a woman's place

In the Protestant realm, I've always heard women pining away to be the "Proverbs 31 woman". Which many like saying as "Christian wives" but don't really make an effort to become. I love that Orthodoxy doesn't tell us we can't attain holiness. We can attain it, and our struggle is not one of outward appearances only. We fight our own desires and worship sacrifically. The Orthodox woman is struggling just as the man beside her is- learning and seeking holiness is lifelong. There is not some idea of instant perfection in our day to day choices and living when we "choose Christ". Who in honesty would really say they choose Christ always? The awareness of my own love (yes, love, because I choose it all too often over Life) of death is ever more apparent to me. While there is absolutely a lesson to be learned from Proverbs 31, I think adhering to it as my only (or most important) example of how I should react within my marriage would be betraying myself of the many other teachings within the Holy Bible, not to mention those of the Fathers.

One of the things we struggle for is our marriage. We fight against the world and evil that seeks to destroy our union. The Christian family is so important to any life in pursuit of the Truth. Without recognizing that, and fighting for it, we have no sponsorship, we bring no child or person to Christ. Marriage is a first step, then parenthood where we are told to raise our children as God's own. Without Holy Matrimony, there is divorce from all those good things and ways. Again, I do not speak of divorce in the worldy since, but as total separation; disunion: a divorce between thought and action.

I think also of Malachi 2 in regards to marriage. I know it is directly to priests, but in the belief that we are members the royal priesthood, as Orthodox Christians, how it speaks a man must treat the wife of his youth (how many times does the Bible speak of the importance of this particular wife) indirectly makes me think about any marriage, and how any "treachery" is unfaithfulness and creates a divorce within a marriage(not the modern, court room-based kind):

With whom you have dealt treacherously;
Yet she is your companion
And your wife by covenant.
But did He not make them one,
Having a remnant of the Spirit?
And why one?
He seeks godly offspring.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.
16 “ For the LORD God of Israel says
That He hates divorce,
For it covers one’s garment with violence,”
Says the LORD of hosts.

He made us one, having a remant of the Spirit. Thank God. Thank God for forgiveness and redemption. Without it we'd all be lost.