Male and Female Roles

Recently, there was an article on Forbes.com by Michael Noer called, “Point: Don’t Marry a Career Woman.” In response to his article, Elizabeth Corcoran, another Forbes employee wrote a response titled “Counterpoint: Don’t Marry a Lazy Man.”

http://www.forbes.com/business/2006/08/23/Marriage-Careers-Divorce_cx_mn_land.html

Lets look at what the Bible has to say about this argument.

First of all, the Bible gives distinct roles to males and females.

Genesis 2: 18 (NIV)

18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

From the very beginning, wives were created to be helpers for the man. This does not mean that women are somehow worth "less" than men, but rather, the Lord has given everyone specific duties and a place within the chain of command. A wife's place is to assist her husband.

Genesis 3: 16,17 (KJV)

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Within only the third chapter in the Bible, it is already established that the husband is to be the "worker" or "toiler", and the wife is to be the "homemaker", "mother", and "helper".

Of course, you can argue that this is Old Testament, and that we are no longer under the law. True enough, and I'll show you in future posts that the New Testament is perhaps even *more* specific on this chain of command.

Perhaps you'll consider me legalistic. Well I'll tackle that in future posts as well. My husband is fond of saying that people only tend to throw out the term "legalistic" when it applies to something they don't want to do, or personally don't feel is important. I've never heard someone say "Thou shall not commit murder", and have someone yell out in response, "You're just being legalistic!". To be legalistic is to believe you can earn your way in to heaven. I'm a hopeless sinner, undeserving of heaven on my own ground.

Instead, I just want to be a good servant of the Lord. A good servant does as she is told, and a good servant does not decide for herself what is important to her God.

As a Christian woman, I believe my priorities are God, husband, children, household, and then out-of-the-house work. At this point in my life am also a "career woman", in the sense that I work outside of the home as an RN. Over the last year, however I have decreased my nursing load to 24 hours per week.

So should a man marry a "career woman"? Only if she has her priorities straight, and can keep her Lord, husband, children, and home before the outside job. This is a very tough assignment, and one that I have had trouble juggling myself.

In fact, it's such a tough assignment that it's probably impossible. Even at a part time job of 24 hours a week, there are times when I *should* stay home or attend a church function when I simply cannot (or risk losing my job). As soon as my husband determines we are financially able to do so... I'll be a full time wife and mother.

Overall, I believe these two articles reflect the words in Ecclesiastes 1:2 (NIV)

"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

Clearly God has a plan for His idea of marriage and family. To apply any other "logic" or "worldly wisdom" to the definition of marriage, family, or the type of person you should marry... well, it's just meaningless.