Wife

A wife is a married woman, the covenant partner of a husband, and in Scripture the word itself is not sharply separated from "woman": the Hebrew ishah in Genesis 2:23 and the Greek gyne in Ephesians 5:25 each mean both, so the text often leaves the reader to tell from context whether a woman or a wife is meant. Genesis 2:23-24 gives the Bible's founding account of the relationship: the woman is taken from the man and called ishah because she was taken from ish, and the narrator draws the consequence that a man leaves his father and mother, joins with his wife, and the two become one flesh. The language of verse 24 is covenant-like in its permanence and its "one flesh" union, and both Jesus and Paul later quote it as such.

The Hebrew Scriptures portray the wife chiefly within the household. Psalm 128:3 pictures her as a fruitful vine in the inner parts of the house, with children like olive shoots around the table — a picture of blessing and prosperity. Proverbs 31:10-31 is the best-known extended description: a worthy woman whose value is above rubies, who works with her hands, trades, provides for her household, and whose works praise her in the gates (Proverbs 31:31). Notably, the passage praises her industry and economic competence rather than her seclusion.

In the New Testament, the household codes address wives and husbands directly. Ephesians 5:25-33 instructs husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the assembly and gave himself for her, and to love their own wives as their own bodies; the wife is told to respect her husband (Ephesians 5:33). 1 Peter 3:1-7 similarly addresses wives' conduct — including the "gentle and quiet spirit" that is precious in God's sight (1 Peter 3:4) — and then instructs husbands to live with their wives according to knowledge, giving honor to the woman as the weaker vessel and as joint heirs of the grace of life, so that their prayers are not hindered (1 Peter 3:7). 1 Timothy 5:10 describes an older woman approved by good works, including raising children, hospitality, washing the saints' feet, and relieving the afflicted. The Greek vocabulary of household management (oikonomia) and the repeated "one flesh" citation frame marriage as both domestic and theological.

Christian traditions read these texts differently. Many complementarian Protestant and Catholic readings treat the husband's headship and the wife's submission (Ephesians 5:22-24; 1 Peter 3:1) as a created order, while stressing that the husband's love is self-sacrificial. Egalitarian readings, common in many Protestant denominations, argue that the same passages' mutual language — "joint heirs" in 1 Peter 3:7 and the husband's self-giving in Ephesians 5:25 — set a pattern of mutual submission, and that the household codes reflect their first-century setting. Catholic and Orthodox teaching treats marriage as a sacrament or mystery, so the wife's role is understood within a sacramental bond; most Protestant traditions regard marriage as a covenant or ordinance rather than a sacrament. These differences are genuine and long-standing, and they concern how the same texts are to be applied rather than whether they are authoritative.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.