Must wives love their husbands?

[ColorMomma]

The submit part is not necessarily appropriate all the time. I prefer to look at my marriage as a team with common goals. Sometimes I have insights into finances, child rearing, and social cues that my husband does not initially see. Sometimes he provides that for me. We help each other. We check each other. The submission component is in play when the couple ask God to give them direction and lead them on the right path. I think I recall that you are young and unmarried?

 

[ColorMomma]

Golly, my husband doesn’t even want to know our checking account number. He knows I’m better at money and relies on me to handle it all. Sometimes I make him log in just so he knows how. I worry what would happen to him if I kick the bucket.

 

[dochawk]

I haven’t had to log my wife in for almost two days now . . .



I do have the network of folks for her to fall back on if something happens to me . . . my brother, the KofC insurance guy for our council, my oldest daughter.

It also helps that everything is paid off (well, except for a small student loan still around with a rate too low to pay off, and the bizarre free financing on my top of the line iPhone that lets me trade it in in 12 months, but the first goes away if I die, and the second isn’t much anyway).

It’s amazing how little you need to make with no mortgage, car payment, or tuition . . .

hawk

 

[ColorMomma]

Great job! Financial security is a blessing.

 

[dochawk]

It certainly takes some major stress out of life.

The biggest single thing is to start socking money into Roth IRA or Roth 401(k) at 21; no taking a couple of years and then starting.

I’ll be retiring largely on the money put away in my 20s, and to a lesser extent from my 30s. You can’t make up for lost time on that.

If you’re 22 and not putting aside at least $200 a month on this, you’re doing it wrong . . .

 

[adgloriam]

the concept of marrying for romantic love

You realize Eros and the Passions predate that?

 

[ColorMomma]

Sadly, we are well over 22. More like 42

 

[dochawk]

Start now–that’s a lot better than 52 . . . money invested this year will double about a time and a half by then . . .

A dollar invested at 22 is worth about a dollar a year at 65 . . .

 

[ColorMomma]

We are, thanks.

 

[D.Erasmus.R]

I feel as if OP is asking if wives must love their husbands ‘like Christ have loved the Church’? I remember asking this a while back as well. Because it seems as if Paul’s instructions to husbands is nothing ‘new’ or specific to husbands only, as Jesus already told everyone to love each other as he loved us in thr gospels.

This is exactly what I’m asking.

The reason I said this:

This is a little of topic, but I’d like to point out that the United Nations deems marrying off of under 18yos (child marriage) and marriages without (name removed by moderator)ut of the marrying couple (forced marriage) to be a violation of human rights.Catholicism should do the same, not because times have changed but because the things mentioned above are bad.

Was because of people saying things like.

Women in ancient Greece were married by the age of 13 or 14. Their husbands were probably 10, 20, 30 years older than they were.

And:

Also, many marriages were arranged without any (name removed by moderator)ut on the part of the woman or man.

And as I said was a little off topic.

 

[D.Erasmus.R]

I don’t know much about Ancient Greece, but think the whole thing of marrying off teenage girls was an upper class thing. I know medieval peasant women married in their early twenties, while peasant men married in their late twenties. Medieval noblewomen married in their teens, noblemen married ages are more varied.

 

[D.Erasmus.R]

You know that church canon law once said that husbands could punish their wives. One husband in the Middle Ages told his wife to ‘copy the behaviour of a dog which loves to obey its master; even if the master whips it, the dog follows, wagging its tail.’ Of course people back then would’ve said that there’s a between corporal punishment and a beating.

 

[Mary888]

It’s interesting to know if after the Resurrection the ascendancy Adam had over Eve is as strong as it was before the fall since both of them fell even if Eve started it (well actually the snake started it but let’s leave him out of it for the time being).
As for an expectation of love, as the OP asked in his/her post, I think what is expected from spouses is to act as if love is there. At least that’s how I see it. Because of sin and temptations from the devil to ruin the Sacrament of God, marriage, even two who marry completely in love with each other will many times end up not feeling it. Jesus does not explain if by “love” He means the feeling itself but He does express that He means acts of love.
Elder Cleopa says that according to Christian tradition arranged marriages are not exactly encouraged since the Sacrament is done by God and hence the promise made in front of the Altar must be truthful. So an arranged couple has no choice but to lie in front of God which may not be a sin if they plan to fulfill the promise no matter what, but it cannot be something the Church can teach and encouragement. Elder Cleopa says the couple must “like each other” as well as their families must “like each other as well” (I guess Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t have gotten an EO marriage at all).
About the feeling itself - our emotions are not necessarily real. You can feel you hate someone with all your heart or they are indifferent to you in a fit of rage (which is temptation). And then later it all goes back as if the person not loving the other was not you. The same can be valid with a couple wanting to get married. They may feel fear and stress and face many imaginings about how things will not work out, and thus feel they don’t love each other, but unless they were forced in union by a third party, the feeling of lack of love simply may not be real at all.
I know it’s cooler nowadays to measure cases in which you think you are in love but you’re not, but let’s not forget about the cases when you think you don’t love because you don’t “feel” it but the opposite is just as important.

 

[phil19034]

You know that church canon law once said that husbands could punish their wives. One husband in the Middle Ages told his wife to ‘copy the behaviour of a dog which loves to obey its master; even if the master whips it, the dog follows, wagging its tail.’ Of course people back then would’ve said that there’s a between corporal punishment and a beating.

And did you know that St. Thomas Aquinas taught equality in marriage?

 

[D.Erasmus.R]

CSorry, I think I’m misunderstanding but:

unless they were forced in union by a third party

I’d like to point out that the reason why the United Nations deems having people marry their free will to be a human rights violation is because doing so would be putting people into sexual relationships without their consent, and therefore kind of rape for one or both of the couple.

I have to say that I think that often couples today aren’t romantically in love. Many are in a long term relationship that they can’t be bothered getting out of. Many pretend to be in love. Some are infatuated. Some are in love. Most just really like each other.

 

[Sedona]

You have to understand the mindset of the culture that produced these writings. They were authored by people. And the people who authored them were from a very patriarchal society. The place designated for women in such an arrangement is a matter for another full-on discussion, however, any attempts to dovetail these writings into a modern enlightened discourse on living would have to involve a lot of interesting apologetics. And that has become a bit tiresome, I think.

All the best!

 

[mrsdizzyd]

Not at all. Christian marriage practices were revolutionary AT THE TIME they were written. So much so, that many communities saw this equal dignity in marriage business as a THREAT to the social order.

It doesn’t take “interesting apologetics” to understand this. It only takes a good understanding of history.

 

[Sedona]

Thank you for the reply. I understand the history of Hellenistic times quite well. I was not relating to what seemed revolutionary 2,000 years ago. I was referring to why it would sound particularly enlightened now. Tell me why I should think that the male dominated social order with regard to male/female relationships as outlined in Ephesians is a template for a healthy human relationship. If given a choice with regard to gender prior to birth, why would I submit to being a woman in such an arrangement? Moreover, why would a modern woman who is free of all superstition submit to such an order? That is the practical matter that I think leads to creative apologetics. I imagine I am about to hear some. I am a practical person who struggles daily (like many people) with what was pounded into my head all my life by the church I was raised in. It’s a hard thing to break free of as no doubt many on the forum can attest. This is one area out of many wherein I would like to see a compelling argument as to why any of it is relevant or even sensible.

All the best!