D 02 - Attitudes Toward Husband-Wife
ATTITUDES TOWABD HUSBAND-WIFE RELATIONSHIPS The Nature of the Relationship In the foregoing chapter it was seen that the wife’s relationship is one of mutual sharing in her husband’s work, though the main sphere of participation appears to be more of a supportive role in the home. Wives tend to think
91 92 THE ROLE OF THE MINISTER’S WIFE of their place as being in the background, but they are hardly cowering in the background; rather, the background concept represents their manner o attempting to cope with an ever-present problem of the division of labor in a role that can become confused with that of their husbands.
While the Biblical concept of the wife as a helpmate appears to prevail throughout the husband-wife relationships, there are other indications that modern developmental ideas of interrelatedness are strongly entrenched. The traditional concept of the family views the father as the head of the house; the mother is entrusted with the care of the house and children; and in return for this love and care, the children owe their parents honor and obedience. Developmental concepts of the family are based on interpersonal relations of mutual affection, companionship, and understanding. Associated with this is a recognition of individual capabilities, desires, and needs for the development of each member of the family, whether father, mother, or child. 1
It is hardly possible in a culture that is as rapidly changing as ours, where the old and new commingle that one will have exclusively traditional or developmental concepts of husband-wife, or parent-child, relationships. Both exist side by side. It is, however, possible for one to hold and respond more generally to one or the other position. The seminars and interviews that I have conducted have not been specifically designed to explore particular ideas relevant to family relationships among minister’s wives.
Nonetheless, these experiences and contacts with them have produced indications as to their orientation in this area.
Traditional ideas about husband-wife relationships are ROLE ATTITUDES TOWARD FAMILY LIFE 93 most usually expressed on the husband’s being the head of the family. “ I think the husband should be the head of the family,” is a common expression of the wives. Another traditional family concept is seen ’in a kind of deference to the husband on the part of some wives. As one put it, “ When John is home, he is king! “ The idea that his schedule and his work always take precedence over hers or the family’s is another manifestation of the traditional point of view.
However, numerous expressions of a more modern developmental approach to family relationships are also noted. The husband’s desire for his wife to operate in the church and home at the level of her own interests and capabilities is one indication of this. For, as will be remembered, the encouragement of each family member to develop and express his own potentialities and needs is a cardinal idea in the modern approach to family relationships. “Developmental” husbands are more active in home functions than “ traditional “ husbands. The latter sees the home as strictly a woman’s world. While it is difficult to determine how much time pastor-husbands devote to helping around their homes, one third of the wives who were in the intensive interviews of my initial research spontaneously mentioned their husbands* helping in the kitchen, working with the children, doing the laundry, or performing other household work. As will be noted later in this chapter in the discussion on children, both husbands and wives express strong developmental concepts in their desires for the children to progress at their own pace.
They want this pace to be dictated by the child’s interests and capabilities rather than by the fact that the father happens to be a minister.
Wayne Gates has suggested that the number of married 94 THE ROLE OF THE MINISTER’S WIFE theological students since World War II whose wives have worked to finance their education has been a potent factor in bringing about changes in the parsonage. 2 While the wife works, the husband of necessity assumes responsibility for much of the housework. Upon taking a pastorate, he continues to do certain tasks around the house as a matter of course. But role conflicts can arise at this point. The wife may expect the husband to continue doing as much of the housework as he did while in seminary. She may also have difficulty adjusting to the role of a wife at home instead of a wife at work outside the home.
Despite the grievances as to their husbands’ time, noted in Chapter III, the distinct impression is that these, for the most part, are happy marriages. The wives frequently speak in glowing terms of their husbands. Occasionally a wife is embarrassed by her exuberance and makes some comment as, ** You can see I’m prejudiced about him! “When asked about the advice they would give to a girl engaged to a minister, nearly half in the above research suggested that she simply love him. “ Maybe this sounds like Ma Perkins,” one quipped, ** but I’d say for her to love him with all her heart. If she has this and a sense of Christian commitment, then I think she will get started all right/’
It has already been noted that the wives encourage and support their husbands. But this is a relationship of mutual support and encouragement. For instance, a wife without a college education was frequently encouraged by her husband, who soothingly said, “ You know more than most of these college girls, anyway.” For a woman in a church full of women with college degrees, this was a healing balm.
ROLE ATTITUDES TOWARD FAMILY LIFE 95 Handling Hostilities The intimacies of his own home remind the minister how difficult it is to be a Christian in the midst of one’s family. One of the problems that confronts him is coping with anger and resentment. By virtue of his role, he is not expected to express hostility toward others though anger is a normal response of all humans. Therefore, it becomes doubly important for him to have some source of release for these feelings. This appears to be provided at home. The wives say that they participate in their husbands’ work by providing them with a place to give vent to their emotions. “ At home he can say what he really feels about some plan or what someone said,” observed a wife. When asked what the “ place “ of the minister’s wife is, one responded, She is to be a good wife to the man to whom she is married and care for his home. I think she also serves the purpose of letting him blow off some steam to her, and surely he has more to blow off than most people. [Why?] Well, because he can’t blow it off to the people.
Problems may arise out of the husband’s hostile feelings’ being displaced onto his wife personally. This may manifest itself as an attack upon the wife because she does not have a fresh white shirt ironed. In reality, he is seething within because his church board has squelched one of his pet projects. A redeeming kind of maturity demonstrated by one husband tinder these circumstances, his wife reports, is that at such times he will say with a painful grin: ** Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just under pressure.” This indicates the objectivity and proficiency in communication on the part of this couple and others like them.
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Still, rather than resenting his hostility, most wives seem to view their function as encouraging their husbands to express themselves, and they thus become listening ears.
What happens to the hostilities engendered by the wives’ workaday experiences? When asked about this, the wives who mention their husbands “ blowing off steam ** at home agree that this is a reciprocal relationship. There are also secondary outlets that some mention, such as ** banging on the piano/* and even ironing! The latter was somewhat puzzling until it occurred to me that putting an iron to the seat of the husband’s pants might be very therapeutic! The wives appear to accept the fact that the expression of such hostilities is one aspect of every marriage.
It is, indeed! Duvall and Hill have aptly underlined this as a legitimate function of marriage in their book When Jou Marry, The modern couple will expect that in marriage they have a place of security and intimacy where they are free to behave like human beings with the normal variety of emotions. The workaday world, organized as it is, does not permit the frank expression of resentment, vanity, jealousy, and selfish ambition along with tenderness and love, all of which exist in the normal person. The individual must control his annoyances and his affections. He must often act like something more than human to get along in our complex industrial society. If he flies off the handle at his boss, he may lose his job. There needs to be some place, however, where the individual can give vent to his annoyances and be himself, and that place seems to be in marriage. If there is that kind of cantankerousness in a marriage, the couple should chalk it down as proof that their marriage is performing one of its main functions providing a place to let off steam and re-establish emotional balance. If a marriage is so fragile that it must be maintained by the same kind of artificial manners that keeps an office force functioning, it is pretty precariously based. 3 BOLE ATTITUDES TOWABD FAMILY UFE 97
Reference to handling the type of husband-wife hostilities common to marriage is made by some wives. They frequently speak of being able to “talk through” their difficulties. The remark of one wife is illustrative, You should hear some of the fights we have here. John and I have found that if we go ahead and have our fuss, then we can settle down and talk about it. We have had our share of differences, but we have always been able to talk them through.
These types of arguments are what Willard Waller calls “productive quarrels/’ This type of quarrel, he states, “ leads to a redefinition of the situation by virtue of which the marriage is made stronger.” On the other hand, quarrels can be destructive in that the hostility is directed at the whole person and “ destroys the necessary rationalizations and fictions by which the person lives and the marriage persists/ 74 No doubt there are times when it is difficult to distinguish between the two types. It may be even more difficult to keep a productive quarrel from degenerating into a destructive one.
Sharing on the Deeper Levels A primary requisite for success in the ministry is the ability to express oneself verbally. To paraphrase a Biblical verse, the minister lives not by bread alone but by every word proceeding from his mouth. (This, of course, says nothing about his relationships to people.) There is evidence that the minister’s wife, too, is a rather verbal person. In nearly two thirds of the interviews included in my basic research, we went beyond the scheduled hour and a half because the wives continued to expand upon the questions. The interviews usually had to be arbitrarily terminated because of a subsequently scheduled interview.
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It has already been indicated that ministers’ wives have a deep and satisfying sense of sharing in their husbands’ church work. There is.also a meaningful participation in their home life. Scenes of a husband and wife sharing in a meaningful conversation, reading, listening to music, or otherwise sharing together, are an integral part of the discussions with ministers’ wives concerning their more personal life together. This frequently takes the form of the wife listening to the husband and sharing with him some of the problems of the parish. This is one of the common expectations, that the husbands have of them. ** The minister needs someone to talk to,” observed one wife, “ because he carries the burdens of the whole church.” While the wives seem to expect and enjoy this type of interaction with their husbands, one suspects that this could, in more extreme cases, have an unhealthy impact upon the wives’ own mental health. An example of this is seen in the case of one pastor who went home every evening and unburdened himself of the day’s cares onto his wife. His wife, in turn, became so involved in this that she lay awake at night, upset and unable to sleep long after her husband, having purged himself of his problems, had relaxed and gone to sleep. All of this simply underlines the fact that there are limits to which a wife can, or should, be expected to bear the cares and burdens of her husband unless she herself has someone to whom she can turn.
James Robinson, in his book Adventurous ’Preaching asserts that the minister needs a confessor. 5 He does his wife! The minister’s wife, too, need as confessor. The need to have some person to whom to talk is frequently expressed by pastors’ wives. One wife wistfully put it this way: “ I wish I had a pastor. A minister’s wife doesn’t have one, you know.”
ROLE ATTITUDES TOWABD HER FAMILY LIFE 99 The wife, mentioned above, who was unable to go to sleep is admittedly an extreme example. There are less extreme, but distressing, experiences that some wives have and yet this, opportunity to share together some of their husbands’ concern can be deeply rewarding. It is one of those things which bind a couple together. This may take place late at night over a cup of coffee after the husband comes home. With children in the home, this is one of the few opportunities they have to relax together, Dave usually comes in about eleven at night and we sit down with a cup of coffee and talk about the events of the day or whatever else is on our minds and just have a wonderful time. This wife’s phrase ** our minds “ emphasizes the fact that this sharing is a mutual experience. It is a two-way street In this sense, the husbands are, to some degree, the wives* confessors. The impression received from most of the wives is that these are couples who, for the most part, enjoy each other’s company. They like the stimulation and relaxation of a chat together on a wide variety of topics. In all of this there seems to be more than mere verbal exchange, for beneath the words there is communicated a sense of acceptance, love, belonging, and understanding.
Possibly this ability to discuss things together, both positively and negatively, accounts for die relatively successful and happy marriages of ministers. James H. S. Bossard quotes a study conducted by the English physician Eustace Chesser concerning the marital relationship of 6,251 women. 6 Dr. Chesser found, among other things, that happily married couples had the same problems (though not as frequently) as unhappily married ones. However, one of the chief factors in the adjustments of the happily 100 THE ROIJE OF THE MINISTER^ WIFE married group seemed to be their ability to communicate about their problems, A common experience with marriage counselors is the discovery that, in essence, both partners seek common goals but the lines of communication between them have become blocked so that each is unable to “ get through “ to the other. Conflict ensues. One of the chief functions of the counselor is to aid them in their ability not only to talk with each other but also to get beyond words to a deeper understanding of each other. The degree to which a pastor and his wife are able to communicate on the deeper levels, to that degree their marriage is strengthened. Without it, even minor irritations are fertile soil for major conflicts.
Another positive aspect of ministers* wives* ability to share meaningful discussions with their husbands is that it encourages them to grow together. Occasionally there are those wives whose problems seem to lie in the fact that their husbands* interests, ideas, and tastes have outgrown them. For instance, one pastor’s wife, having this problem, was a high school graduate and had worked to support him while he attended the seminary. Presently, her interests were focused at home with two small children. His education had been one of the prime factors in altering his thoughts, tastes, and social skills. Lacking the broadened horizons associated with further education, she was still operating on much the same level of interests and thought which she had had at the time of their marriage. Her ability to participate with him in the interchange of ideas was thus limited and his education only served to magnify her own insecurity with just a high school diploma. The interest on the part of most wives of pastors in current social and theological issues seems to indicate they KOUE ATTITUDES TOWABD HER FAMILY MFE 101 are growing with their husbands. Their participation in work and discussions is probably a major factor in this growth. This view was expressed by one wife who remarked, ** He has kept me abreast o theological thinking.’ 9 “ You might say/* she continued, “ that he has been my teacher; 9 * Some husbands wish their wives would read more to maintain their knowledge of current issues. The presence of small children, among other things, makes it difficult for more erudite reading. “ I do wel if I get the Sunday paper read/’ is the experience of more than one wife. As has been observed in this section, the mutually satisfying experience of sharing with their husbands the various interests, problems, and concerns of a pastorate seems to be a strong and healthy characteristic of husband-wife relationships in ministers’ families. Though, as noted, it can have its hazards.