I found a great lecture by Sue Bohlin, who works at Probe Ministries. The lecture is about the book “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands” by Dr. Laura Schlessinger. I recommend this book more highly than any other book to Christian women. It is simply the opposite to everything that they will hear in this culture, and offers practical solutions to undo a lot of the damage caused by feminism.
The MP3 file is here. (48 minutes)
I did not do a summary for this one, but there is a blog post that Sue wrote that captures most of the same material.
Here’s the introduction:
Talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger has written a book that is improving thousands of marriages: The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands. We need this book because millions of wives either don’t know how to love their husbands wisely and well, or they’re too self-centered to see it as important. Dr. Laura credits this dismal condition to forty years of feminist philosophy, “with its condemnation of just about everything male as evil, stupid, and oppressive, and the denigration of female and male roles in families.” While the women’s movement certainly had a hand to play in the disintegration of relationships and the family, I believe the core cause is our sinful self-centeredness, just as the Bible says.
Which is why we need help, and God instructs older women to train younger women to love their husband and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands is a great resource for learning these important values and skills.
And here’s the first part I thought was most important:
A listener to Dr. Laura’s radio show named Edgar wrote, “There are a few things that men want so bad they would do anything for it. I think a good number of men want respect more than love. They like to feel they have some power. I nearly cry when you tell a woman caller to respect her husband. There is so much selfishness in the world—in marriages. Prosperity has allowed women to be so independent, and thus so selfish. I always feel as though I come last—my feelings come last, my needs come last.”
“A good number of men want respect more than love.” God knew this when He made us. His commands to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:33 reflects each one’s deepest needs: “Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Dr. Emerson Eggerichs of LoveandRespect.com points out that this verse commands a husband to love his wife. Why? She needs love like she needs air to breathe. This same verse commands a wife to respect her husband. Why? He needs respect like he needs air to breathe.
- Respect means treating someone in a way that builds him up and doesn’t tear him down, never denigrating or attacking.
- Respect means always treating the other person with the dignity they deserve as a person made in the image of God.
- Respect means grasping that a man’s needs and wants are every bit as valid and important as a woman’s needs and wants.
- Respect means not venting to others, especially the children. One woman wrote to Dr. Laura, “No emotional outlet is worth damaging my husband’s reputation.”
There are three A’s that men long for from their wives: attention, affection, and affirmation. Respect involves paying attention to what they do simply because they’re the ones doing it.
And this part also seemed important to me:
A man named Roy wrote to Dr. Laura with some good advice for wives: “If you can’t accentuate the positive, at least acknowledge it. The world is full of messages to men that there are standards we don’t meet. There is always another man who is more handsome, more virile, or more athletic than we are. None of that matters if the most important person in our life looks up to us, accepts us as we are, and loves us even though we aren’t perfect. . . . All I know is that the husband who has a wife who supports him and praises him for the positive things he does is the envy of all the other men who have to live with criticism, sarcasm, and constant reminders of their failures.”
Men desperately want and need the support of their wives. This is reflected in what God reveals in His Word when He says, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” And through the apostle Paul, God instructs wives to relate to their husbands in a way that meets this need when He says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”
Submission is basically giving support with a willing, cooperative heart.
A wife’s submission includes knowing her gifts and strengths, and using them to serve her husband and family.
Service has a bad name, but both husbands and wives are called to serve God first and then each other; husbands are called to sacrificially love and serve their wives with Jesus as their pattern.
So what does support look like?
- Believing in him. Telling him, “You have what it takes.” Being his #1 fan.
- Cultivating a cooperative heart.
- Being generous and openhearted—willing to use your gifts and strengths to help him succeed.
- Understanding the importance of making him look good: never saying anything negative in public.
- Creating a home that’s a safe haven from the world.
- Having a warm heart with a positive, cheerful demeanor. Women set the temperature of the home; we are thermostats, not thermometers, of the family. (On the other hand, Proverbs says “A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand.”)
- Being interested in him and his life.
- Showing thoughtfulness. What does he like? Do it.
- And though by no means exhaustive, it also means being a person of faithfulness and integrity. That means keeping your promises and being dependable. As Proverbs 31 puts it, “Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.”
I just want to note that this book is strongly opposed by young feminist women. A wise young, unmarried woman should be guided by older Christian women who are not only successful in their marriages, but also made a difference as Christians. Read Titus 2:3-4 and see for yourself! There is a tendency I’ve noticed in young women to rebel against good advice and resent expectations, obligations and responsibilities – but listening to peers and the culture doesn’t produce good results.
The one piece of advice I would give young men is to always make sure that you get a woman used to having responsibilities and obligations during the courtship. Marriage is not fun, it’s work. It’s hard work. You don’t want to be married to a woman who thinks that marriage is supposed to be bliss, and that it’s your job to make it bliss for her. She should know that there is work to do in a marriage, and that husbands and children have needs. I actually had a woman stop me when I was telling her about the hard work and challenges of marriage and say “this isn’t the way that you present marriage to a girl if you want her to want to marry you, it has to be more fun”. One fatherless woman I spoke with seemed disgusted by the idea that men had needs and feelings – I think she was expecting a husband to be more like a father, and so she resented having any obligations to care for a man’s needs or listen to his feelings. There’s nothing wrong with either of these women that rules out marriage, but these are perceptions that need to be worked through with books like The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, The Five Love Languages, Love and Respect, The Meaning of Marriage, etc.
One last point – I actually bought the audio version of the Dr. Laura book and noticed that it was just over two hours long. It turns out that the audio version is abridged – it is not as complete as the actual book. I noticed that Sue was quoting from the book passages that I had not heard in the audio recording. So, now I have to go and read the book.
Filed under: Commentary
