It’s no secret that money is one of the top areas of conflict in marriage, but our modern culture often fails to recognize one of the underlying roots of this tension: the husband’s role as a financial provider. Women today have more vocational options than ever: staying at home as a full-time mom, pursuing a career outside the home, or working from home or telecommuting. But as working women are receiving equal pay as their male co-workers and even out-earning their husbands—what bearing does this have on her husband’s responsibility to provide?
Shaunti Feldhahn describes the responses of married couples as she interviewed them on this issue in her book, For Women Only, concluding, “Whatever a man’s wife felt about it, whatever she did or didn’t earn, he felt that providing was his job. Period.”
My husband and I both work full-time hours. We both bring home paychecks. We even probably make about the same in terms of annual income. And yet—both of us would consider it his primary responsibility to provide.
Some may consider this an antiquated and even sexist concept, conjuring up images of 50s housewives who dusted and vacuumed at home while their men brought home the bacon from the corporate world. But the men Shaunti interviewed felt differently, as surprisingly revealed in this interaction that she observed:
I love my wife, but I can’t depend on her to provide. That’s my job.”
In several interviews, the man’s wife was sitting right next to him. One wife, shocked, turned to her husband and said, “But I’ve always worked! I’ve always contributed to the family budget!”
His gentle response: “You working or not is irrelevant. Not to the family budget—it does ease some of the financial pressure. But it is irrelevant to my need to provide.”
These men all confirmed the same conviction: men have a strong internal drive to provide for the family. Speaking from the experience of my own marriage, I would say this is true for us. Zach works because he feels the pressure of paying off his school debt, taking care of me, and planning ahead for our future. He is the one who tracks our finances and is constantly thinking up ways to get ahead. To Zach, working the daily grind is something he does for me, and for us, so that we can build our life together. Zach’s career is an act of love for me, so that he can see that my needs are taken care of.
On the other hand, I view my work differently. I see it as something that certainly contributes to our shared goals of paying off school debt and saving for our future, but I don’t feel the burden of benefiting my husband through financial means. I do not equate my income with love and care for my husband. If I realize our bank balance is a little slim one month, I think about practically, “Well, we’ll just have to be careful to stay within our budget this month.” But if Zach is feeling financial stress, it translates to a personal failure on his part that has let me down as a husband. Once I figured this out, I finally understood why our finances are so personal to Zach: because he sees them as a reflection of his ability to provide.
Men have been mandated to work from the beginning, when God charged Adam with keeping and cultivating the Garden (Genesis 2:15). Before sin ever entered the world, there was work to be done, work that is clearly presented as a good and holy pursuit. In fact, Scripture has harsh words indeed for the man who neglects this mandate: “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8).
This is not to say that women should not work—there are many examples in Scripture of working women such as the entrepreneurial wife of Proverbs 31 who is praised as a godly example—but Scripture does emphasize that the responsibility to provide falls to the man. And I think providing has more to do with the attitude of a man’s heart than the zeros on his paycheck. This attitude is one of self-giving, making daily sacrifices and working hard to care for the basic needs of the family.
Far from being chauvinistic, a husband’s desire to provide for his family is a powerful demonstration of maturity and selflessness. In a culture which typifies men as passive and directionless—just watch any sitcom or read the news about high numbers of college graduates living off the financial support of their parents—I am encouraged to see men who are committed to working hard to secure what’s best for their family. And I am thankful for a husband who takes seriously his responsibility to care for me in every way.
