When I reach for the remote to turn on the television, I usually enjoy watching some sort of home show. Fixer Upper, Flip or Flop, Rehab Addict, Salvage Dawgs, and Property Brothers are all shows I might enjoy watching at the end of a long day.
I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times I have heard the phrase “Happy Wife, Happy Life” in those shows. The man decides to go with the house the wife has chosen claiming “Happy Wife, Happy Life” with a shrug of his shoulders. The real estate agent encourages the husband to have a “happy life” by giving in to the opinion or the slanting of the woman. My question is where did this saying even come from? Is it even biblical?
As a Christian woman, it is a phrase which makes me grimace every time I hear it. Another one I abhor equally is, “If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Really? Seriously? Am I, as a grown woman, like a two year old child who will have a royal fit if I do not get my own way? Am I, as a reasonable human being, so rigid that I am not able to bend to the opinion or viewpoint of someone else? Am I, as a loving person, so selfish that I am not able to put anyone’s thoughts or feelings above my own. Am I, as a Christian wife, so unsubmissive that I would not consider allowing my husband to have the final say in a matter.
Cantankerous women certainly do exist. Proverbs 25:24 (ESV) talks about such a woman when it says, “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house with a quarrelsome wife.” In other versions of this verse it says “rooftop”. Can you imagine a husband desiring to live on the corner of the rooftop of his house than to live in the home with his quarrelsome wife? I don’t know about you, but I like my husband right where he is which is snuggled up next to me in the bed, eating dinner at our table and raising our family together under our roof.
We are called to not be selfish and consider others better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). We are called to do good and not harm to our husbands all the days of our lives (Proverbs 31:12). We are called to submit to our husbands as unto the Lord (Ephesians 5:22). We are called to have a gentle and quiet spirit which is beautiful and precious in the eyes of God (1 Peter 3:4).
These verses which are listed in the Bible as to how we as Christian wives should conduct ourselves are in stark contrast to the secular statement of “Happy Wife, Happy Life”. We are not, nor should we be, women who throw fits, need to have our own way, or are unyielding to what others, especially our husbands, have to say.