A husband and father struggles to discover his place in the home. What exactly is his mission and how does he go about achieving it? A proper notion of peace, and of home, can offer clarification.
Augustine’s definition of peace is my all-time favorite definition. Peace is the tranquility of order. These words speak to something deep within us. We are made for tranquility. But not just any. The ‘order’ that causes tranquility is a masterpiece. It is something that must be forged.
And it is forged by wisdom, which Aristotle says is a power to see and give right order. When we look upon the astounding order of the natural world and feel a deep peace in it, we sense that a great wisdom stands behind it. When it comes to human life and human communities, here too there is an astounding order but with this key difference: it might not actually be enacted. He who gives order to all things has ordained that in human life we are to be active agents in discovering and enacting the order. This means we have the incomparable dignity of being like God in the power to give order. It always means that we are free in how we do so.
A thriving household never comes about by accident. Indeed, it is near the greatest of masterpieces that any wisdom can forge—far surpassing anything in the non-rational world. And a husband’s place is to take first responsibility for seeing to its forging. First responsibility, not sole responsibility.
Speaking of the order we must all put in our own lives—in which order the love of God is first and the root of all else—Augustine emphasizes how for a married man there is this immediate implication: “He ought to make this endeavor in behalf of his wife, his children, his household, all within his reach…” He proceeds to hammer this home: “Primarily, therefore, his own household are his care, for the law of nature and of society gives him readier access to them and greater opportunity of serving them.”
The word ‘serving’ here is important, as it contextualizes Augustine’s use of the word ‘ruling’ for how the husband and father seeks to put right order into life in the home.
While this topic calls for extensive and careful consideration, here two things especially strike me. First, a husband’s care and so also ruling of others begins in his putting right order into his own affections and actions, starting in his relationship with God. Indeed, Augustine strikingly says ‘this endeavor’ is ‘in behalf’ of his loved ones. A man’s effort in his relationship with the Lord is the foundation of his relating well to his wife and children.
Second, by nature a married man’s first focus is how he can take care of his household. This implies that there is much that demands his ‘ordering.’ Seemingly countless disparate things must be woven together. Household life is like a garden; it is fundamentally a matter of arranging, prioritizing, and also weeding. Constantly.
But in a traditional setting isn’t ‘home’ more the domain of the wife? Again, there is much to sort out here, but one distinction is key. Household and home are not the same. Household names an entire family community (beginning at marriage, with just two people!) and all aspects of their shared life together. Home is the physical place where a household community lives. (This, by the way, implies much more than the term ‘house.’ Even dissolute college students can have a house, as can a dog.)
It seems to me that too often married men fail to make this distinction. In seeking a ‘traditional’ arrangement they think of their wife as seeing to ‘home,’ and then they tend to conflate that with everything pertaining to household. In this way they can miss their role in taking first responsibility for bringing about the order, and so the thriving, and the profound peace, of the household community.
In short, I am suggesting that in Augustine’s view at the center of a man’s active deliberations and planning should be how with his wife he can forge a certain community in their home: a community that can be the most obvious and beautiful daily incarnation of the reality called PEACE. ~ ~ ~
Related PODCAST: Is Woman Still Heart of the Home (episode 4) [Coming soon, an episode on Authority and Submission in marriage!] Check out and share our other PODCASTS too.
NEXT LIFECRAFT ONLINE READING: Wendell Berry’s essay: The Pleasures of Eating. Join us to discuss this provocative essay about the place of eating in every household. Wednesday September 4th, 8:30pm EDT SIGNUP HERE
Here is a lecture I gave on AUTHORITY in parenting:
Husband, father, and professor of Philosophy. LifeCraft springs from one conviction: there is an ancient wisdom about how to live the good life in our homes, with our families; and it is worth our time to hearken to it. Let’s rediscover it together. Learn more.
