Q:
What you spoke before about a man having to honor a wife, you mentioned that a wife has to honor her husband too but that you don’t need to talk about it much because it’s expected. Can you explain that?
A:
We don’t speak so much about the obligation of a wife to honor her husband because this was an axiom, it was self understood.
Lehavdil, even among the gentiles up til recently, a woman promised to honor and obey her husband. Later they became wise-alecks and they erased it from the gentile wedding ceremony. So even gentiles understood a woman must honor and obey her husband.
Lehavdil, among Jews there was no question. Every woman considered the husband the leader of the family. She had a big awe of her husband. There was no question about that.
In the ancient times, every husband had a beard and no wife had a beard. And therefore, the husbands were recognized by the act of Hashem. That’s why the beard grows, to show he is the one who has the authority. And she has to respect him. He’s a leader. He’s a leader in Torah. He’s the kohen gadol of the family; he makes kiddush and he leads them in all the avodas Hashem. Certainly.
But the respect of a husband to a wife could be easily overlooked. He can think that his wife doesn’t wear a black hat, she doesn’t have a beard, and therefore he might make the great error of being careless in his responsibility which he undertook at the time of the kesubah and he has to be reminded constantly.
And it’s the greatest importance always, always, always, to work on that, because the honoring of his wife is something that happens so many times in his daily life, that it can add up to the biggest merit, or chalilah, the biggest demerit.
(June 1989)
