The Minister’s Wife is a thoughtful attempt at providing a handbook for those embarking on a life as a minister’s wife as well as for those already in this role. You could easily be put off by the opening assumptions that ‘God intends male headship’ and that ‘a wife is to be her husband’s helper and to submit to his loving and sacrificial leadership’. The introduction is followed by a somewhat heavy-going opening chapter on ‘Her responsibility to God: Daughter do you love me?’ To put the book down at this point would be a shame. Further chapters, written by several different clergy wives deal honestly and constructively with the privileges, pressures and pitfalls of life in the vicarage or manse. Covering the responsibility the wife has to God, her husband, her family, the parishioners and wider community it also pays equal attention to the importance of retaining her own integrity and of not being squeezed into inappropriate moulds. Not only does this book deal with the difficulties of the role, such as loneliness, small income and criticism of her husband, but it also gives constructive ways of coping, and stresses the positive aspects and perks of the job. This is a book I wish had been available forty-eight years ago when I started out as a curate’s wife, convinced that I must try to please all of the people all of the time. (Mission impossible!).

The Minister’s Wife is a thoughtful attempt at providing a handbook for those embarking on a life as a minister’s wife as well as for those already in this role. You could easily be put off by the opening assumptions that ‘God intends male headship’ and that ‘a wife is to be her husband’s helper and to submit to his loving and sacrificial leadership’. The introduction is followed by a somewhat heavy-going opening chapter on ‘Her responsibility to God: Daughter do you love me?’ To put the book down at this point would be a shame. Further chapters, written by several different clergy wives deal honestly and constructively with the privileges, pressures and pitfalls of life in the vicarage or manse. Covering the responsibility the wife has to God, her husband, her family, the parishioners and wider community it also pays equal attention to the importance of retaining her own integrity and of not being squeezed into inappropriate moulds. Not only does this book deal with the difficulties of the role, such as loneliness, small income and criticism of her husband, but it also gives constructive ways of coping, and stresses the positive aspects and perks of the job. This is a book I wish had been available forty-eight years ago when I started out as a curate’s wife, convinced that I must try to please all of the people all of the time. (Mission impossible!).

The Minister’s Wife is a thoughtful attempt at providing a handbook for those embarking on a life as a minister’s wife as well as for those already in this role. You could easily be put off by the opening assumptions that ‘God intends male headship’ and that ‘a wife is to be her husband’s helper and to submit to his loving and sacrificial leadership’. The introduction is followed by a somewhat heavy-going opening chapter on ‘Her responsibility to God: Daughter do you love me?’ To put the book down at this point would be a shame. Further chapters, written by several different clergy wives deal honestly and constructively with the privileges, pressures and pitfalls of life in the vicarage or manse. Covering the responsibility the wife has to God, her husband, her family, the parishioners and wider community it also pays equal attention to the importance of retaining her own integrity and of not being squeezed into inappropriate moulds. Not only does this book deal with the difficulties of the role, such as loneliness, small income and criticism of her husband, but it also gives constructive ways of coping, and stresses the positive aspects and perks of the job. This is a book I wish had been available forty-eight years ago when I started out as a curate’s wife, convinced that I must try to please all of the people all of the time. (Mission impossible!).