Dear Editor,
I read a comment on Matzav that really triggered me. It said that “The main tachlis of a woman is to be a mashgiach over husband. That is her tafkid.”
The person when on to say, perhaps sarcastically, that the wife’s job is “to constantly badger him regarding his davening, learning, child rearing, kibbud av, flower buying, shmiras eynayim, finishing Shas with all Rishonim, shuckeling in shul like the rov, no relaxing on the couch at the end of a day, etc. It’s the wife’s job to change her husband and turn him into a Rabi Akiva Eiger. That is the only way to have true shalom bayis.”
This got me wondering: Why is it that many wives do view their position that way? And why don’t husbands serve as their wives’ mashgiach in the same way?
From my vantage point, I don’t see men breathing down their wives’ backs about lashon hara, about tznius, about shemiras hamitzvos, and so on and so forth.
But the wives seem to be forever rebuking their husbands for everything under the sun. What is gained by this? And what good is that for shalom bayis? Is that what is taught in seminary? Isn’t a marriage supposed to be a partnership, not a mashgicha constantly criticizing her spouse?
Troubled in Brooklyn
{Matzav.com}
Waa?? Why was this piece of incoherence published?
I can just imagine the sholom bayis in a home where the wife is mashgiach over her husband or vice versa.
The problem, is these heiligeh 18-19 year old girls come back from $30,000.00+ seminary knowing all of Shulchan aruch, with every miforash, backwards and forwards. They expect their husband to know more than them. Now don’t get me wrong, in order to be a good mother and wive, one must know all of Shulchan aruch. How can you possibly change a diaper or make a butternut squash soup for supper, if you don’t know all of Shulchan aruch?! How can you possibly know which medicine to give your sick child at 3:00am with fever and a runny nose, on a random Tuesday night, if you don’t know all of Shulchan aruch? How can you possibly un-stuff a toilet with a plunger, while your husband is still at work/learning, if you don’t know klor all of Shulchan aruch? So, yes, the girls definitely need to fly to Israel in order to learn all of Shulchan aruch and have it on their fingertips. No need for a Rav after marriage. The ladies can paskin on their own. So bi’emes, the ladies don’t even need a husband. They are super talented and a talmedie chachoma. If a husband does come into her picture, he takeh should be treated like a worthless shmata.
In case you haven’t seen the ad for this book, you can get it literally anywhere at amazon or any Jewish book store.
The 10 Really Dumb Mistakes Very Smart Couples Make: by R’ Ben Tzion Shafier (2021)
It’s a great book and covers precisely this issue. As one of the mistakes (Trying to change your spouse)
Seriously. I am positive that the original commenter was being sarcastic. If you can’t recognize sarcasm though, you might actually need a full-time mashgiach!
“the frontal attack usually doesn’t succeed and it only causes irritation.”
More at https://torasavigdor.org/rav-avigdor-miller-on-how-to-nag/
not sure where you have your hashkafa from. if you are struggling, there are hotlines to call
not sure where you have your hashkafa from. if you are struggling, there are hotlines to call
I’m not sure who gives girls messages about the need to become the mashgiach for their husbands. At least overtly, a kallah teacher would not say that. If the message is somehow implied, I guess that can happen. I would similarly suggest that messages like this can come from teachers and mechanchos. It’s bad enough that with all improvements to date, our matzav with preparation for marriage for both chasanim and kallos is quite dismal. There is much that needs to be part of preparation that is completely omitted. For foolish things like this to be included in that preparation is a shuddering thought.
But let’s not put all the blame on the girls for becoming the mashgichim over the husbands, to the detriment of their marriage. Husbands do quite a bit to badger their wives over things that are attributed to keeping with halachah, to include tznius, kashrus, etc. I disagree with the letter writer claiming that the men do not behave so towards their wives.
I offer a suggestion, perhaps to change the approach to the entire subject. I postulate that we pay attention to the specifics of behavior, whether waking on time and complying with zman kriyas Shema, etc., and the men breathing down the wives’ backs about lashon horah, etc. at the expense of the major pieces of our lives, emunoh, maintaining a happy environment in the home, mutual support, ahavas ish v’ishto, etc. The latter issues are seldom addressed in any form of preparation for marriage,, and they should be.
Matzav editor… why would you post something like this? This is only going to evoke an endless stream of nasty comments… unless you plan on suppressing them.
Because there’s nothing else to comment about as all political news, including covid, are fake news and boring.
Its always easier to criticize than to improve yourself. But Hashem wants us to grow so he made nature in a way that will draw us to have a partner and this partner is there to help us grow. Yes a wives job is to help her husband grow. And husbands job is to help his wife grow. As long as they both understand it they wont view it as criticizing but as helpful suggestions and they will both be able to grow from it.
“Its always easier to criticize than to improve yourself. etc. etc. etc…..”
You definitely learned in sem to be able to read this article and still come out blabbering and jabbering some codswallop about the wife’s job wife’s job bla bla bla. Stop getting so stung by the message take it in and accept.
Anyway, actually it starts the other way round. It’s the husbands job and also the wife’s. the husband said harei not the wife, she has a ring not him.
Aizer k’negdo.
In its simplest form it means as follows:
If he behaves – spiritually, she = Aizer.
If he does not – She =K’negdo.
I don’t recall seeing a commenter say those things, so I can’t comment with any definitive knowledge about what he said. However, it seems to me that either the guy who said it is nobody worth repeating (a possible scenario, given the range of comments and commenters we see on sites like this), or his comments are being reported out of context. For example, I have heard Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l say similar (though less extreme) statements, but they were followed with something like “But! The woman must be very wise about how she encourages her husband…”. So I don’t know what the author of this article is all upset about
What about if the wife is frum Orthodox 19-year-old NJ native Hailey Kops who will be making her Olympic debut in Beijing as a pair skater competing for Israel with her partner, Evgeni Krasnopolski?
LOL. Sounds like someone needs a little Sholom Bayis help. Get the help you need and please don’t make this into a real problem because its not. It might be your personal problem but not for the rest of us. My wife, mother, mother in law, sisters, sisters in law, daughters and daughters in law are all wonderful partners to their husbands and work together in their ruchnius departments. None of them are mashgichos, nor do they feel a need to be one. Sheesh – Get a life!
Actually, both of you are wrong. It’s neither the wife or the husband to be their spouse’s mashgiach. The main purpose of a marriage is to build a relationship built on love and trust for one another. The goal of marriage is NOT to make your spouse grow in ruchniyus. That is between them and Hashem. Of course, if it comes to a point where the ruchniyus is effecting the shalom bayis or the chinuch of the kids, then the issues should be discussed. Other then that, I wife should not tell her husband when to get up for shachris and a husband should not tell his wife whether her skirt is too short or not. A husband should take care of his own ruchniyus and the wife should take care of her own because in a health marriage you trust your spouse that they are doing what’s best for themselves. And if any of the marriage partners truly need chizuk in a certain area, it should come from another source (friend, rebbi, mentor). I wont be shocked if this is one of the main causes for the rise in separation and divorces in our community.
The feminists don’t like this, but certain issues are non-negotiable.
For example, the gemara says that if a woman walks around outside the house with her hair uncovered then her husband is supposed to divorce her with no kesuba.
A woman only badgers her husband out of sheer kindness. She knows that if she makes his Oilem Hazeh miserable he will merit a very high plane in Gan Eden.
Don’t waste your time darshening an obviously facetious post.
Love the graphic!!!!! Says it all
What a bunch of clueless commentators!
This item is a cross between sarcasm and instructions for the wife as to what not to do. Not to be taken literally.
The books of old Jewish jokes always have the joke about the tzaddik whose wife keeps criticizing or yelling at him. He is asked about how he can live with her. The response is that hashem gave this wife to him because he the patience to accept it while another man would have walked out on her.
My wife is always acting like she is my mashgiach. Whenever I arrive home late for supper, she asks me why I am late, and then she fines me $10 dollars for every minute I am late. One time I was 5 minutes late for supper, and she asked me why I was late. I borrowed a line from a Brisker talmid who once arrived 5 minutes late to seder, and was asked by Rav Berel a’h’ why he was late. Like the aforementioned Brisker talmid, I told my wife that I am not a yeke. My wife then borrowed Reb Berel’s response to the talmid, and she said to me, ‘If that’s the case, how come you never come 5 mnutes early?” I paid her the 50 dollars and ate her scrambled eggs. I made sure I finished eating the eggs at exactly 7 PM, when I was scheduled to begin my dish washing seder.
Ha ha ha. Very good +1
@iceskater
Nothing frum about what she does. And she does it berabim. Nothing to aspire to. Enuff said
I like the responses, however, I don’t see that anybody here really addresses the question. The reason why a wife nags and a man does not is because we’re here to break our middos!!!! (vilna gaon) So Hashem created the wife as a natural nagger so she can work on herself to be loving and respectful while the husband was created perhaps to sometimes be insensitive so he can work on showing that he is loving and nurturing. We are each given precisely what we need to break the middah that is against our nature within the relationship and when we do that, we not only raise our relationships to the max, we make ourselves GREAT!!!!
My wife and I figured it out. In Yiddishkeit, I don’t tell her what to do or complain about what she doesn’t do and she treats me the same way. Works perfectly.