• Respect for Authority Essential for Peaceful Living
    True Peace and Security—How Can You Find It?

    • 18. (a) In what ways can a wife show that she respects the authority of her husband? (b) How are children to show respect for their parents, and why?

      18 When there is such headship in the home, it is not difficult for a woman to look up to her husband. And obedience comes more readily from the children. But there also is much that the wife and children can contribute to family happiness. By her diligence in caring for the household and by her spirit of cooperation, a wife shows that she has “deep respect for her husband.”

  • Respect for Authority Essential for Peaceful Living
    True Peace and Security—How Can You Find It?

    • 19. If you are the only one in the family who tries to be guided by God’s Word, what should you do?

      19 You can help to make your home such a place. Whether other members of the family choose to uphold Jehovah’s ways or not, you can do so. The others may respond to your fine example. (1 Corinthians 7:16; Titus 2:6-8) Even if they do not, what you do will stand as a testimony to the rightness of God’s ways, and that is something of no little value.​—1 Peter 3:16, 17.

      20, 21. (a) How does the Bible show that the authority of a husband and of parents is not absolute? (b) So, with what decision may a Christian wife or believing children be faced, and what should motivate them?

      20 Keep in mind that the entire framework of family authority originates with God. Thus men are to be in subjection to Christ, wives to their husbands “as it is becoming in the Lord,” and children to their parents “for this is well-​pleasing in the Lord.” (Colossians 3:18, 20; 1 Corinthians 11:3) So God cannot be left out of account, can he? This means that the authority of a husband over his wife, and of parents over their children, is a relative one. That is, the Christian mate and children are subject to God and Christ first, obeying their counsel. To some unbelieving mates or parents that idea might at first be displeasing. But really it works for their good, because it will help to make the believing mate and children more dependable and respectful.

      21 However, what if a husband was to demand that his wife do something that would not be “becoming in the Lord”? What she does will show whether she really ‘fears the true God’ or not. (Ecclesiastes 12:13)