Rainey - Letters to my daughters: the art of being a wife

An Open Letter to Daughters Everywhere

D ear Daughters,

Across the landscape of time, women have depended on other women for answers to the questions we all face. Weve bravely asked one another about husbands and children, about work and worth, about cooking and cleaning, about friendships, finances, fears, and failures. And if we found ourselves in a time and place without anyone we could ask, we found that we were a bit lonely, a bit lost.

Mary, a young teen about to become a very young mother, went to her cousin Elizabeths house to seek comfort and wisdom. She stayed for three months. We can only imagine the questions she asked, the conversations they had. And I wonder, Why didnt Mary ask her own mother? Or did she? Did Mary run to Elizabeth because her own mother couldnt get past the out-of-wedlock pregnancy and personal disgrace to really be there for her daughter? To listen to her thoughts and questions and fears? Or was it because Mary knew only Elizabeth could relate to her experience of carrying a child anointed by God?

There are some things you just cant talk to your mother about. So you talk to sisters, friends, other women who are older, wiser, and more experienced in life. Someone safer. I will freely admit my girls are cautious with their questions to me, and they should be. Women help each other find the right paths, and I would never want to be their only confidante.

Several years ago I took four of my six daughters and daughters-in-law away on a weekend without husbands and children. On the last night, as we were getting ready for bed, the three married girls started talking about sex. It was decided that theyd all meet in one bedroom and talk. They did not exclude me, but I knew the conversation would be different if I was there. So I excused myself and went to bed. Sometimes we need peers; sometimes we need someone older and wiser. I get that.

In 2001 I began this book as a series of email letters in response to sweet Marsha Kays request for my advice on marriage. I included all my married daughters: Ashley, Marsha Kay (married to son Ben), and Stephanie (married to son Samuel). My goal was to encourage them as they began their marriages and were learning what it meant to be called wife . I hoped to impart some small doses of wisdom Id acquired in my then three decades of marriage. More importantly, I wanted to give them a vision for the value gained from a lifetime of marital fidelity.

Since then, Dennis and I have celebrated our forty-first anniversary, and weve seen two more daughters, Rebecca and Deborah, marry. Laura, our youngest, is waiting her turn, and what a party it will be!

When my mother was a young bride in a faraway state, she was part of a round-robin letter with six or seven other women from back home. She always looked forward to seeing the thick legal envelope in the mailbox, for it contained letters from each woman in the group. She read them all, enjoying each touch with that womans life. Then she removed her original letter, wrote a new one to the group, and sent the packet on its way to the next woman in line. For my six girls and their friends and anyone else who wants to listen in, welcome to this round robin of my original letters, plus many inspired by more recent questions from young wives not biologically tied to me, but still in my heart.