Matthew 6:24
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
(note here some versions instead of “money” say “mammon” others say “wealth” and others say “riches”- I note that because its not just about dollar bills. Wealth and riches imply luxury, having things.)
And this I don’t understand when it comes to modern women. They say that they can have it all. They have a boss (from their career) and a husband (and children). They say they can juggle this fine, but I would not be able to. If I marry, I am HIS. I can’t be his and also my boss’s. ** If I set it up that way, one of them is going to be shortchanged- severely.** I would then be working for TWO masters and like Christ said, I’m going to either love one and hate the other or vise verse… Or maybe just hate them both because I’m being burned at two ends of the candle, so to speak. (Please, no jokes about being a slave to a man- master is just another word for the one over me, and a husband is the head of the household.)
I think you may be exaggerating the boss somewhat, although I can see why. Corporations tend to be rather voracious and their appetite will not be satiated with a mere quota of hours of time spent doing their work. They tend to be more
total, like a totalitarian state. Some of them, if they could, would organise your private life, design your living space, claim the ad space on your private car and your purse and your jacket, they require “enthusiasm” (self-motivation, availability and other code words for “we own you”) and not just good work. But it’s possible to work in a way which is working to live and not living to work.
This said, life’s obviously going to be hard for a family in which both parents want to work 10-12 hours a day in high-stress conditions, take work home and work their hands off trying to climb the ladder of promotion and advancement. (Or even one person does that.)
But taking orders from a boss, as in accepting your daily workload or some assignments to carry out, or working under somebody’s direction or supervision, is not something that I’d see as a source of conflict of duties.
It would seem to me that for a married woman working they would be serving money and not God. I believe that a married woman should be the helpmeet for her husband- all of her exists for working on behalf of her husband. That is her job. I don’t understand this modern idea that well, husband and wife are equals/partners or the idea that a woman should be able to fulfill herself outside of marriage in a career.
Career obsession is wrong regardless of your sex, and Christian life is not about egoistically (or narrowly, shallowly) understood fulfilment, but it is not necessarily a life of self-inflicted misery. There is nothing wrong with having an education, a responsible job, a rewarding role in the society. (As much as I’m not a fan of situations where a prominent woman has a follower husband, that always feels wrong to me.) And man and woman are indeed partners and equals. This does not precluding him being in charge. But a unilateral master-servant dynamic would be alien to marriage. If a man wants a servant, he can hire one. A woman is the lady of her house.
Leadership doesn’t mean the person who’s leading must be put on an exaggeratedly high plane, while the other person put down. For example, in the military, a general gives orders not only to privates and sergeants but also to colonels (and sometimes to generals who have less seniority or simply didn’t get the appointment to lead the operation). In academic projects you can have two professors working with one of them being the leader, for example when he has a bit more tenure or a bit more prominent professional reputation but they’re basically equal otherwise. On a construction yard, a foreman calls the shots when necessary but everybody’s pals and there’s no Byzantine ceremony.
Same way, a wife is not in the position of a cotton planter’s unfree concubine.
And isn’t it kind of like a slap in the face to the man if he provides and she doesn’t want to stay within the home and work on his behalf? And instead she is tied up with her own business, not fully attending to him and his needs and the needs of children?
That has much to do with societal perceptions rather than true morality. There is no religious tenet that the man must personally repair the leaking taps or the light that goes off, while the woman must personally cook, clean, do laundry etc. Still, many people see it that way, being influenced by the dominant perceptions of the social middle class. If a man wants his needs tended, he can (apart from getting over himself, which would be the advisable course of action if he finds himself after an ego boost from being waited on by someone else) hire an assistant, a maid, an errand boy, a butler (if some wealthy type of guy) etc. This is different from taking care of each other.
IS this really ‘egotistical’ of a man to want to wish that his wife would dedicate herself to him?
I’d think so. Especially if he wanted total dedication from the woman while himself looking to discharge his duties by bringing home the paycheck and then being left alone or pampered by everybody.
I have a man in my family who’s very much the traditional man. He retired earlier than his wife (being a couple of years older than she plus maybe another reason or two), he does the shopping and cooks now and finds great joy in making sure his wife has a hot dinner after coming back from work. No less of a man for that! (Rather the opposite.)
