The Fruit of The Wife In Marriage
Marriage is an illustration of Christ’s union with the Church (Eph. 5:31-32). In His Union, He is the husband and the Church is His bride (Eph. 5:25-27, 2 Cor. 11:2). As such, the Son reflects the Father as the Shepherd, and the Church reflects the Holy Spirit as His united submissive partner (Eph. 5:23-25).
As a representative of the Holy Spirit in the marriage, the wife is called to bear fruit, just as the Holy Spirit bears fruit in the lives of believers. The Christian wife brings the fruits of the Holy Spirit into the marriage. This by no means insinuates that the wife singularly bears the responsibility of upholding godliness in the family. Everyone is born with free will, including husbands and children, and each person will be held accountable by God for their actions [2 Cor. 5:10]). However, the Holy Spirit models the work a godly wife is called to emulate, and her aim should be to present pleasing fruit (godly deeds) to her family.
The fruits of the Spirit are found in Galatians 5:22. It reads:
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
~Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)
These deeds, contrasted against the works of the flesh found in Gal. 5:19-21, sum up the virtuous wife found in Proverbs 31.
10 Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. 11 Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. 12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
~Proverbs 31:10-12 (NLT)
Love
The principle fruit of the Spirit that a wife brings is love. The Greek word agapē is used in Galatians 5:22, and in context it means the affectionate regard of benevolence toward someone (Nettelhorst, 2014). All of the other fruits can be summed up in love, for without love none of the other fruits will follow. Scripture describes love as patient and kind (1 Cor. 13:4), which are two of the fruits of the Spirit. It is also faithful (another fruit). It never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance (vs. 6-7).
Everything that a Christian wife does stems from love. Her first love is God, therefore everything she does for her family is done out of her love for God, for that is included in her worship.
Joy
Joy is the emotion of great happiness and pleasure and is the second fruit of the Spirit given in Galatians. The wife was created to be a source of joy for her husband, as God saw that it was not good for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). As Wisdom (the Holy Spirit) was a source of constant delight for the Father during Creation (Prov. 8:30), so a good wife is a joy to her husband.
There are several ways in which a wife can bring joy to her husband, but one of them is through sexual intimacy. Husbands are encouraged to rejoice in the wives of their youth and to “drink water from their own wells,” which means to find sexual satisfaction at home and remain faithful to their wives (Prov. 5:15-19). As such, Paul encouraged married couples to fulfill each other’s sexual needs and to only refrain from sex when they both agree to do so in devotion to prayer—and this should only be for a limited time (1 Cor. 7:1-6). The godly children they produce will also bring him joy (Prov. 23:24).
As the husband’s helper, the wife comes equipped with more than just the ability to have sex and bear children. As his helper, everything that she offers makes him stronger and happier. On the other hand, a bad wife will break her husband’s heart. Therefore, as Ecclesiastes instructs, “Live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil” (Ecclesiastes 9:9).
Peace
Peace is another fruit of the Spirit and goes hand in hand with joy. God has called us to live in peace (Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 7:15), and a good wife will allow her husband to live out his years this way. This, too, can be done in a number of ways, but the main one is by creating a peaceful environment at home.
Nagging (constantly harassing) and quarreling (being argumentative) are two things that can make the home miserable. A nagging wife can lead to a man’s destruction, as Samson compromised his calling due to the torturous nagging of the women in his life (Judg. 14:17, 16:16). Furthermore, Scripture teaches that a quarrelsome wife is as annoying as constant dripping on a rainy day (Prov. 19:31; 27:15). It would be better for a man to live alone in the corner of an attic than to live in a beautiful home with a quarrelsome wife (Prov. 25:24). Living alone in the desert would also be a better option (Prov. 21:19). A peaceful environment directly affects a person’s health, as stress impacts nearly every organ system in the body, including the male reproductive system ("Stress effects on the body", 2018). Therefore living in a stressful home is dangerous enough to thwart God’s design for marriage and His desire for children (Gen. 1:28; Mal. 2:15).
Patience
Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, and is required to maintain unity. Ephesians describes it as making allowance for each other’s faults, and this, too, is done out of love (Eph. 4:2). As a fruit of the Spirit, patience is the ability to endure through difficult circumstances. This aligns with love, as love never gives up and endures through every circumstance (1 Cor. 13:7). This is an important trait because marriage brings trouble (1 Cor. 7:28). The cleaving of marriage (Gen. 2:24) is not limited to the wedding night or the first few months of marriage. It is a continuous process that requires constant maintenance, determination, and endurance to withstand the changes of personal growth and the difficulties that life brings. But the Holy Spirit empowers the wife with the strength to do this, and it is possible with Her guidance.
Kindess
Kindness is an attribute of a godly wife. In the sense of Galatians 5:22, it is the quality of being warmhearted, considerate, humane, gentle (another fruit of the Spirit), and sympathetic. In other words, a godly wife is a nice wife. This is especially be seen in her speech. Proverbs 31:26, when describing a wife of virtue, explains:
When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness.
~Proverbs 31:26 (NLT)
Since kind words are sweet to the soul and healthy for the body (Prov. 16:24) and a disgraceful wife is like cancer to his bones, a wife honors her Creator when she determines to be a source of encouragement for her husband. This will also be in her deeds, because she brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life (Prov. 31:12).
Goodness
Goodness in this sense refers to morals, as a godly wife is a virtuous wife. Proverbs 31 describes many of the ways virtue expresses itself in a wife. It describes her as trustworthy (vs. 11-12), a hard worker (vs. 13-14), a wise manager (vs. 15), financially savvy (vs. 16), a wise investor (vs. 16), a good steward of time and resources (vs. 18-19), generous (vs. 20), prepared (vs. 21), skilled (vs. 22, 24), confident (vs. 25), kind (vs. 26), attentive (vs. 27), and worthy of praise (vs. 28-29). A woman like this is indeed a treasure (Prov. 18:22)!
There is debate about whether or not one woman can possess all of these qualities. Some scholars believe the writer of this proverb was describing several woman in an effort to highlight the many ways a woman can be virtuous. However, a woman was designed to help in many ways (just as the Holy Spirit does), and it is possible for a woman to have all of these skills. They only allow her to help her husband lead effectively.
Faithfulness
Marital faithfulness is loyalty, the primary form being sexual. When a wife has sex with someone other than her spouse she violates her husband’s trust and the covenant they made together before God.
Sex outside of the marriage is sin. The natural mind may find several reasons to justify what the body wants, but the Spirit will never agree with it. Sin has consequences unforeseeable, no matter how crafty one’s schemes may be. David’s affair with Bathsheba is a prime example (2 Sam. 11-12). He saw Bathsheba, wanted her, and took her; but murder, death, and generational turmoil followed.
A woman who cheats on her husband causes him grief. If they have children, they will be hurt as well as the sin is a violation against the entire family. Though God can heal, the ripple effects of such sin can last decades after the sin takes place. Marital faithfulness is faithfulness to God, and a godly woman’s love for God will keep her faithful to her husband.
Gentleness
Gentleness is a quality every Christian should have (Col. 3:12; Titus 3:1-3). Jesus was gentle (Matt. 11:29) and so were the apostles (1 Cor. 4:13; 2 Cor. 10:1). The Holy Spirit is also gentle, as James described “the wisdom from above” as pure, peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others (James 3:17). Her gentleness is something the Christian wife should exhibit.
Peter encouraged gentleness when teaching Christian women to accept the authority of their husbands. He wrote:
3 Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. 4 You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.
~1 Peter 3:3-4 (NLT)
He went on to use Sarah as an example. Though she had a lot to be vocal about (consider what she went through with Pharaoh [Gen. 12:10-20], Abimelech [Gen. 20] and Hagar, even though she herself initiated it [Gen. 16]), she remained submissive to her husband while putting her trust in God (1 Pet. 3:5-6). As she is considered the mother of the Christian faith (Gen. 17:16; Isaiah 51:2; Gal. 4:30-31), Peter encouraged women to follow her example.
Self-Control
Self-control as listed in Galatians 5:23 is “the trait of resolutely controlling one’s own desires (which would produce actions). In essence, it is discipline.
One of the ways the Spirit does this is by giving the wife the ability to control her tongue. Though small, the tongue can be a dangerous and even deadly weapon if allowed to have its way (Prov. 18:21; James 3:2-7). As mentioned earlier, nagging and quarreling cause disharmony.
Self-control will also be seen in a godly wife’s presentation. She will not be shameless in her appearance, but modest, remembering that she represents both God and her husband. Therefore, the issue of modesty is not about fashion, but the heart. Here is what Paul taught about modesty:
9 And I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. 10 For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do.
~1 Timothy 2:9-10 (NLT)
In conclusion, the wife has been designed to produce godly fruit in the Christian marriage. As Proverbs declares:
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised. 31 Reward her for all she has done. Let her deeds publicly declare her praise.
~Proverbs 31:30-31 (NLT)
References
Nettelhorst, R. P. (2014). Love. D. Mangum, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, & R. Hurst (Eds.), Lexham Theological Wordbook. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Stress effects on the body. https://www.apa.org. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body.