The Sacred Trust of Family

The Duties of Husband and Wife

So much for their duties that be further off from equality in the family, as parents and children, masters and servants. Now those that are more equal are husband and wife, whose duties are either common to both, or more particular to either of them. The common duties. First, they must love one another with a pure heart, fervently. This duty both husband and wife must perform mutually one to another, which that they may the better strive for, let us consider of some excellent commodities that will proceed from this love. First, this benefit will certainly ensue: if there be fervent, and dear, and matrimonial love betwixt themselves, it will preserve and guard them from all unchaste actions and strange lusts, as appeareth, Prov. 5:19-20.

A godly form of household government for the ordering of private families, according to the direction of Gods word

Therefore at the beginning of their marriage, the wise and discret husband ought to use all good meanes to winne the good liking of his wife towards him: for if then their love be fixed, and truely setled one towards the other, although afterwards they come to some houshold words and grudgings, yet it proceedeth but of some new unkindnesse, and not of old rooted hatred; and therefore the sooner remedied. For love and hatred be mortall enemies, and the first of them that taketh place in the heart, there it remaineth a dweller, for the most part, all the dayes of life: in such wise, that the first love may depart from the person, but yet it will never be forgotten at the heart. But if the wife from the beginning of marriage, do take the heart to loath and abhorre her husband, then a miserable life wil follow to them both.-John Dod & Robert Cleaver

What is the Biblical Trustee Family?

The trustee family has the most power and scope. It is called the trustee family because its living members see themselves as trustees of the family blood, rights, property, name, and position for their lifetime. They have an inheritance from the past to be preserved and developed for the future. The trustee family is the basic social power … The head of the family is not the head in any personal sense but as family head and as a trustee of powers.-R. J. Rushdoony