as a proof of this he named them
all. It also shows his insight into the works of God. But though he was lord of
the creatures, yet nothing in this world was a help meet for man. From God are
all our helpers. If we rest in God, he will work all for good. God caused deep
sleep to fall on Adam; while he knows no sin, God will take care that he shall
feel no pain. God, as her Father, brought the woman to the man, as his second
self, and a help meet for him. That wife, who is of God's making by special
grace, and of God's bringing by special providence, is likely to prove a help
meet for a man. See what need there is, both of prudence and prayer in the
choice of this relation, which is so near and so lasting. That had need to be
well done, which is to be done for life. Our first parents needed no clothes for
covering against cold or heat, for neither could hurt them: they needed none for
ornament. Thus easy, thus happy, was man in his state of innocency. How good was
God to him! How many favours did he load him with! How easy were the laws given
to him! Yet man, being in honour, understood not his own interest, but soon
became as the beasts that perish

...to be continued.