Introduction

There was a time when loyalty was a lived reality. When covenant meant something heavier than emotion, and marriage was not a platform for attention and self-actualization but a shared mission forged in duty, hardship, and endurance. In the archives of American history, we find stories that unsettle the modern “empowered” woman, stories of women who endured frontier starvation, buried children without losing faith, crossed oceans in steerage compartments, followed husbands into war zones, and in rare and astonishing cases, even stepped onto battlefields themselves. Whether one agrees with every cause for which they stood is beside the point. The question is about resolve, about grit, and about covenantal devotion.

Contrast that with what we see today. Modern Western culture prizes autonomy above allegiance, personal fulfillment eclipses shared mission, any mild discomfort is treated as injustice, and marriage is frequently negotiated like a contract between independent contractors rather than embraced as a covenant between two lives ordered toward something greater than themselves. The question is not whether women are capable of grit, they are. History proves they are. The question is whether our culture still forms women (or men) who understand devotion as sacrifice, loyalty as virtue, and shared mission as sacred. Where are the women who stand firmly behind their husbands, not as shadows, but as pillars? Where is the iron beneath the softness? And are modern marriages producing partners willing to endure hardship together for conviction and calling to the death?

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I. Covenant vs. Convenience: What Marriage Used to Mean

Scripture does not describe marriage as a “lifestyle”. It presents it as covenant. In Malachi 2:14, the Lord rebukes Israel, saying: “She is your companion and your wife by covenant.” Covenant is not a mood, it is not a season, and it is not contingent on constant satisfaction. Covenant binds two people before God in loyalty that transcends comfort.

In Ruth 1:16–17, Ruth utters words that have echoed through centuries: “Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.” That is resolve. That is a woman aligning herself entirely (geographically, spiritually, and socially) with a covenant commitment till death.

Historically, this understanding of marriage shaped societies. On the American frontier, wives crossed mountains in wagons knowing survival was not guaranteed, or even likely. During the Revolutionary War, women such as the wives at Valley Forge endured brutal winters, famine, and disease alongside soldiers. In a Civil War letter brought to my attention by Dr. Hill (attached below), the astonishment of the soldier seeing this devotion is palpable, not because women were incapable of ferocity, but because their resolve shattered his assumptions. Righteous in cause, their grit was undeniable.

The issue is not that every wife must be militant or dramatic in her devotion. The issue is whether she understands marriage as shared destiny rather than parallel independence. Modern culture has quietly replaced covenant with convenience. Marriage today is often framed around emotional compatibility, personal growth, and mutual affirmation. Those are not inherently wrong, but when they become the foundation rather than the fruit, there is no  structure. When difficulty arises (and it always does) the question shifts from “How do we endure?” to “Is this still fulfilling me?”

This shift affects both men and women. But culturally, women in particular are catechized in independence from childhood. Achievement, autonomy, career ambition, and personal expression are elevated as primary goods. Devotion to a husband’s mission is frequently framed as weakness, loss of identity, or oppression. The word “submission,” drawn directly from Ephesians 5:22–24, is treated as archaic or dangerous. Yet the passage continues by commanding husbands to love sacrificially “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). The design is mutual sacrifice under ordered headship, not tyranny, not erasure, but alignment.

When a wife stands firmly behind her husband’s mission (not because she is coerced, but because she believes in it) there is strength there. Historically, such women built dynasties, preserved faith under persecution, and stabilized households during war and famine. They were not passive. They were decisive in their loyalty. Today, however, we often train women to guard autonomy at all costs. “Never lose yourself.” “Never depend.” “Always have an exit.” Those mantras may protect against abuse in extreme cases, but as default posture they erode covenantal instinct. If every commitment is held loosely, sacrifice becomes optional.

The deeper question, then, is not “Why are women less devoted?” It is: What has our culture taught them devotion means? If devotion is framed as self-erasure, they will resist it. If devotion is framed as shared strength under God’s order, many would embrace it. Marriage cannot survive as a negotiation between two sovereign individuals unwilling to bend. It requires resolve, on both sides. It requires a wife who sees her husband’s calling as intertwined with her own, and a husband worthy of such allegiance. Covenant produces grit. Convenience produces fragility. And the recovery of covenantal understanding may be the first step toward recovering the kind of devotion that once steadied households in the storm.

Dear Father,
I take pen in hand to let you know that I am well. We are encamped near Dallas, Georgia where we found the enemy in force on the 26th inst. The 111th was in the front line of the breastworks, and we drew a hot fire from the rebs until about 4 o’clock when the enemy viciously charged our works. We poured hot fire into their ranks and several times their lines broke, but they rallied again and came on with guns blazing and flags waving. They fought like demons and we cut them down like dogs. Many dead and dying Secesh fell prisoner.

I saw 3 or 4 dead rebel women in the heap of bodies. All had been shot down during the final rebel charge upon our works. One Secesh woman charged to within several rods of our works waving the traitor flag and screaming vulgarities at us. She was shot three times but still she came. She was finally killed by two shots fired almost simultaneously by our boys. Another She-Devil shot her way to our breastworks with two large revolvers dealing death to all in her path. She was shot several times with no apparent effect. When she ran out of ammunition, she pulled out the largest pig-sticker I ever seen. It must have been 18 inches in the blade. When the Corporal tried to shoot her she kicked him in the face, smashing it quite severely. Then she stabbed three boys and was about to decapitate a fourth when the Lieutenant killed her. Without doubt this gal inflicted more damage to our line than any other reb. If Bobby Lee were to field a brigade of such fighters, I think that the Union prospects would be very gloomy indeed for it would be hard to equal their ferocity and pluck.

Our regimental losses were about 6 killed and 10 wounded including Lt. Col. Black who was slightly wounded I believe in the thigh. Please give my best regards to all inquiring friends and love to the family.

Your Devoted Son, Robert Audry, 111th Ill. Regt. Vols.

II. How Grit Was Forged: The Formation of Resilient Women

Grit is formed, slowly, deliberately, often painfully. The women of earlier centuries were not born with iron in their bones. They were shaped by necessity, responsibility, faith, and expectation. Hardship was not an interruption of life; it was life. And in that crucible, resilience became normal.

Consider the Puritan households of early New England. Women labored from dawn to dusk, gardening, preserving food, weaving cloth, bearing and burying children, tending livestock, nursing the sick. Life expectancy was low, infant mortality was common, and winters were brutal. Yet diaries from that era do not drip with perpetual resentment, depression and whining. They reflect sober acceptance of duty before God. Their theology explained suffering as sanctifying, not as injustice.

The same pattern appears on the American frontier. Wives crossed plains in covered wagons with no guarantee of survival. They cooked over open fires, delivered children without hospitals, defended homesteads when necessary, and endured isolation modern minds would consider unbearable. They were not insulated from reality; they were immersed in it. This is not romantic nostalgia, but an anthropological observation. When responsibility is unavoidable and survival requires contribution, real character forms.

Scripture also assumes this pattern of formation. In Proverbs 31, the “excellent wife” is not described as fragile or perpetually self-focused. She rises while it is yet night. She considers a field and buys it. Her arms are strong. She laughs at the time to come, not because life is easy, but because she has been forged through discipline and wisdom. Strength and dignity are her clothing (Proverbs 31:25). Notice: dignity follows strength.

The New Testament echoes the same pattern. Titus 2:4–5 instructs older women to train younger women, to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands. That passage assumes generational formation. It assumes training. It assumes that devotion is not automatic, but cultivated. Now compare that with modern Western formation.

Most girls today are raised in unprecedented comfort. Physical hardship is almost non-existent. Domestic skills are optional and supported by every appliance known to man. Endurance is rarely (if ever) required. Emotional discomfort is frequently treated as “trauma”. Achievement is measured primarily in academic or professional success, not in covenantal stability or household competence.

Additionally, many grow up in father-absent homes. The data is overwhelming: fatherlessness correlates with instability in identity, attachment patterns, and relational expectations. When girls do not see ordered, sacrificial masculinity in the home, they often internalize suspicion toward male leadership altogether. Submission then feels unsafe, not because men are tyrants, but because their formative experiences lacked trustworthy headship.

Cultural messaging then reinforces this posture. Popular media frequently portrays devoted wives as naïve, oppressed, or foolish. The independent, self-assertive woman is celebrated, while the loyal, mission-aligned wife is either invisible or caricatured. Historically, girls were trained with the assumption that marriage was covenant and survival required competence. Today, girls are often trained with the assumption that independence is security and marriage is the “optional enhancement.”

The Civil War letter I cited captures something shocking to the modern mind, not that women could fight, but that they would commit so fully to a cause that they would risk death for it. Whether their cause was righteous is secondary. What stands out is resolve. That level of conviction does not arise without devotion. It reflects upbringing steeped in loyalty and identity tied to shared beliefs. The question, then, is not whether modern women are capable of grit. They are. Women endure grueling academic programs, military service, demanding careers, and athletic feats that would humble many men. The capability exists. The question is where that grit is directed.

If all resilience is channeled toward personal advancement, there will be little left for covenantal endurance. If identity is rooted primarily in self-expression, then sacrificial alignment with a husband’s mission will feel like diminishment. The erosion of grit in marriage stems not from biological weakness but from cultural redirection. We have taught women to be fierce for self, but cautious in loyalty. Assertive in ambition, but hesitant in submission. Strong in autonomy, but fragile in covenant.

To recover covenantal grit, formation must change. Girls must see marriages where sacrifice is mutual and purposeful. They must observe men who lead with integrity and courage. They must be trained (not academically)n but morally and domestically. They must learn that devotion is not loss of self but anchoring of self in something enduring. Grit is not accidental, it is forged in expectation, discipline, and belief. And until our culture reclaims intentional formation of women for covenant rather than convenience, we should not be surprised that resolve in marriage is extraordinarily rare. 

III: Rebellion Masquerading as Strength

Modern culture praises rebellion as “empowerment.” From adolescence onward, girls are overtly catechized in suspicion, suspicion of authority, suspicion of hierarchy, suspicion of dependence. The loudest female voice in the room is often labeled the strongest, defiance is celebrated as courage, and resistance to male leadership is marketed as enlightenment. But rebellion and strength are not synonymous.

Scripture draws a sharp distinction. In 1 Samuel 15:23, the prophet declares, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” That verse is often softened in modern preaching (or Bible versions), yet its logic is clear: rebellion is not neutral, it is not merely personality. It is a posture that places self-will above ordered authority. True strength is not reflexive defiance. It is disciplined loyalty under conviction.

Look again at Ruth. She was not weak. Leaving Moab for Bethlehem meant economic uncertainty, cultural displacement, and social vulnerability. Yet she chose alignment, her declaration (“Where you go I will go”) was not the cry of a fragile woman. It was the vow of a resolute one. She subordinated preference to covenant.  Consider also early Christian women under Roman persecution. Historical accounts record wives who encouraged their husbands to remain steadfast under threat of death. They did not sabotage his conviction for the sake of their comfort, they strengthened it. Their loyalty was not passive; it was participatory.

Contrast that with today’s relational dynamic. Most marriages resemble ongoing hostage negotiations between two independent forces. The husband’s mission is evaluated through the lens of personal fulfillment; if it is assumed to threaten lifestyle, comfort, or social approval, it is resisted. If it requires sacrifice without immediate praise, it is questioned.

But here is the paradox: the same culture that encourages rebellion also leaves many women anxious, exhausted, and relationally dissatisfied. Independence promised freedom. Yet chronic distrust erodes their intimacy, guardedness blocks any hope of unity, and suspicion of male leadership creates perpetual distrust. Strength without Biblical alignment becomes isolation.

Modern rebellion often emerges not from inherent malice but from cultural conditioning and insecurity. When girls are repeatedly told that submission is degrading, they learn to defend autonomy aggressively. When male authority is portrayed almost exclusively through the lens of abuse or incompetence, loyalty to a Man feels foolish. Yet Scripture does not present submission as such. In Ephesians 5, the wife’s submission is paired with the husband’s sacrificial love. Both require death to self, both demand discipline, and neither are self-indulgent.

The problem is not that modern women are too strong. It is that strength has been detached from ordered direction. A woman who channels her resilience into resisting her husband’s leadership may feel powerful in the moment. But long-term, that posture corrodes the unity of the covenant. Every decision becomes contested, every hardship becomes leverage, and every sacrifice becomes optional.

And ironically, such constant negotiation breeds instability, the very instability that fuels further insecurity. Historically, women who endured great hardship did so within frameworks of shared belief and clearly defined roles. That structure provided psychological stability. It answered the question: Who are we? What are we building? Where are we going? Today, those answers are fluid, identity is individualized, roles are negotiable, and the mission is ambiguous. 

The Civil War account I referenced above describes women who charged with flags and blades drawn. Their ferocity shocked Union soldiers. Their resolve was rooted in shared conviction and they did not hesitate because their identity was fused to a cause. Now ask: what causes are modern women willing to endure suffering (or even death) for? Many will endure hardship for career advancement, ideological activism, or personal expression. The capacity for sacrifice obviously remains. But when it comes to standing firmly behind a husband’s mission (especially if that mission runs counter to prevailing cultural currents) hesitation often emerges.Why?

Because rebellion has been taught as safer than loyalty. Yet loyalty (rightly placed) is stabilizing. It builds trust, deepens intimacy and creates a unified direction. A wife who believes in her husband’s calling strengthens him, and therefore a husband who knows his wife stands with him gains courage. Rebellion may feel like power. But covenantal alignment is force multiplied!

The question, then, is not whether women today possess strength. It is whether that strength is disciplined toward unity or scattered in perpetual self-assertion, because strength detached from order always becomes chaos. While strength aligned with covenant becomes legacy. If we want marriages marked by grit and resolve, we must distinguish between loudness and loyalty, between autonomy and allegiance, between rebellion and righteous strength.

And that distinction requires rethinking what “empowerment” truly means.

IV. Comfort, Ease, and the Slow Erosion of Sacrifice

Civilizations rarely collapse from a lack of capability, they almost exclusively erode from excess comfort. Hardship clarifies priorities, while scarcity forces cooperation. Prolonged ease produces a subtle shift in the human heart. What was once endured becomes resented, and what was once considered duty becomes optional. Modern Western women live in the safest, most materially comfortable society in recorded history. Climate control, grocery abundance, medical access, digital convenience, none of these are evil in themselves. They are blessings. But blessings without discipline lead to softened resolve.

Scripture repeatedly warns Israel about this danger. In Deuteronomy 8:11–14, Moses cautions the people: “Take care lest you forget the LORD your God… lest, when you have eaten and are full… then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God.” Prosperity breeds forgetfulness, fullness breeds pride, and ease breeds fragility.

The same dynamic will affect marriage. When survival no longer requires interdependence, autonomy becomes easier to maintain. A woman no longer needs a husband for provision in the way frontier wives did. Economic independence, while beneficial in some contexts, reduces the felt necessity of partnership. And when necessity diminishes, tolerance for discomfort shrinks. Historically, a wife might endure relocation, financial hardship, social isolation, or physical exhaustion because the alternative was collective failure. Today, the alternative to discomfort is often simply exit.

No-fault divorce laws, cultural normalization of separation, and widespread financial self-sufficiency have quietly reshaped marital psychology. Commitment remains verbally affirmed, but practically conditional. In earlier centuries, sacrifice was assumed. Childbearing was dangerous, household labor was grueling, and war frequently disrupted family life. Women who stood by their husbands did so knowing hardship was not hypothetical, it was inevitable.

If a husband’s mission requires relocation to a less desirable city, tighter finances, homeschooling children, stepping away from career advancement, or enduring social criticism, modern comfort whispers: “Why should you?” The cost feels heavier because baseline life is already ultra comfortable. But sacrifice is not measured against comfort; it is measured against conviction.

Jesus states in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Christianity itself is framed as daily self-denial. Marriage, as a covenant reflecting Christ and the Church, cannot logically be exempt from that pattern. Yet comfort trains us to avoid crosses.

The issue is not that modern women are uniquely weak. Men are equally softened by ease. But culturally, women are often promised fulfillment through self-protection and self-prioritization. When comfort becomes the highest good, endurance looks irrational. Even language has shifted. “Boundaries” have become sacred. “Self-care” is treated as moral obligation. Again, neither concept is inherently wrong. But when they become shields against ordinary sacrifice, they distort core priorities.

A wife who refuses every inconvenience in the name of personal wellness cannot cultivate grit. A husband who avoids every discomfort in the name of work-life balance cannot lead sacrificially. Comfort eventually becomes his master. Historically, resilient women were not immune to fear or fatigue. They simply lacked the illusion that life should be perpetually accommodating. Their expectations were calibrated differently, because difficulty was normal.

The modern world tells women that minor discomfort is injustice. And the social disapproval can feel unbearable to them. The Civil War account referenced is jarring precisely because it contrasts sharply with modern expectations. Whatever we think of the cause those women fought for, their threshold for danger was radically higher than ours. They did not measure risk through comfort metrics.

Again, the goal is not romanticizing violence. It is recognizing fortitude. When comfort becomes ultimate, sacrifice becomes unthinkable. And marriage without sacrifice will fail. If wives (and husbands) are unwilling to endure criticism, relocation, reduced income, long seasons of obscurity, or even personal danger for deeply held conviction, then there is no covenant. The household has no purpose.

To recover grit, we must reintroduce disciplined discomfort, voluntary sacrifice, and intentional limitation. Shared hardship embraced for higher purpose. Because resolve does not grow in padded environments. It grows where something greater than comfort demands allegiance.

V. Would She Stand and Die? Loyalty, Mission, and the Measure of Devotion

It is an uncomfortable question.

Strip away the rhetoric and remove the wedding-day poetry. Would she stand?

Would she endure public scorn for his convictions? Would she follow her husband into obscurity if obedience to God required it? Would she tighten the budget without resentment? Would she lose friendships rather than undermine his leadership? Would she face danger if the moment demanded it? Would she stand (and if necessary, would she suffer), even unto death for the mission God has placed on his life?

Before answering too quickly: this question only has meaning if the husband himself is standing for something righteous. Scripture does not command women to follow men into sin. Acts 5:29 is clear: “We must obey God rather than men.” A wife’s ultimate allegiance is to Christ through her righteous headship. If a husband’s mission contradicts God’s Word, loyalty to him cannot supersede loyalty to God.

But where a man is pursuing obedience (however imperfectly) the design of marriage assumes alignment. Genesis 2:18 describes the wife as a “helper fit for him.” The Hebrew phrase ezer kenegdo does not imply inferiority; it implies corresponding strength. The same word ezer is used elsewhere of God as helper to Israel (Psalm 33:20). A helper is reinforcement, she strengthens what would otherwise falter, and a helper who undermines is not helping.

Throughout history, mission-driven men were rarely solitary. Behind reformers, missionaries, settlers, and leaders stood women who bore weight unseen. Consider Susanna Wesley, mother of John and Charles Wesley. While her husband struggled financially and relationally, she disciplined her household with theological seriousness. Her formation of her sons shaped the Methodist movement. She did not preach in pulpits, but she fortified the mission. Or consider the wives who followed missionaries overseas in the 18th and 19th centuries, women who endured disease, isolation, and the burial of children in foreign soil. Many did not live long lives and  their loyalty cost them dearly. They were not coerced; they believed.

The willingness to suffer for conviction once marked Christian households. We now live in an age where social disapproval feels catastrophic. To be labeled intolerant, regressive, or extremist carries psychological power. If a husband articulates countercultural biblical convictions (about marriage, sexuality, authority, or faith) will his wife stand beside him publicly? Or will she soften, distance, or quietly contradict him to preserve her social comfort?

Standing does not always mean dramatic battlefield courage. Often it means quiet, daily reinforcement. It means refusing to belittle him in public. It means defending him in private conversations. It means trusting his leadership even when outcomes are uncertain. The deeper issue is faith and belief. A woman will not stand for what she does not truly believe in.

If she views his mission as ego-driven, reckless, or unnecessary, then she will resist. If she sees it as obedience to God, participation becomes sacred. This is why formation matters. Girls raised to see marriage as optional companionship will struggle to interpret hardship as holy. But girls raised to see marriage as covenantal partnership under God may view sacrifice as worship.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 declares that two are better than one, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Marriage under Christ is not a power struggle; it is braided allegiance. When husband and wife are both anchored to something higher than comfort, endurance strengthens. Are most modern wives willing to stand and die for their husband’s mission?

In literal terms, few in our society are asked that question. But metaphorically, the test comes daily. Are they willing to die to preference? Die to pride? Die to reputation? Die to the constant need to be affirmed? And equally, are husbands willing to die to selfish ambition? Die to tyranny? Die to passivity? A man who demands loyalty but does not embody sacrificial love perverts the design equally.

The Civil War account cited reveals ferocity rooted in conviction. Again, the resolve is undeniable. Such women believed something was worth dying for. The modern crisis is not lack of female capacity, but lack of shared, transcendent mission. When marriages are built around lifestyle optimization, no one dies for optimization. When marriages are built around comfort, no one bleeds for comfort. But when marriages are built around obedience to God and generational legacy, sacrifice regains meaning.

The question, then, is not simply “Where are the devoted women?” It is also: Where are the men worth standing behind? Where are the households centered on something eternal? Where is the shared conviction that life is more than personal satisfaction? And if we desire wives marked by grit, loyalty, and resolve, we must rebuild marriages ordered around something worthy of that level of allegiance.

Conclusion

The disappearance of grit in marriage is a theological and cultural failure. Women have not suddenly become incapable of loyalty, endurance, or ferocity. History proves the opposite. The issue is direction and formation. When covenant is replaced with convenience, when comfort outranks conviction, when autonomy is praised above allegiance, devotion fails. And where devotion fails, marriages fail. The women who crossed oceans, endured frontier winters, buried children, fortified households, and in rare cases even charged into battle were not mythological anomalies. They were formed within cultures that believed something was worth suffering for. Scripture still calls for that kind of covenantal strength, wives who align under godly leadership, husbands who love sacrificially, and households ordered around obedience to Christ.

So the better question is not merely, “Where are the women who would stand and die?” It is, “What are we asking them to stand for?” If marriages are centered on comfort, no one will bleed for comfort. If they are centered on ego, no one should die for ego. But if they are centered on God’s order, generational legacy, and shared obedience, then sacrifice regains dignity. Grit returns where mission is clear, and resolve grows where covenant is honored. The restoration of devoted women will not begin with scolding, it will begin with rebuilding marriages that are worthy of their strength.