Husband and wife prayers

Many Christian couples find it difficult to pray together. But, if we are ‘heirs together of the gracious gift of life’ (1 Peter 3.7), surely praying together ought to be on the agenda of our marriages.

Let me tell you the Puritan love story of William and Elizabeth and what I found out from it about husband and wife prayers.

Elizabethan romance

Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of a dealer in textiles in the London of Queen Elizabeth I. She had a younger sister, Mary, and a brother of whom we know little, who died as a boy in a swimming accident. But both parents died while Elizabeth was still quite young. If it had not been that an uncle took pity on them, the children would have fallen prey to people from the darker side of early 17th-century London. She and her sister were placed in the family of a church minister and educated there.

Later, when Elizabeth was about 17, they went to dwell in the house of an ‘ancient gentleman’, Master Thomas Gouge of Stratford-Bow, Middlesex. But this old man was so taken with the character and person of Elizabeth that immediately he sent for his eldest son William, who was at that time a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Old Thomas felt that he saw in Elizabeth just the girl that his son ought to marry.

How difficult and embarrassing the situation between Elizabeth and William might have been on first meeting we do not know. However, we are told that after some ‘mutual conferences’, they took such a liking to each other that on February 11 1604, the first year of King James I, they married.

Ministry marriage

William became the minister of Blackfriars Church in London sometime after they married and continued there in that role for some 45 years. He was later involved in the Westminster Assembly from which came the great Westminster Confession of Faith.

William and Elizabeth loved each other deeply and did not like to be out of each other’s company. When they did have to be apart they exchanged many letters. They had 13 children and 22 years together in marriage before Elizabeth died. A sermon, preached at her funeral, was published under the title Piety’s Pillar and in that sermon we are told that she and William ‘continued like Isaac and Rebekah, faithful and loving yoke-fellows’.

It was out of his experience of marriage and family life that in 1622 William Gouge wrote his great exposition of Ephesians 5.21-6.9 entitled Of Domestical Duties*. This became the textbook of family life for many a Puritan home. It covers a vast range of practical subjects pertaining to the Christian family. In this book William Gouge has much to say about Christian husbands’ and wives’ mutual prayers, based on 1 Peter 3.7.

Mutual duty

He begins by saying that both husband and wife ought to be concerned for the good of their partner, in soul, body, reputation and provision. Then he says, ‘A general duty tending to the good of all these is prayer’. He then explains that he believes that 1 Peter 3.7 takes for granted that prayer for each other is ‘a mutual duty’ which both partners owe one another. He goes on, ‘Herein may man and wife be helpful each to other in all things needful to either of them: for it is the means which God in wisdom has sanctified for the obtaining of every needful blessing for ourselves or others… It is the best duty that one can perform for another, and the least to be neglected.’

He then goes on to quote the instance of Isaac praying for his wife Rebekah that she might have children (Genesis 25.21). He encourages husbands and wives therefore to remember their partners whenever they pray, ‘and that both in absence, and also in presence of one another’. It would seem from this last comment that he and Elizabeth knew what it was to be on their knees together before the Lord in prayer.

Who prays best?

In case we have any doubts about praying together as husband and wife, Gouge spells things out. While such prayer ‘does especially concern the husband, who is as a priest unto his wife, and ought to be her mouth to God when they two are together: yet I doubt not, but that the wife may pray in her husband’s presence when they two are alone’. He goes on to say that it may be that a Christian wife may be ‘much better able to perform that duty than the man is, as many wives are’.

Perhaps he himself knew from experience just how excellent, powerful and edifying were the prayers of his godly Elizabeth.

What to pray?

In his Of Domestical Duties Gouge then boldly goes on to suggest five topics of prayer which are ‘most meet to be mentioned in private prayer betwixt themselves’, as man and wife.

* First, man and wife should pray that as they are one flesh so they may be also one in spirit, ‘that their hearts may be as one, knit together by a true, spiritual, matrimonial love: always delighting in one another, ever helpful to one another, and ready with all willingness and cheerfulness to perform all those duties which they owe to one another’. We need to pray for a deep intimacy and love in our marriages.

* Second, says Gouge, they should pray about their sex lives. That might surprise some who still believe the popular negative caricature of Puritanism. Would the Puritans pray about sex? Evidently, they did. Husband and wife should pray, Gouge says, ‘That their marriage bed may be sanctified: and as it is by God’s ordinance, so it may remain to them by their using it well, a bed undefiled’. He speaks of the dangers of adultery. Then says of the husband and wife’s love-making, ‘As other things, so this also is sanctified by the word and prayer. The word gives a warrant and direction for the use of it: prayer both seasons it, and procures blessing upon it.’

* Third, husband and wife should pray together that they might have children. And having children they should pray together that those children be saved. Further pray that they might be healthy and by their behaviour a credit to the name of Christ.

* Fourthly, husband and wife ought to pray together that God would provide their needs for them. We should pray that we might be able to support our families. We must not take this for granted, but humbly call upon God.

* Fifthly, the wife and husband should pray for each other to grow in Christ and Christian character. Gouge says we should pray for each other, ‘that such needful gifts and graces as are wanting in either of them’, may be supplied by God, and that such vices and weaknesses to which we may be prone be done away by God’s grace’.

Don’t be hindered

A general rule is that our horizontal relationships with people do affect our vertical relationship with the Lord. If we foster unkindness, unforgiveness or mistreat others we cannot expect God to hear our prayers. In 1 Peter 3.7, Peter tells husbands to be considerate and wise in how they treat their wives ‘so that nothing will hinder your prayers’.

William Gouge challenges us: ‘Contrary to that holy and heavenly duty of prayer are those direful and hellish curses and unkind words which often pass out of the mouths of husbands and wives against one another’. Some curse the day they met. Some wish their partner dead. Such things are horrible in the mouths of anyone, but especially of husband and wife.

And though for shame we may not say such things out loud yet there may be occasions on which many have said them in their hearts; if the husband is harsh or the wife is controlling; or if one is sick and seems a burden to the other. And then we may wonder why God seems far away and our prayers go unanswered.

Why pray?

We should not neglect these prayers. William Gouge says, ‘Rare are those husbands and wives that have their seasons to pray alone together one with another, if ever they pray one for another. Though in outward complements they may seem very kind, and in outward things of this world very generous, yet if they pray not one for another, they are neither kind nor generous. Hearty, fervent, frequent prayer is the greatest token of kindness’.

Probably the best and easiest time for mutual prayers is at the beginning of the day or at the end of sitting down together for a meal — perhaps in the evening after you have shared with each other the experiences of the day. William and Elizabeth had a great marriage. Who knows how much better your marriage and family life could be if only you took time to pray for one another and pray with one another?

* This book has recently been re-printed by The Chapel Library, Pensacola (http://www.mountzion.org).