While weak husbands can become Dungeon Lord of their home, wives damage their marriage by becoming the Rebel Queen. Some women seek to subvert their husband’s home from day one.
They run an ongoing insurgency in the home, either to resist the husband’s leadership or subvert his world under her own control.
Pride in Heart
Some wives live in the delusion that they are morally superior to their husbands. Their sensibilities to domestic order, cleanliness, social propriety and the like testify to them that they are the morally superior being and the husband in the oaf or ogre who must be tamed.
Such thoughts spring from pride and self exaltation. From that position the wife can justify her efforts to enslave the husband and make him serve her leadership. She can equally justify her resistance and insurrection.
If the wife cannot win the husband she may at least enlist the children to her cause, values and domestic wisdom. The “don’t be like your father” message may be played repeatedly by the wife to push her rebel cause.
Enslaving the Husband
Because most men want their wife to be happy it is possible for women to enslave the husband, making him servant to her standards and ideals. The wife may restrict the man in his own home (“Don’t sit in THAT chair!”), dictate what he eats and drinks (“Don’t eat before dinner!”), control his money (“Don’t come to me for more!”), set the family goals and plans (“These kids are going to go to Uni!”), and so on.
Some men happily comply with this rebel cause, to keep the peace and in gratitude for having a woman in their life.
Other men are more stubborn and set on their own will. The wife may then end up in a long-term cold war of passive resistance, contention, manipulation and the like. While she may not enslave her husband, she can be a constant resistance against all the things he wants to do that don’t fit her will.
Abducting His Life
I have seen wives who simply abduct their husband’s life. Instead of being his helper, as per God’s design for the woman in Genesis 2, she sees the husband as the means to fulfilment of her dreams.
Her aspirations of wealth, home, lifestyle, etc, are forced on the husband. She sees it as her role in life to tame his wishes, and make them subservient to her own.
Many men happily comply with this abduction, not seeing how completely the family values, direction, achievements and aspirations are being set by the wife. The wife’s values and goals may be fine. But when she asserts them, in place of submission to the husband as head, she abducts the home. She is acting in rebellion against God.
A True Wife
God created the role of ‘wife’, and He made the woman to be the man’s helper. The man who finds a ‘wife’ finds a good thing (Proverbs 18:22). The man with a rebel queen has not found a good thing. A woman doesn’t become a godly wife, as a gift to her husband, just by saying “I do”. She must fulfil her unique part as ‘wife’ in her husband’s life.
The true wife is instructed to submit to her husband. He is her head and she is his helper, assisting him to fulfil God’s call on his life. She is not lord of her husband. She is not queen of the home. She is not the focus on the husband’s life. She is not there to be served.
A true wife does not manipulate, undermine, compete, resist or frustrate her husband. She empowers him by being wind in his sails, as he seeks to be the man God calls him to be.
The Rebel
When a woman rules her own home she is in rebellion against God. As a rebel queen she not only stands against her husband’s authority, but against God’s authority too.
The reason many woman engage in subversion of the home is insecurity. She fears that the husband’s ego-driven decisions will be unwise, self-serving and damaging to future security. In her insecurity she rises up and take control.
She needs to put her trust in the Lord and find security in Him. She needs to worship God, by being what He made her to be, not what her self-interest prompts her to be.
Another reason women rebel is their pride. Many have a deluded sense of moral superiority as if that gives them a different place to the one God gave them. Pride exalts, and when women exalt themselves over the husband, pride is at play. But pride leads to destruction, so it must never be pandered to.
True Beauty
The Bible teaches that a woman’s true, inner beauty comes from a submissive spirit. When a woman submits to her husband, not because she fully trusts his wisdom, but because she is determined to glorify God, a new radiance glows from within her (see 1Peter 3:3-6).
The rebel queen will never fulfil her natural beauty. She will become hardened and her efforts will be unfruitful. Her pride will lead to destruction. Going her own way will lead to death and failure. Her fears will enslave her. She will pluck down her home with her own hands (Proverbs 14:1).
A Life of Trust
Women were designed to help their husband. They are designed to be under instruction, not taking lordship. This requires trust. Her trust is not in her husband and his wisdom. Her trust is to be securely placed in the Lord, as her source of supply and defence from harm.
A life of trust in God is the highest life a wife can live. Becoming a rebel queen is the total opposite to that high calling.
Life will not be without challenges. No husband will always delight his wife. We may all have to miss out on some things we desire. But when a wife can lay down her own life, to take on the calling of ‘wife’, she will find a life far richer and more fulfilling than the one she would demand her husband to build for her.
Tags: dungeon lord, helper, husband, manipulation, Marriage, pride, rebel queen, rebellion, submission, wife
Having been that “Rebel Queen” for many years, and learning the hard way that this was not God’s plan for marriage, I have many thoughts about this Blog. You are touching on an issue the church in general does not like to look at. Good on you Chris!
I believe Titus 2:3-5 NLT holds the answers to this issue, but unfortunately it is not often taught or modeled in the church.
“Similarly, teach the older women to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers. Instead, they should teach others what is good. These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God.”
Where are these Godly older women? Without them there can be no effective discipleship of the younger women or indeed any-aged married women. Surely the training of the younger women starts when they are single? So who do we have to teach the younger women in most organised churches? Other young people! Be they youth pastors or other apparently “wiser” young people, this is where the system for Godly discipleship crumbles. At the core.
Ideally the teaching would start and be developed at home, with a Godly mother and other older female relatives, like in Bible times, but sadly this is becoming less and less common in our culture.
So women lose the way, get confused about their roles in a relationship, and can’t find the path back to God’s plan. You can see it everywhere, which I guess is why you wrote this thought provoking Blog.
Twenty five years ago a woman called Mary Pride wrote a book called “The Way Home”. It had all the Biblical answers for women, young and old, married and single. Did the church
embrace Mary’s book and use it to help them teach a Biblical lifestyle for women? Unfortunately, no. The churches didn’t want it, it was apparently too “radical”, as Jesus tends to be!
I read it, made many life changing decisions as a result, and thanked the Lord for that opportunity that I had never had in a church.
Christian women are confused, there are few or no Godly older women in many churches, and many of the women in churches these days have nothing to offer younger women in the way of preparation for marriage or even having a contented single life.
Conferences for women are not the answer. Titus 2 is!
Thanks for your Blog Chris, although it’s a sad reflection on the church when a Godly man like yourself has to teach women what older Godly women in the church should be teaching as a matter or urgency.
bless you!