What My Wife Told Me Before We Were Married

My wife and I have been happily married since 1971.  It’s obvious to everyone who knows us, and even to most who see us together for the first time.  Years ago, our granddaughter Veronica asked us why we were so happily married.

As we pondered her question, we realized that our answer could make a real difference in her life.  Kids today are subject to all the wrong influences, far more so than when we grew up.  Veronica paid us the compliment of asking how to avoid the road to misery so many travel today.

Roberta and I wanted to make sure we gave the very best advice we could.  We knew that as a girl becomes a woman, the way she manages her relationships with men has a profound effect on how her life turns out.

We realized that the strongest influence on a marriage is how the husband treats his wife.  The way he treats her is based on what happens before marriage, and most of that is determined by how the woman conducts herself.

Before we were married, my wife told me five vital facts about herself.  The truths she gave me became the foundation of our marriage.  We wrote them down for our granddaughter in the hope that she would position herself to be as valued, treasured, appreciated, and nourished as her grandmother.

We put them in a letter to Veronica.  We reviewed it and agonized over it and revised it a number of times.  This is what we sent.  We thought we would post it here, as others might find it helpful.

How She Knew What To Say

About a year before I found her, my wife was planning to marry a man she’d been dating for a while.  He looked really good – youth group leader, served in the church – so she asked God if she ought to marry him.  To her shock and dismay, God plainly said, “No.”

Knowing her distress, the Holy Spirit guided a missionary who knew her friend well to her college.  He confirmed that the flaw God had pointed out would make it a bad idea for her to marry him.  When she asked him about it, he huffed, “That’s the way I am.  If you don’t like it, good bye!” and broke up with her.

A year went by and her friends were marrying fast.  She prayed, “Oh God, please, either send me a husband or make me content without one.”  One day, as she opened her hymnbook, she realized she’d been noticed by a man in the pew behind her.  “Is this my husband?” she thought.  We had our first date in April and married in August.

She’d asked God to choose her husband.  Knowing that I had no idea how to nourish or cherish her, the Holy Spirit led her to tell me astounding things about her.  She was embarrassed by some of what she said and had had no such thoughts before saying them.  This guidance to me was clearly of God.

What God had her tell me became the foundation of our marriage.  Proverbs 31:1 says that Mrs. Lemuel taught her son how to deal with his future wife; mothers are generally better qualified to teach sons how to nourish wives than fathers are.  Working mothers can’t do that because they don’t have time.  It takes a lot of time for a mother to get through to her son because men aren’t inclined to listen to women.  The angel chode Manoah for not accepting what the angel told his wife (Judges 13:13) and Pilate ignored his wife’s advice:

When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.  Matthew 27:19

There is a time, however, when a man may listen.  When he’s attracted enough to try to date a woman, his agenda is very well defined and focused.  If he’s drawn strongly enough to her, he may listen as she explains the terms and conditions under which she would enjoy fulfilling his plans.  If he won’t listen, she must walk away because he’ll never pay any closer attention to what she says than when he’s pursuing her.

Every man knows that a woman can give him the joys of heaven, but he also knows that an unhappy woman can give him the torments of hell.  What she said was so reasonable and so workable that I was confident that I could make her happy.  Once I decided that she wanted to make me happy, marrying her was a no-brainer.

Our granddaughter can’t count on a man having been taught by his mother because few mothers have time.  We wanted her to have the words and concepts to tell a prospective mate what God had wanted me to know about sanctifying a wife.  We pray that it works as well for her as for her grandmother.

Dating is not a Game, it’s Serious Beyond Measure

Veronica, my best beloved, you know that the Bible teaches that you were made for your husband, he’s not made for you (I Co. 11:8-9).  That means that even though your role as wife is of critical importance to your home, your husband, as leader, has more influence than you do after you’re married.

God made you to multiply whatever your husband gives you.  Consider babies.  Your husband gives you one tiny cell.  You gather his life force unto yourself, nourish and multiply his seed within you, and bring forth a child with billions of cells.  Each of those cells has the mark of your husband’s DNA (Gen. 5:3).

Similarly, if your husband gives you joy, love, appreciation, praise, and sanctification (Song 6:9), you’ll multiply what he gives you and fill your home with love and light to the Glory of God.  If he gives you anger, criticism, or harshness, Satan will tempt you to multiply that and your house will be filled with anger and pain.

A virtuous wife “openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness (Pr. 31:26).”  A man who’s emotionally involved with you can be hurt terribly by your words even if he won’t admit it.

Real Biblical love is a choice, not an emotion.  Jesus loves in spite of being hurt (Mt. 23:37) and so can a man or woman whose love of Christ strengthens (Philip. 4:13), but why should your words make it hard for your husband to open his heart to you?  How can he trust in you as Pr. 31:11 promises if you often hurt him?

Even though the way your husband conducts himself has the major impact on your life after you’re married, your grandmother and I believe that your conversation and manner of life are of crucial importance in what goes before the wedding.  Your path where God wants you may be different from ours, but as long as you let God lead, He’ll get you where you ought to be.  The wisdom that the Holy Spirit led your grandmother to convey to me as we courted was vital to our walk with God, so I’m sharing it with you for you to share.

Wisdom Your Grandmother Channeled to Me

You’re old enough that the choices you’re making now will affect the rest of your life.  Your theology, that is, what you believe about God, is your most important choice.  What you choose to believe about God determines what you do, and what you do affects how things turn out for you.

You’ve prayed, “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food,” but do you believe it?  Your grandmother chose to believe that God was great enough to give her life and breath and great enough to give His Word to bless her.  She tried to follow the parts she understood and she asked God to protect her to keep her in His path.  She also believed that God was good enough to want her to have an abundant life (John 10:10).

She believed God knew her better than she knew herself.  She believed that if God wanted her to marry, He would give her to a man who would bless her if she let Him choose.  She spent years asking God to work in her heart to make her a Proverbs 31 woman, that’s why she was able to hear what God told her about me.

These two passages became her key to letting God choose her husband:

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.  Proverbs 4:23

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6

Keeping her heart was the key.  Women can get emotionally involved with very wrong men after which it’s hard to hear the Lord’s warning and pull away.  She tried to keep her heart from me until after I’d married her.  All through dating and up the aisle, she prayed, “God, if Bill isn’t the right man for me, please stop this!”

To make me right for her, God had to teach me how to learn how to nourish and cherish the woman He wanted to give me.  Men are pretty clueless about women.  God worked on me by having your grandmother say some vital, astounding things to me while we were courting and after we were married.

I’m a Treasure Looking for a Husband, not a Toy Looking for Fun

When I first asked her out, she said, “Before you spend any money on me, you should know that I’m looking for a husband.  I’m not looking for fun; I want to get married.  I’m not saying you have to agree to marry me before we go out, but I want you to agree that the purpose of being together is to decide whether you and I should get married.  God made me to be a treasure for some man.  If you aren’t that man, fine, we can part friends, but I’m not a toy.  I don’t want a man to play with me; I want a man to stay with me.”

Putting marriage on the table was part of guarding her heart.  When a woman lets herself “fall in love” with a man who won’t marry her, she’s crusin’ for a brusin’, she’s in for a world of hurt.

When she spoke of my spending money on her, she signaled that she expected me to support her.  In times past, a woman wouldn’t give herself to a man without marriage and she wouldn’t marry unless he’d grown up enough to have a job.  Many modern girls live with guys without marriage and even pay “their share” of the rent.  Your grandmother was letting me know that she wasn’t going to do that.

Every man knows in his heart that a woman can give him the joys of heaven, that’s why men pursue women so fervently.  I was attracted to her, and she tells me she plans to be God’s treasure for her husband!  Although she had no idea what being my treasure would mean, I knew exactly what it would be like to have her be God’s treasure for me.  If she meant that, marriage would be a no-brainer, so I said, “Sure.”

A wife can’t make her husband any happier than he makes her.  God knew I had no idea how to nourish and cherish her.  He had to teach me how to learn how to make her happy so that she could make me happy.  If I couldn’t make her happy, we’d both be miserable.

I want to be Pure at the Altar

On our second date, she told me to dump the other girl I was seeing; she wanted me to focus on her and on her alone.  She then said she wanted to be a virgin on her wedding night.  We agreed that the promises of Proverbs 31 are for a virtuous woman, not the other kind, and that God reserves intimacy for marriage.  She was embarrassed about having said that, but she in effect made me responsible for protecting her purity.  She’d been asking God to protect her all along, now she asked me to help God protect her.

Good thing, too.  Most of my classmates were pretty casual about men and women coming together without marriage.  This discussion gave me the strength to preserve our purity when we were tempted later.

She Called Me “Sir.”

Early in our courtship, she’d occasionally say “Yes, sir” when I addressed her.  Not every time, but as the spirit moved her.  I like that a lot, but we had no idea how important it was.

The Bible teaches you to call your husband “Lord (I Pe. 3:8)” and to reverence him (Eph. 5:33).  This is difficult if you don’t respect him.  That’s why we advise ladies to wait for a man whom they want to call “Sir.”

“Sir” meant she’d respect me in spite of my mistakes.  We’re told to confess our faults one to another (Jas. 5:16).  Men don’t like doing that and they particularly don’t like telling wives things they’re afraid will cost them respect.  Most men ignore Pr. 31:11 and refuse to open their hearts to their wives.  Calling me “Sir” helped me open my heart to her when I realized that God wanted me to belong to her; that’s why God had her do it.

Don’t Fuss At Me

Weeks later, she asked that I never fuss at her.  “I want to love you very much,” she said.  “The more I love you, the more disapproval hurts me.  I won’t be able to love you as much as I want to love you if you hurt me.”

That made sense – the Bible speaks of women as “tender and delicate.”  I didn’t want to keep her from loving me, so I watch what I say.  We didn’t know it then, but God said the same thing:

There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.  Pro 12:18

I needed this too.  A man can be hurt as badly by a woman he loves as a woman can be hurt by a man whom she loves.  We’ve tried always to be sure our tongues are health to each other.  She tries to speak so that the 10-foot area near her is the best place in all the world for me to be, that’s why I like hanging around her.

Talking is More Important than you can Imagine

Just before our wedding, she told me she was really looking forward to being married.  I was too.  I thought we were on the same page, but she went on.  “I really like talking to you.  Once we’re married, we can talk more in a day than we can talk in a week of dating.”

That’s more talking than a man can imagine, she was expecting hours per day!  I’d been talking a lot while dating because we couldn’t do anything else.  I thought once we were married, it would be a done deal and we wouldn’t have to talk about it any more.  As she got marriage on the table, as she asked me to focus my attention on her alone, as she made me responsible for protecting her purity, she told me that talking to her a lot more than I could imagine was an important part of our marriage covenant.

I had no idea how vital this was.  Suffice it to say that a woman can’t follow her husband unless she knows what he wants.  She can’t do what he wants unless he opens his heart to her so that she knows him well enough to know what he wants.  Then she can be sure he’ll be happy with her, which makes her happy.

God made women so that they think very differently from men (Pr. 19:14).  It takes hours and hours of talk before a man can understand what a woman is saying.  If I hadn’t promised to talk to her, I’d probably have been too impatient to communicate with her enough for her to feel that I valued her mind.

Opening my heart to her was scary, but Proverbs 31 says “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.”  God wanted me to know that it was OK to open myself to her.  Opening myself to her made me hers as opening herself to me made her mine.  The Song of Solomon teaches that husband and wife are supposed to belong to each other.  God led her to ask me to promise to talk to her and all that talk made me hers.

I Serve God by Serving You

24 hours after our wedding, she said, “I’ve been thinking about being married to you.”  I thought, “We’re married, what’s to talk about,” but she had told me that talking would be important, so we talked.  “The Bible says God wants me to belong to you, obey you, and submit to you,” she said.  I thought, “Neat-o!  We’re on the same page!” but she wasn’t done.  “I’ll do my best to do that,” she said, “but I’m not doing it just for you.  I’m doing it for God because He told me to.  I’m serving God by serving you because God wants me to serve you.”

Whoa.  I thought about that for a long time and I still think about it.  The next day, I told her, “I’ve been thinking about what you said.  God wants me to lead you and take care of you.  The Bible says that anyone who would be first of all must be least of all and servant of all.  If I’m to lead you as God wants me to, I’ll have to lead by serving you.  You said it well – I’ll serve God by serving you because God wants me to serve you.”

You see, oh my best beloved, marriage, like salvation, is an unmerited gift of God.  The only way to be saved is to die to your former life and be married to Christ.  Your husband won’t deserve your submission, you won’t deserve his giving his life to nourish you; those are undeserved gifts of God’s grace.  God expects married people to serve Him by serving each other and their children.

Jesus said that husband and wife are no more twain, but one flesh.  The only way 2 people can become one is for each of them to die to themselves in favor of their new family.  Each of you must give the other the same love and grace God gave in saving you (I Pe. 4:10).  As Christ chose to love you regardless of your failures, you and your husband must choose to love each other regardless of failure, ‘til death do you part.

As God sees you as perfect, you must treat each other as perfect (II Co. 5:14); you can only do this by the Grace of God.  Watching your husband love you in spite of your failures increases your love for Christ and for him, and vice-versa.  When lost people see you give God’s grace to each other, they’ll want God’s grace.

Salvation is about God giving – for God so loved that He gave….  Your grandmother so loves God that she let God give her to me, I so love God that I let God give me to her.  Our love for each other is based on our love for God.  He must be first.

Just before our wedding, I wrote her a letter, “For God so loved man that He gave him woman, for God so loved me that He gave me you.”  It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t belong to me, but I know many wives who don’t belong to their husbands.  Beg God to increase your love for Christ and for Him.  Ask that He help you become a Proverbs 31 woman whether He wants you to marry or not.  Then if God chooses for you to marry, He can give you to a man who’ll treasure you as He treasures you.

And We Lived Happily Ever After

I told you, oh my best beloved, that although your role is important after you’re married, your husband has more influence on your happiness than you do.  Having told you how God led your grandmother to prepare us both for marriage, it’s time to tell you why our marriage has worked out as well as it has.

First, your grandmother actually let God give her to me.  When we first came together on our wedding night, she was terrified because God gave her a deep, frightening desire to belong to me and to serve me.  Nobody had warned her of this, but she’d prayed for years that God would work on her heart to prepare her for marriage; this had to be from God.  She clung to her faith that God was good and prayed, “Lord, You must want me to belong to Bill.  That doesn’t make sense, but if that’s what You want, I’ll do my best to submit to him and to belong to him.”  That’s why she was able to tell me she planned to serve God by serving me.

It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t belong to me.  When I stood at the altar and vowed to God that I’d give up my right to pursue all the other women in the world and focus my masculinity on her alone, I expected her to be mine.  To show that I’m not unusual, look at “the heart of her husband…” (Pr. 31:11)  The Hebrew word is “Ba-el.”  “El” means “god” as in “el-shaddai” or “elohim.”  “Baal” appears in the Old Testament as the name of a deity.  It could be translated “Lord” or “god;” Jehovah’s Witnesses use “owner” in Pr. 31:11.

Consider the Japanese word “shu-jin” which is translated “husband.”  “Jin” is “person;” “shu” is “Lord” as in “Shu yesu kiristo;” Lord Jesus Christ.  Shujin is literally “lord person.”  A Japanese wife can’t refer to her husband without calling him “Lord;” it’s built into the language as in Eph. 5:33.  My possessiveness is normal.

Many women honor their husbands with their lips (Mt. 15:8, Mk. 7:6) without honoring them with their hearts.  If your grandmother had done that, I would have been deeply hurt and deeply disappointed.

I would also have been deeply ashamed which would have harmed my health (Pr. 12:4).  Very little shames a man worse that having his wife not be his; I know of two heart attacks where such shaming was involved.

Because your grandmother chose to let God give her to me, however, her happiness became my happiness.  Proverbs warns 5 times that an unhappy woman is a hardship (19:13, 21:9, 21:19, 25:24, 27:15), but the opposite is true, too.  When she was happy, life was good.  When she was happy with me, life was very good.  When she was happy in being mine, I got the taste of the joys of heaven that I’d expected when she told me God had made her to be a treasure.  Being a practical engineer, I started learning how to make her happy.

I had another reason to study her.  I’d heard many men complain about women, and they complained about the same things.  When I told her, she told me her friends had said, “He may love you, but he won’t like X, Y, or Z about you once you’re married” and they named the same things my dorm mates had disliked.

This disagreed with my theology.  I had always thought that God was good and had written her “For God so loved me that He gave me you.”  She had told me she was a gift from God, the Bible said that (Pr. 18:22, 19:6), and I knew that God give good and perfect gifts (Mt. 7:11, Jas. 1:17).  Therefore, and this was my crucial insight, all those men who had disliked those characteristics which were common to women were wrong.  Those traits were not defects; God had made women that way on purpose to bless men.

I told your grandmother that we’d work to explore her nature.  Anything that was true of most women was intended to bless all men; any trait unique to her was to bless me because God had chosen to give her to me.  If I couldn’t understand how or why something blessed me, it was my problem, not God’s, and we’d wrestle with it until we figured out just how it blessed me.  I treated it an engineering problem.  To build a strong bridge, I’d better understand the nature of concrete and steel; to build a strong marriage, I had to understand her nature.

With that understanding, she was happy to look into herself to explain her characteristics to me.

God commands that a husband dwell with his wife according to knowledge (I Pe. 3:7).  My learning how she blessed me not only made her happy, it helped me obey God.

I also wanted to know how she was like other women and what was unique to her.  When she’d say, “My friends feel that way,” I’d conclude most women were like that.  Sometimes it was, “I don’t know anyone like that,” for things unique to her.  At other times, she’d have to ask; her friends either agreed with her or didn’t.

This was another area where my engineering mind led me to obey God.  God commands that a husband know how to possess his wife in honor and sanctification (I Th. 4:4).  “Sanctification” means “set apart,” God expected me to know how she was the same as other women and how she was God’s special gift for me.

Read the Song of Solomon carefully.  The husband praises his wife in mind-numbing detail.  This is because he’s paid attention to what’s unique about her so that he can appreciate it.  He says that she’s “but one,” (6:9) which means he’s sanctified her by setting her apart from all other women.  She says 3 times that she belongs to him (2:16, 3:16, 7:10).  In 7:10, she says, “his desire is toward me.”  She knows how badly he wants her, and if you read 8:2-3, you’ll find that she likes belonging to him just as your grandmother liked belonging to me.

In all this talking about her emotions, skills, her feelings, and other characteristics, I ended up opening my heart to her rather often.  This was as frightening to me as her opening herself to me had frightened her, and I ended up belonging to her as she belonged to me.  God designed us so that opening his heart to a woman makes a man belong to her; opening herself to a man makes a woman belong to him.

It’s not enough for a man to have a woman belong to him.  Solomon owned 1,000 women (I Ki. 11:3 7/3).  They were his property and had to do what he told them.  There was none of this “I’m not in the mood” or “I have a headache.”  This sounds like a masculine paradise, but how did it work out for Solomon?

Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.  Ecclesiastes 7:27-28

Solomon owned a thousand women, yet his soul was empty.  Why?  They women belonged to him, he could command as he wished, but he could not make them like it.  Instead of having a woman enjoy belonging to him as his first wife had, he had 1,000 unhappy women running around the palace.  No wonder his soul was empty.

This was Solomon’s fault.  His first wife was “but one,” and she liked belonging to him.  He had time to talk to her enough to open his heart to her which made him hers.  You see, oh my best beloved, it’s nearly impossible for a woman to like belonging to her husband unless he not only belongs to her, he likes belonging to her.  Belonging to her requires that he open his heart to her.  So much talk takes so much time that a man can’t possibly belong to more than one woman.

As I said earlier, your grandmother strives to make her words health to me.  I can open my heart without fear that she’ll hurt me, which keeps me belonging to her.  I started talking to her in this way because I’d promised and as a by-product of wanting to understand how God had designed her to bless me.  It took 20 years of talk, but we can explain how the characteristics my dorm mates disliked about women actually bless them.

The bottom line, Veronica, is that you can’t make your husband any happier than he makes you.  Your happiness is greatest when he likes belonging to you.  As a side benefit, opening his heart to you will teach him all kinds of ways to make you happy if he pays attention.  The happier he makes you, the happier he will be.

What Drives Men to Marry?

Many women say they want to marry, but the way they behave makes it doubtful that any man will want to marry them.  The New York Times published “Sex on Campus – She Can Play That Game, Too,” which argues that women are as eager to participate in casual “hookups” as men are.

At 11 on a weeknight earlier this year, her work finished, a slim, pretty junior at the University of Pennsylvania did what she often does when she has a little free time.  She texted her regular hookup — the guy she is sleeping with but not dating.  What was he up to?  He texted back: Come over.  So she did.  They watched a little TV, had sex and went to sleep.

The Times called the woman “A” because she didn’t want her name used.  A doesn’t particularly like this man, but he’s a handy sexual partner.  She isn’t looking for a deeper relationship because she doesn’t have time:

“I positioned myself in college in such a way that I can’t have a meaningful romantic relationship, because I’m always busy and the people that I am interested in are always busy, too,” she said.

A values building her resume and her career over finding a husband.  She plans to spend the next decade or so on career development and marry in her mid thirties.

“Ten years from now, no one will remember — I will not remember — who I have slept with,” A. said. “But I will remember, like, my transcript, because it’s still there.  I will remember what I did.  I will remember my accomplishments and places my name is hung on campus.”

Sex means so little to A that she doesn’t expect to remember all the men she’s slept with.  She gives herself to men she doesn’t like because they’re good in bed.  Given her history and the fundamental importance of sex, why does she think that any man would want to marry her?

Sex Defines Marriage

Since the dawn of history, sex has defined marriage.  A woman may guide a man’s house without marrying him, we have housemaids.  It’s OK for a woman to raise a man’s children without marrying him; we have nannies and teachers, most of whom are women.  A woman can feed a man without marriage; we have cooks.

A woman can work with or for a man.  A man and woman may do just about everything together without being married, but there’s one thing tradition says they must not do outside marriage, and that’s have sex.

Commitment followed by sex defines marriage.  Generations ago, the Bible taught that their commitment meant that Isaac and Rebecca were married without benefit of clergy of any kind when he took her:

And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.  Genesis 24:67

Mrs. Schwarzenegger had no problem with her husband hiring a woman to help her keep house and help her raise her children.  When it came out that her husband had fathered her house cleaner’s child, however, she divorced him immediately.  In her mind, marriage meant that he could have sex only with her.

Mrs. Schwarzenegger came from the Kennedy family whose members aren’t famous for sexual fidelity.  Despite this background, she was so certain that her husband should have sex only with her that she left him over an affair that had happened years before she learned of it.

Sex Makes Marriage Happen

The driving force of marriage has been known for generations.  Jacob worked for Rachel’s father for seven years.  He saw her regularly; they ate together, talked together, and did things together.  Why wasn’t this enough for him?  Why did he want to marry her?

And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her.  Genesis 29:21

Jacob wanted to marry Rachel so he could have sex with her; custom required marriage before sex.  Jacob wasn’t the only man in the Bible who married so that he could have a woman.  Consider Boaz:

Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day.  Ruth 3:18

Naomi said that after Ruth came back from the harvest celebration and told Naomi “all that the man had done to her.”  Why, “will not be in rest”?  Married women know why the man wouldn’t be in rest until he’d finished the thing that day.  Have men changed at all?  Here’s what Ruth had said to Boaz:

I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman.  Ruth 3:9

Boaz didn’t think of marriage until Ruth asked him to marry her, but once she mentioned it, he thought it was such a good idea that early next morning Boaz runs out, gets witnesses, tells them he’s marrying Ruth, and then what?  “So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife” (Ruth 4:13) even though Ruth didn’t attend her own wedding.  What drives men to marry?  There’s no doubt at all, men want sex.  A man wants many things besides sex, of course, but sex is what drives him to marry.

A Man’s Goal in a Relationship

You see a young man with a young woman, she’s often wearing his jacket or shirt; she’s testing to see if he’ll keep her warm and safe.  She wants a man to protect her, take care of her, talk to her, and appreciate her as God’s unique gift to him.

What does he want?  He wants to have sex with her.  If she lets him have sex without marrying her, he’s less likely to marry her and won’t value her as much if he does marry.  Proverbs 31 teaches that a virtuous woman’s price is beyond calculation.  If a woman gives herself to a man without a commitment from him, she’s set her price very low because she’s cost him nothing.  Why marry a woman who’s worth so little?

What could be more basic?  Naomi told Ruth not to give Boaz rest, Boaz wanted Ruth badly enough that he couldn’t be in rest, so he took her to wife that day, what’s simpler than that?

Few women understand that a man has two possible reactions to sex.  If he doesn’t love her, if his desire is pure selfish lust (I Th. 4:5), having sex with her may make him feel contempt for her as Amnon hated Tamar after raping her (II Sam 13:15).

If he loves her, however, physical joining increases his love for her (Gen 34:3); that’s why it’s sometimes called “making love.”  A woman can tell when a man’s interested in her but the only way she can tell if he cares enough that they’ll be making love instead of just having sex is for him to marry her first.

Many a woman has let a man bed her because she thought he cared for her.  If a man truly cares for a woman, he won’t take her outside marriage because fornication harms her.  When a woman gives herself to man who isn’t committed to her, she usually ends up feeling betrayed.  This makes it harder for her to trust her husband enough to give herself to him as freely as he expected when he married her.

A man who takes a woman without commitment may live with her until she becomes burdensome or has a baby, or he may reject her after having her as Amnon rejected Tamar.  If a woman gives a man rest without marriage, if he can have her without making a commitment, what’s left to drive him to marry her?

It’s important to understand the good that comes from a man’s physical desire.  Most women complain that it’s hard to give gifts to husbands, sons, or brothers.  Why?  It’s because men don’t want anything.  That’s not quite true, men do want something, but what?  What do men want?  What desires did God design into men?

God knew what He was doing.  God planned for women to guide the house, which costs money.  God made men so that if a man’s wife is pleased to belong to him, that is, he can have her whenever he wants her and she lets him know she likes being his by thanking him for taking her, he doesn’t want much else.  Then they can spend his income on the family.  If he can’t have her as often as he wants her, he spends money on toys trying to make himself happy.  Ecc. 2 teaches that that won’t work, but it’s the best he can do if his wife isn’t his.

A’s Mistake

A has had so many sex partners that a potential husband will have trouble trusting her to be faithful to him.  After all, she repeatedly rolled in the hay with men she didn’t like because they gave her a good time.

When God brought Eve to Adam, did He have to say, “I'm sorry you didn't like any of My animals.  Here's someone I whipped up out of leftovers.  Why not talk to her, you might like her?”  Did God have to say that?

And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.  And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.  Genesis 2:22-24

The very first words Eve heard from Adam were a bit possessive.  Adam said Eve was part of him, she belonged to him, he could have her whenever he wanted her, that’s what “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” means to a man.  Men haven’t changed one jot since God brought Eve to Adam - men are possessive of their wives.  God made women for men (I Cor. 11:9) so very well that they’re worth having.

Adam called Eve “woman.”  Did he ask her what she wanted to be called?  He later named her Eve.  Do men put labels on women?  Who takes whose name?  Have men changed?

There’s a reason men are so possessive.  If a man cheats on his wife, she may feel betrayed as Mrs. Schwarzenegger felt betrayed, but unless he spends so much money on the other woman that he can’t feed her or her children, he won’t put her genetic survival at risk.

If a woman betrays her husband, on the other hand, he may raise other men’s children and be bred out of the gene pool.  Natural selection favors jealous, possessive men who keep other men away from their women.

What’s more, the social climate has changed.  Society used to criticize men who took women without marrying them.  Now, with no-fault divorce, a wife can leave her husband at any time for any reason or for no reason.  If she leaves, the courts award her the children, alimony, child support, and much of his property.  Marrying a woman makes it possible for her to trash him financially.

Marriage is now no more than a piece of paper; her character is his only protection against financial disaster.  Suppose she says she wants marriage but has sex without it.  If she’s willing to have sex without marriage, marriage means little to her.  Her actions demonstrate that what she says about valuing marriage is a lie.  Why would a man risk his finances to a woman who lies about something so fundamental to marriage?

Having his Baby

Surveys of couples who’re living together show that the woman believes they’ll be married “in a year or two,” but that the men don’t think they’ll ever marry.  A woman may get tired of waiting for “next year” that never comes and decide to have his baby to get him to marry her.

Having a man’s baby doesn’t make a man love her enough to marry her.  When Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Leah instead of Rachel, Leah thought that giving him a son would make Jacob love her:

And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben: for she said, Surely the LORD hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me. And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Because the LORD hath heard I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also: and she called his name Simeon. And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have born him three sons: therefore was his name called Levi. And she conceived again, and bare a son: and she said, Now will I praise the LORD: therefore she called his name Judah; and left bearing.  Genesis 29:30-35

It took three sons, but Leah finally realized that having Jacob’s babies wouldn’t make him love her.  Even Abraham, father of both Jews and Arabs and honored by both, didn’t marry all the women who had his babies:

But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.  Genesis 25:6

Abraham got at least two women pregnant besides his wives.  Did he marry them?  No, he sent them away.

Giving her Child a Father

Men don’t really understand where babies come from.  A man may have heard about birds and bees, but deep down in his heart, he’s awed and confused by pregnancy and birth.  Men say, “She got pregnant” – reproduction is so mysterious and so miraculous that men don’t really believe they have anything to do with it.

The pill puts a woman in control of getting pregnant because she can stop taking it without telling him.  She can have an abortion without asking him.  Given that he has no say whether a child is conceived or whether it lives or dies, why should a man care about a baby if it should happen to be born?  It’s hers – it was her idea, she chose to keep it, and she had it last.  What has the child to do with him?

Women have known about men’s reluctance to acknowledge children for generations.  Women used to build up social forces and customs promoting marriage and responsibility.  Now that the societal safety net has broken down, a woman has to demand that a man take responsibility by marrying her before she has sex.  It’s really simple – just say, “No, and I won’t marry you unless you have a job.”

Saving sex for marriage makes it easier for a man to trust her.  If she can resist him, the man she wants to marry, he won’t worry as much about her having other men’s children.  Once they’re married, if she encourages him to take her often (Song of Solomon 8:2-3), if she looks up and says, “That was wonderful, I like being yours.  Let’s do that again as soon as you can,” if she thanks him for his seed, he’ll know she’s his.

Insurance companies have known for decades that married men live longer than unmarried men.  Being without a woman is so bad for men that God arranged that most men die before their wives.  If she points out, “We could do that more often if you were in better shape,” she’ll give him a reason to exercise.  That will lengthen his life and shorten her widowhood.

His possessiveness benefits her.  It’s so broad, so all-encompassing, that once she’s his, everything about her belongs to him, including her children and her happiness.  He’ll find that making her happy makes him happy because her happiness belongs to him.  Spending money guiding the house makes her happy and spending money that way makes him happier than anything else.  That’s how God planned marriage to work; why would a man dedicate his life to nourishing and cherishing a woman who wasn’t his?

An Exception to the Rule

Experience shows that couples who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce than couples who don’t.  “But,” you may ask, “What about Prince William and Catherine?  They’re obviously very much in love, and they lived together before they got married.”

For one thing, Catherine didn’t have his baby until after they were married.  If a woman stops taking pills and gets pregnant without her partner’s agreement, he’ll know she’s manipulating him.  Few men respond positively when women use sex for manipulation.

There are two other reasons why William wanted to marry Catherine.  First, we can see from the way she reacts when he touches her that she very much belongs to him.  She not only acknowledges his possessiveness, she supports it and upholds it.  She likes belonging to him.  That’s important to a man.

Her showing publicly that she belongs to him honors him before all men.  Proverbs 12:4 says, “A virtuous wife is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.”  There is no shame that rots a man’s bones as badly as a woman who won’t belong to him.

Second, the documentary about their courtship said that shortly after they met, she found out that he felt trapped in his royal role.  He didn’t think he had much choice in what he’d be permitted to do.

She encouraged him to decide what he wanted to do and then do it.  After discussion, he decided he wanted to fly helicopters.  He took lessons and ended up flying rescue missions.  Doing something worthwhile that he enjoyed made him happy and rescuing people generates favorable publicity for the royal family.

Ever hear, “Behind every successful man, there’s a woman?”  Kate helped him figure out what he wanted to do and encouraged him to do it.  Gaining some understanding of the troubles his subjects get into will make him a better king.  Kate’s help is an example of what the Bible means in describing a virtuous woman:

She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness.  Proverbs 31:26

Kate proved that she was a sensible, loyal woman who’d help him do whatever he chose to do.  A woman can give a man a taste of the joys of heaven by belonging to him.  If she also helps him grow up into the best he can possibly be, she’ll be valued indeed.  Nothing straightens up a man like having a woman lean on him.

It’s no surprise William married Kate – his heart can safely trust in her because she does him good and not evil (Pro 31:12).  Given her loyalty and her valuable help, the surprise would be if he hadn’t married her.

Wanting to Marry

Something draws men and women together in spite of all the hurt they inflict on each other.  What drives a man to pursue a specific woman?  Some Enchanted Evening put it, “Fools will give you reasons; wise men never try.”  Many American valentines have pictures of a naked kid with wings and an archery set.  This represents Cupid whom the Greeks invented to explain the inexplicable.  When Cupid’s arrow plinks a man, he falls madly in love with the next woman he sees and nobody can explain it, not even him.

Women agree that men are clueless about women.  Therefore, every woman should think about how a man might decide to marry her.  It’s simple.  If he can have her without marrying her, she’s a bad girl and he shouldn’t marry her.  If she won’t unless he marries her and she won’t marry unless he gets a job to support her, she’s a good girl and he’ll marry her if he wants her badly enough.

Making him wait for sex gives him time to learn the many non-physical gifts God gave her and gives her time to find out if he’ll enjoy opening his heart to her in talk.  She values his opening his heart to her when he’s not in the mood to talk as much as he values her opening her body to him when she isn’t in the mood for that.

The only way two people can be “no more twain” as Jesus commanded (Mt. 19:6) is for each of them to die to their former individual selves in favor of serving the other.  The marriage has a much stronger foundation if he finds reasons to marry her besides sex and if he learns that he can safely trust his heart in her (Pr. 31:11) before committing himself.

To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, “Love is the conviction that one woman is different from all the rest.”  The husband in the Song of Solomon speaks of his wife as “but one (Song 6:9),” he knows she’s unique.  The Proverbs 31:18-19 husband teaches his children that his wife is better than all the other wives in the world.

Boaz explained why Ruth was unique – “all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman (Ruth 3:10)”.  Boaz trusted Ruth because she wasn’t sleeping around.  Ruth took care of her mother-in-law instead of abandoning her as most widows would have, so he knew she’d take care of him.  He saw her work hard all through the harvest and took care of her by offering her food, water, and protection (Ru. 2:9, 14).  Ruth was a loyal, God-fearing, hardworking, virtuous woman who wanted to marry him.  What’s not to like?

In older novels where marriage was a side issue instead of the main plot, a woman responded to a man’s proposal by saying, “Yes, I will make you happy.” A young lady who had been taught what men expected indicated her willingness to do it in that manner. Nowadays, neither party knows what to expect which is why so many marriages fail.

What about A?

A isn't looking for a husband.  If she waits until her thirties to consider marriage, most men who’re inclined to marry will already be married, some for the 2^nd or 3^rd time.  Any remaining marriage-minded men will be put off by her sexual history.  She hasn’t tried to be unique – A treats men like interchangeable sexual appliances and acts like an interchangeable sexual appliance herself.  Her history of treating sex as meaningless recreation will make it hard for her to see her husband’s drive to bed her as a compliment – she’s likely to see it as oppression and turn him away when she’s not in the mood.

God limited a man’s sexual capacity.  If a wife absorbs all the sexual energy her husband can generate, it will be hard for other women to get his attention.  If, on the other hand, she sends him off to work with his shirt soaked in gasoline, he’ll be tempted to get too near a fire and they’ll both be burned (Pr. 6:27-28).

A man’s desire not to raise other men’s children has been bred into him since God invented natural selection.  How can any man trust her not to take up with someone who’s better in bed and breed him out of the gene pool?  Unless she decides to imitate Kate and prove her virtue by putting her energies into helping a man with his career instead of advancing her own, she’ll have a hard time finding a man who’s worth marrying.

Marriage prospers when a man treats his wife as God’s gift to him and she acts like God’s precious gift to him.  A’s given herself to so many man that it will be hard for any man to think of her as God’s gift to him.

Instead of positioning herself as the treasure God intended her to be, she’s turned herself into a toy.

Hope for A

All is not lost for A.  Salvation promises that “all things are become new.”  Jesus told the woman taken in adultery, “Go thou and sin no more.”  True repentance means seeing the sin the same way God sees it and stopping.  God gave women who’ve committed sexual sins a way to be clean:

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.  Hebrews 9:22

If a woman repents of her sexual sins, the blood of her next cycle purifies her.  The emotional damage will take time to heal, of course, but confession and stopping cleanse her.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  I John 1:9

It will take time for a reformed A to convince a man that she’s ready to be loyal and faithful to him, but if she’s truly saved, the difference between the old A and the new A will be visible to all, including prospective husbands.

Why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife

When I sailed to Kiniwata in the Pacific, I took along a notebook.  I filled it with descriptions of flora and fauna, native customs and costumes.  The only note that still interests me says:  “Johnny Lingo gave eight cows to Sarita’s father.”  I’m reminded every time I see a woman belittling her husband or a wife withering under her husband’s scorn.  I want to say, “You should know why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife.”

Johnny Lingo wasn’t his name; that’s what Shenkin, the guest house manager, called him.  Shenkin had a habit of Americanizing names.  But Johnny was mentioned by many people in many connections.  If I wanted to spend a few days on the neighboring island of Nurabandi, Johnny Lingo could put me up.  If I wanted to fish, he’d show me where biting was best.  If it was pearls I sought, he’d bring me the best.

The people of Kiniwata spoke highly of Johnny Lingo.  Yet they smiled, and the smiles were mocking.

“Get Johnny Lingo to help you find what you want and let him do the bargaining,” advised Shenkin.  “Johnny knows how to make a deal.”

“Johnny Lingo!”  A boy seated nearby hooted and rocked with laughter.

“What goes on?”  I demanded.  “Everybody tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up.  Let me in on the joke.”

“Oh, the people like to laugh,” Shenkin said, shrugging.  “Johnny’s the brightest, strongest young man in the islands.  And for his age, the richest.”

“But, if he’s all you say, what is there to laugh about?”

“Only one thing.  Five months ago, at fall festival, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife.  He paid her father eight cows!”

I knew enough about island customs to be impressed.  Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one.

“Eight cows!” I said.  “She must have beauty that takes your breath away.”

“She’s not ugly,” he conceded, “But the kindest could only call Sarita plain.  Sam Karoo, her father, was afraid she’d be left on his hands.”

“But then he got eight cows for her?  Isn’t that extraordinary?”

“Never been paid before.”

“Yet you call his wife plain?”

“It would be kindness to call her plain.  She was skinny.  She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked.  She was scared of her own shadow.”

“Well,” I said, “I guess there’s just no accounting for love.”

“True enough,” agreed the man.  “That’s why the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny.  They get satisfaction from the fact that the islands’ sharpest trader was bested by dull old Sam Karoo.”

“But how?”

“No one knows and everyone wonders.  All the cousins were urging Sam to ask for three cows and hold out for two until he was sure Johnny’d pay only one.  Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said, ‘Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.’”

“Eight cows,” I murmured.  “I’d like to meet this Johnny Lingo.”

The next afternoon I beached my boat at Nurabandi.  I noticed as I asked directions to Johnny’s house that his name brought no sly smile to the lips of his fellow Nurabandians.  And when I met the slim, serious young man, when he welcomed me with grace to his home, I was glad that from his own people he had respect without mockery.  We sat in his house and talked.  Then he asked, “You come here from Kiniwata?”

“Yes.”

“They speak of me there?”

“They say there’s nothing that you can’t help me get.”

He smiled gently.  “My wife is from Kiniwata.”

“Yes, I know.”

“They speak of her?”

“A little.”

“What do they say?”

“Why, just.....”  The question caught me off balance.  “They told me you were married at festival time.”

“Nothing more?”  The curve of his eyebrows told me he knew there had to be more.

“They also say the marriage settlement was eight cows.”  I paused. “They wonder why.”

“They ask that?”  His eyes lighted with pleasure.  “Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the eight cows?”

I nodded.

“And in Nurabandi everyone knows.”  His chest expanded with satisfaction.  “Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita.”

That’s the answer, I thought: vanity.

But then I saw her.  I watched her enter the room to place flowers on the table.  She stood still a moment to smile at the young man beside me.  Then she went out.  She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.  The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a joy to which no one could deny her the right.

I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me.

“You admire her?” he murmured.

“She ... she’s glorious.  But she’s not Sarita from Kiniwata,” I said.

“There’s only one Sarita.  Perhaps she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata.”

“She doesn’t.  I heard she was homely.  They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated.”

“You think eight cows were too many?”  A smile slid over his lips.

“No, not at all.  But how can she be so different?”

“Do you ever think,” he asked, “what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought?  Women boast of what their husbands paid.  One says four cows, another six.  How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two?  This could not happen to my Sarita.”

“Then you did this just to make your wife happy?”

“I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes.  But I wanted more than that.  You say she is different.  This is true.  Many things can change a woman.  Things that happen inside, things that happen outside.  But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself.  In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing.  Now she knows she is worth more than any woman in the islands.”

“Then you wanted--”

“I wanted to marry Sarita.  I loved her and no other woman.”

“But--”  I was close to understanding.

“But,” he finished softly, “I wanted an eight-cow wife.”

Condensed from WOMAN’S DAY magazine fiction feature - Nov. 1965 By Patricia McGerr

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Every man knows that a wife can give him the joys of heaven on earth.  Few men are as wise as Johnny who understood God’s teaching that a man should praise and uphold his wife to receive the joy God intended:

Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.  Proverbs 31:28-29

Children don’t praise their mothers unless their father does it.  Johnny not only told his wife he valued her, he proclaimed her price “far above rubies” to all the world as taught in the Song of Solomon:

My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.  Song of Solomon 6:9

A woman is a mirror, not a light; she multiplies whatever her husband gives her.  A man gives his wife one tiny cell.  She multiplies his seed within her and gives him a baby with billions of cells.  Every one of her child’s billions of cells bears the mark of her husband’s DNA (Gen. 5:3).

Johnny gave Sarita unshakable confidence that he treasured everything about her and that he valued her above all else.  God made women for men (I Corinthians 11:8-9).  A woman desires to have her husband be pleased with her (Gen3:16).  Being valued by Johnny made Sarita happy.  The joy and happiness he gave her multiplied in her, made her beautiful, flowed out of her, and filled her surroundings with love and light.

The price for a “best wife” was 5 or 6 cows.  By going so far beyond that, Johnny said that his wife was far beyond the best.  Her happiness in belonging to him brought Johnny honor – he was “known in the gates.”  Local people who knew her honored him; those who didn’t understand mocked him.

We don’t buy wives in America, but a man can make his wife feel like a treasure by praising her, thanking God for her, and thanking her for being willing to let God give her to him.

Johnny may not have known that God made women as a favor to men (Pr.18:22) or that God knows how (Mt. 7:11) to give good and perfect gifts (James 1:17), but he knew that he had to honor his wife to receive the blessing God intended.  God gave Handel and Mozart great musical gifts.  They labored to develop their gifts and blessed us as Sarita blessed Johnny.  How could she bless him?  He treated his wife as God’s precious treasure; she became God’s precious treasure.  How many have neglected God’s gifts and lost the blessing?

I’ve seen men give wives criticism, bitterness, discouragement, anger.  The Bible warns 5 times (Pr. 19:13, 21:9, 21:19, 25:24, 27:15) that an unhappy woman multiplies unhappiness no matter how she tries to keep sorrow to herself.  When a man sows unhappiness to his wife, it’s no surprise that he reaps a house full of pain.

This works both ways, of course.  Proverbs 12:18 says, “There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.”  If a couple’s words are health to each other, they’ll always want to hear what the other has to say.  How can anyone love a spouse who inflicts daily hurt?

Johnny honored, praised, and sanctified his wife (I Thessalonians 4:4); everyone knew she was the most valued, most treasured wife in all the islands.  Being convinced that her husband thought so highly of her gave Sarita the emotional strength to enjoy belonging to Johnny.  This gave him a taste of the joys of heaven on earth, just as God planned.

A woman gives a man joy by multiplying the happiness gives her and reflecting his joy in her back to him.  God created women so that a woman can give her husband a taste of the joys of heaven, but she can’t make him any happier than he makes her.