The simple answer is that there is only one way to be a good wife, and it is to be a saint. Read the life of Bd Anna-Maria Taigi, and you will see how she placed her husband first, above all her mystical experiences, and even before the Cardinals who came to her to ask for her advice; you will how she bore with his grumpiness and bad moods with a smile and affection, and sanctified both of them and their children.

There is no one recipe for being a good wife, since everybody’s circumstances differ. However, the principle that makes it possible is none other than the love of the Cross. Marriage vows unite a husband and wife in the likeness of Christ and the Church, which union was consummated on the Cross. Marriage love will also be consummated on the crosses of daily trials, and these crosses will enable it to grow to depth, reality, commitment and spirit of sacrifice.

On August 20, 1941 Pope Pius XII gave an amazing discourse on heroism in married life, and how it has its roots in the “profound and surpassing sense of duty”. He explains that this duty is “the recognition of God’s sovereign dominion over us” and consequently the response to the requirement of God’s infinite love over us.

Not content to stay with general considerations, the Pope explains in detail how a woman is to be a good wife, by describing the typical crosses that wives and mothers must deal with. “It may be that, to avoid breaking or loosening the bond of the spirit or of mutual love, one comes to know how to forgive or forget an argument, an insult or even a grave chock. How many intimate dramas of bitterness and tribulations take place behind the curtain of daily life! How many heroic sacrifices! How much agony of spirit to stay together and to hold fast as Christian to their place and duty! And what strength of spirit is frequently required for this daily living itself, when every morning one must return to the same work, perhaps harsh and wearisome in its monotonous drudgery; when to make the best of it, one must tolerate with a smile, amiably, and joyfully, mutual defects and differences that were never overcome, the disparities of tastes, habits and ideas which all too frequently occur in ordinary married life; when in the midst of petty difficulties and indicents, often unavoidable, one must not become excited or spoil the calm and happy mood; when to cold indifference one must reply with a wise silence; when one must stifle a complain in time, change and soften a word which, once uttered, would offend irritated nerves and diffuse a dark cloud in the family atmosphere” (Dear newlyweds p. 53-55).

Consequently, to be a good wife, a woman must understand and love her duty before God. It is to be a support, encouragement, helpmate to her husband. It is to be happy and joyful, patience and kind, and especially to avoid the moodiness and emotional highs and lows that are the sign of self-centredness, and of a superficial spiritual life. It is to consider that in marrying she has given up her independence to form a new social unit. It is to delight in being not the head, but the heart of the couple. It is to consider that her role is to sanctify her husband, not by pious remarks that might annoy him, but by real virtue – modest, reserve, charity, kindness, self-sacrifice. It is to love the cross, and not just in general, but the particular crosses of married life. It is to see in these crosses the opportunity of mortifying self-love and achieving the self-forgetfulness that is necessary for true union with God.  Moreover, she is not to think that this vocation of hers is somehow negative, paralyzing, limiting, depersonalizing. To the contrary, she is to see there the flowering of all the gifts, natural and supernatural, with which the Good Lord has blessed her. She is to see there the opportunity to practice perfect charity.

Pope Pius XII explains this aspect of the life of the wife also: “And yet the woman, the wife, the mother is to be the source, the nourishment and special bulwark of family joy and peace. Is it not she who fosters. Conjoins and binds the father in the love of his children? Is it not she who almost encompasses the family within herself through her love, who watches over it, guards it, protects and defends it?” (Ib.)

A holy wife is consequently the sun that shines on the family, by her generosity and submission, by her constant readiness, her delicate and provident attention to all that serves to bring happiness to her husband and children.

 - Father Peter Scott