I have seen unhappy scenarios played out in a number of seminary families where a wife works to support a husband and child-bearing is long delayed. I have seen others bearing children and deciding to have the husband watch babies while a wife works, just because it's easier to keep the wife's income and health coverage. I once heard a sr. pastor tell me about a pastoral intern/seminary student in his church asking permission to bring their newborn with him to the church offices so he could study and care for the baby while his wife was out working her real-estate job.
I would lovingly encourage you to think through what it says about a would-be minister, someone called to be an example of piety to the people of God, having his wife work outside the home and support him financially in seminary. Especially in light of the present confusion surrounding the roles of husband and wife in the home.
It is clear that this is not the way it should be done, but I disagree about where the failure lies. In most cases, I'd put essentially no blame on the man of little means whose wife works to pay for seminary, or whose wife works after seminary, or the lay man whose wife works. The world has changed. It used to be that any man willing to work could be guaranteed to have enough means to have a roof and a basic, no frills lifestyle. A little more work could pay for a modest tuition or slow progress through school. That is simply no longer the case.
I have dozens of seminary coworkers, and I've seen more than a few nervous breakdowns from overwork trying to provide for kids, pay for seminary, and pass classes. I've seen a man referred by his employer to substance-abuse resources because everything about him looked and acted like a meth-addict. He was just a regular seminary guy who had gotten 2-3 hours of sleep per night for a few years. He wasn't addicted to anything except trying to provide for his family.
The choices are often:
1) high debt
2) have hree jobs, classes, and multiple commutes leaving a man away from his family for 80+ hours/week for 5-8 years.
3) Wife works.
Even those not in seminary are in a similar boat. The wage situation for young men with families is just about untenable in large areas of the country.
I'm just an average lay 32 year old with 4 kids under 5, with hopes for a lot more. My wife and I both work about 30 hours a week, but we do not have to use paid child care because we are lucky and our schedules mesh well. She is able to work some from home. There is no blow to headship from such a situation. I could have provided for us by myself at a much lower level (our lifestyle would still be the same - super cheap and in a very small house - but we wouldn't be able to save).
But we would have less time together and my kids would barely know me. My burden would be higher. My wife's burden would be higher. The kids would be worse off. Everybody loses, and the only reason to put ourselves through that is if a Biblical command required it, and I simply don't see such a thing. We did that for a season when I got what others consider a great full-time job. I quit it to go back to part-time because I said goodbye to my kids on Sunday nights, and hello to them on Saturday morning. And that was only working 60 hours a week. Others are in a worse spot. Without paying off a home, there is simply no end to it. With us both working, there is an end to it. We've lived where I have to change my work schedule to escort my wife into the house after she runs for groceries, because of the sheer number of criminals around our low-rent place.
Instead, we both work at a lower level, have more time together, and are just about completely free of debt bondage, paying off our (extremely humble) home next month. Once the home is paid off, we will probably transition to just me working reasonable hours in the next year or two. But, we have to have a paid off home just to get by in the same way as my grandparents did on one simple income from the start. It's a completely different world now.
I don't blame a man until he has the chance to work reasonable hours and still provide a minimum. Among most of the 18-35 year old male crowd, that option just isn't on the table.
Especially one who has some good insights into marriage vis-a-vis his Song of Songs research!
