WIFE (γυνή).—For the general subject see Family, Marriage, Woman.
Our Lord places the claims of a wife above those of a father or mother, and emphasizes in the most striking way the spiritual and bodily unity, indissoluble except for one cause, of the two who have been joined together in marriage (Matthew 19:3 ff., Mark 10:2 ff.). And precisely because of His exalted conception of a wife’s place in her husband’s heart, He teaches the absoluteness of His own claims on the loyalty and obedience of His disciples, by setting them clearly in a man’s eyes over against those of the wife of his bosom. It was on the same occasion on which He pronounced what might be called the Magna Charta of married womanhood that He uttered those solemn words about the need of forsaking a wife for His sake and the gospel’s (Matthew 19:29, Mark 10:29, cf. Luke 18:29). And in the parable of the Great [Note: reat Cranmer’s ‘Great’ Bible 1539.] Supper, among the rejected excuses of those who do not accept the gracious invitation, is that of the man who said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come’ (Luke 14:19).
J. C. Lambert.