- A section from this year’s Religion and Morals Report.
That the divine institution of the family is under very severe attack in the present day has often been identified in this report and by many other organisations besides the Christian Church. The laws passed in our Parliaments over the past 60 years, since World War II, have increasingly eroded family life. Very many children are now reared in homes where marriages have broken down, two or more partners become identified with the family and where increasingly the biblical role of a mother is all but obliterated. The education system and employment changes, together with a revolution in the ethics of matters surrounding fertility and birth control, have all contributed. A particularly pervasive and successful feminist agenda in the 1970s and 1980s has reaped this fruit in the present generation.
Some social commentators are beginning to see signs that this movement is facing something of a reversal in more recent times. It is now more common for young mothers to recognise openly the fallacy of the dogma that a woman is repressed when she acts in the role of a mother and home-maker rather than as a career-driven professional or money-maker. This is certainly a welcome trend if it is finding wider acceptance. It is particularly interesting that this trend is found among highly educated and otherwise employable young women. However, it is clear that much more biblical teaching is needed to break down the decades of destructive legislation and social engineering in our society.
The time and labour invested in the apparently trivial concerns of the home and around infants and young children is indeed a worthy trading with God-given talents and will be sure to find a gracious recompense when performed as unto the Lord. The security and comfort of a home in which the mother is always found and to which she gives all her talents and gifts and time will be a legacy that children will treasure long after their mother is removed from time into eternity. The absence of a mother from that most fulfilling and yet most difficult and taxing of roles will be felt by every child who suffers that loss. We therefore most earnestly encourage young women to value and cherish these years of motherhood if and when God blesses them with children.
It is neither patronising nor repressing to be instructed from divine truth in matters of such high importance for the future of the Church of Christ and of the nation in which we live. Being a mother is not incompatible with a good, complete university education. The prayerful care of a mother cannot be replaced with any other benefit in the lives of children, and if the time to give it passes, it will not be reclaimed later. Mothers are therefore to pay no heed whatever to the clamouring calls of a godless age to throw off what it calls repression and bondage but what the Word of God describes in the most honourable of terms.
“Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar. She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. 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. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates” (Proverbs 31:10-31).