Titus 2:4–5—The Younger Women

Tit.2:4–5. That they train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, good managers of the household, good, submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

The Apostle sets out rules for the pastor about what and how to teach the flock, and part of this labor he lays upon the older women, specifically in the matter of instructing the younger women. But the older women are obligated to teach under the direction and guidance of the pastor. Consequently, the source of instruction remains one—the lawfully appointed pastor; the older women are only instruments. Oversight of the younger women is not lifted from the pastor but only lightened. What then are the younger women to be taught?

“To love their husbands.” “This is the greatest of household blessings: ‘a husband and wife who are in harmony with one another,’ as the Wise One says (Sir. 25, 2). When this is present, nothing unpleasant will arise. For when the head is united with the body and there is no division between them, how can the rest fail to be in harmony as well? When the chief members are at peace, who can disturb and trouble that peace? On the other hand, if they stand in bad relations with one another, nothing in the household will be in order. There is nothing better than their mutual harmony; it is more profitable than wealth, noble birth, authority, and everything else. The Apostle did not simply say they should be at peace, but: ‘love their husbands.’ For when there is love between them, no discord can penetrate; from love all other good things are born” (St. Chrysostom).

“To love their children.” This means that by “young women” the Apostle has in view not girls but young wives, and ones, moreover, who already have children. Love for children is natural to mothers, as it is to fathers. If it is mentioned, it is not so much to implant love for children as to bring to mind the quality of such love: for not every love for children is true love. Blessed Jerome writes: “let them love their children in such a way as to establish them in divine instruction. To be unwilling to grieve children by teaching them what is good, and to leave them free to sin—this is not to love children, but rather to hate them.”

“To be self-controlled”—with the self-control proper to marriage, by which they regard even the pleasures of the marriage bed not as the chief end of marriage but as an adjunct called forth by the necessity of nature, and do not allow themselves such pleasures outside that bed. Blessed Jerome writes: “the Apostle wishes them to love their husbands in purity; he wishes there to be between husband and wife a certain modest and restrained affection, and that wives with a sense of shame, as though by the necessity of their sex, should render to their husbands what is due rather than themselves demand it of them, and should believe that even the act of procreation they perform in the presence of God and of the angels.”

“Pure.” This is either synonymous with self-control, or self-control means faithfulness in marriage and temperate use of the pleasures of the marriage bed; while purity means keeping the heart as detached as possible from those pleasures, and above all not allowing oneself to be drawn into love for persons outside the marriage. Blessed Theophylact writes: “a wife who loves her husband will be self-controlled and blameless, that is, pure in body and heart from union with outsiders and from passionate love for them.”

“Good managers of the household.” Alongside love for husband and children, it falls to the wife to manage the household and all the affairs of the home. This requires no small labor, and still more wisdom and diligence. But where the love mentioned above is present, it will teach the wife everything. St. Chrysostom says: “all that is good arises from love; wives become good and attentive to the home from love and attachment to their husbands. Conversely, a wife who despises her husband is negligent of the home as well. From love comes constant self-control; from love every discord is destroyed; if the husband is a pagan, he will soon be converted; if he is a Christian, he will become better. Do you see the condescension of Paul? He who strove by every means to turn us away from worldly cares now shows great solicitude for the affairs of the home. For when these affairs are well managed, then spiritual things also will find their place; otherwise they too will fall into disorder. A wife who is attentive to the home will also be self-controlled; a wife who is attentive to the home will also be thrifty; she will not allow either luxury, or untimely expenditure, or anything else of the kind.”

“Good.” When wives love their husbands and children, they are already well-disposed toward them. But it is possible that, having given themselves over too much to care for the household, they become attached to material things and fall into miserliness, which deprives family members of what is due them. In a family, moreover, there are servants, and a mistress who is overly solicitous about the home may not be kind toward them. Beyond that—besides meeting the needs of family members, one cannot neglect those outside who are in need. So that attentive mistresses of the home may not, by that very fact, become miserly, harsh toward servants, and unmerciful to those in need, the Apostle commands them, alongside care for the home, to be good as well. Some even read it thus: οικουργους αγαθας — to be good housekeepers—without separating these words with a comma. Blessed Jerome writes: “the young women are to be taught to have care for the household. But since it might happen that some would exercise this care with harshness, and that, on account of the Apostle’s injunction, a mistress might prove unmerciful toward servants, the Apostle added: ‘good’—so that wives who are mistresses of the home should consider themselves good managers of the household when they relate to their servants with kindness rather than with the harshness that breeds fear.”

“Submissive to their own husbands.” The submission of wives to their husbands is the primordial ordinance of God, which is naturally fulfilled, so that departing from it is an exception to the general natural order of things. The Apostle sets this forth “so that Christian wives may not, for any reason, forget this divine appointment that subjects them to their husbands. God said to the woman: ‘your desire shall be toward your husband, and he shall rule over you’ (Gen. 3, 16). The Lord did not say to the husband: you shall rule over your wife, but to the wife herself; so that the reward for submission should remain with her, if, voluntarily submitting to the commandment of God, she voluntarily serves her husband and voluntarily submits to her spouse; so that this submission is free and full of love, by which they submit to their husband in all things, fearing to offend him. The husband was not created for the woman’s sake, but the woman for the man’s sake. And just as the head of the woman is the husband, and the head of the husband is Christ; so a wife who does not submit to her husband, that is, to her head, is guilty of the same guilt as a husband who does not submit to Christ, his Head” (blessed Jerome).

But for Christian wives the Apostle sets forth a special motive for submission to their husbands—namely: “that the word of God may not be blasphemed.” If a wife who was formerly submissive, upon becoming a Christian, becomes disobedient, she thereby gives her husband just cause to blaspheme the word of God—or the Gospel: what kind of word of God or what kind of faith is this, that teaches wives not to submit to their husbands?! And the Gospel and the faith will suffer loss. To prevent this from happening, the Apostle, in addition to that general divine appointment that wives be subject to their husbands, urges them to this also by the danger of harming the word of God. St. Chrysostom says in this connection: “do you see that he is chiefly concerned with the proclamation of the Gospel, and not with worldly affairs? So also regarding submission to the authorities in the Epistle to Timothy he says: ‘that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and purity’ (1 Tim. 2, 2); and here: ‘that the word of God may not be blasphemed.’ If a believing wife living with an unbelieving husband is not virtuous, blasphemy against God is usually uttered; but if she lives honorably, the proclamation gains glory from her and from her good works. Let wives who live with wicked or unbelieving husbands hear this, let them hear and learn by their manner of life to draw them to godliness. Even if you gain no other benefit, even if you do not bring your husband to share in right doctrine, at least you will stop his mouth and prevent him from blaspheming Christianity. And this is no small thing but a great one—that our teaching be honored on account of our conduct.” Ambrosiaster writes the same: let wives be obedient to their husbands, “so that husbands, if they are unbelievers, may rather rejoice that their wives have become Christians, than blaspheme the name of God upon seeing that they obey them the more willingly out of fear of offending God, by the prompting of their faith.” Were there not also cases “when some women under the pretext of piety abandoned their husbands, and this brought reproach upon the proclamation,” as blessed Theodoret surmises?

Tit.2:6. Exhort young men likewise to be self-controlled.

To young men he enjoins only self-control to be urged. This is because other passions scarcely trouble them: the one passion opposed to self-control holds sway over them. Therefore, if they can stand firm against it, there is nothing more to be said about the others. Moreover, self-control—understood as of both soul and body—is a virtue with which all the others are essentially connected. A self-controlled person also has the fear of God, is temperate, attentive to himself, free from every kind of dissipation, composed, and upright in everything. Therefore, by urging young men to be self-controlled, the pastor will, without saying it, be saying that they should adorn themselves with all the virtues as well. Blessed Jerome applies “likewise” here to all of the foregoing. In relation to the older women, he understood “likewise” (verse 3) as: like the elderly men; but in relation to the young men he understands it as: like both. What pertains specifically to young men he sums up in one word: “to be self-controlled”—“in soul and body, in deed and in thought, so that no suspicion of carnal impurity may fall upon any young man.” Ambrosiaster adds: “since youth is characterized by impetuosity and is quick to fall, it is therefore commanded to hold it back with salutary restraints, so that, being bridled by the divine laws, it may walk on the right path.” Let us add the words of St. Chrysostom: “do you see how he everywhere urges the observance of what is fitting? The instruction of women he entrusted chiefly to women, committing the younger to the older; but the entire task of instructing men he entrusts and leaves to Titus himself. Nothing—truly nothing—is so difficult and burdensome for the young in age as to overcome shameful pleasures. Not love of money, nor desire for glory, nor anything else so troubles this age as lasciviousness. Therefore the Apostle, leaving all else, directs his exhortation against this dangerous disease.”