While serving her husband for his ephemeral happiness the wife must also serve to his salvation and only then she is of real help to him.
But how can she fulfill this mission? Her situation helps her in this case as well and she can accomplish quietly the saving change which could not be achieved by any urges.
Let’s suppose that her husband wavers between belief and disbelief or he is not really concerned by the work of his salvation because he is too absorbed by the preoccupations of his social life or he is drawn by follies and doubt and he sees there’s someone beside him who lives in the spirit of faith.
His wife triumphs: she accomplishes the salvation of her husband. Thus she does not preach about the Savior but incorporates Him in her life: she does not teach her husband the truths of the Gospel but she roots in him these truths by her deeds, by her words, by the whole arrangement of her life. Without explaining these truths theoretically, she makes her husband feel them. This work of the woman is not made up by us. Apostle Peter orders it explicitly linking its achievement to the woman’s submission to her man: Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands. But why is it so? So that the men who don’t believe the word may be won without preaches, by the behavior of their women, seeing closely their pure and God fearing life (I Peter 3, 1-2)
There it lies the true loftiness of a woman, despite her apparent subordination! The husband must be blind or with a completely hardened heart if he is not touched by the sight of true piety manifested in his wife’s life bearing fruits which are so sweet for him that he unwittingly wonders who gained more: he for this earthly life or she for the hereafter. And what a happiness is for the wife when she reads in her husband’s heart these divine words – it is not good for the man to be alone (Genesis 2, 18) and how bitter is for her – if she is not able to understand this – when she reads in her husband’s heart quite opposite words: It’s good for the man to be alone!
How an Orthodox family should be: 250 wise pieces of advice for the husband and wife from saints and great spiritual fathers
Source: ganduridinierusalim.com
