Looking Back: Changed Days at The Manse

From March 1975

Louise Gillett discusses the role of the minister’s wife today.

I have been a ministers’ wife long enough to realise the changes which have come over her place in the congregation. She still has an important part to play undoubtedly, and enquiries about her may sway any vacancy committee to the choice of her man – or otherwise, not surprising when most members are women with much to say even if it be behind the scenes. So her middle name must be tact.

How is she standing up to the role expected of her these days?

Wife’s Role

To a former generation much was expected of her, the new cynosure of all eyes in the manse pew and the target too often of criticism in the parish. Woe betide her and her husband if she fell short. Nowadays so many prefer to sit with the congregation. I can understand her reasons. A friend of mine absented herself from a service and all afternoon the manse phone rang to enquire if she was ill.

It is indicative how her role has changed even in the congregation and the manse. Scottish manse hospitality has become a tradition nobly undertaken by generations of housewives with too large a house and too little help.

New Concern

I had a fellow sympathy and understanding for the wife who, entertaining guests to supper in the absence of her husband, asked the youngest to say grace.

“What shall I say?” he asked and she told him, “Just say what mummy says.”

Whereupon the mite piped up, “Oh Lord, why had all these people to come after a day like this?”

Nowadays most find their husbands using the vestry as an office with stated times of interview so the manse is not so much the always open door it once was.

Nor is hospitality so often expected when the guest speaker or exchanging minister can come and go in his car.

The telephone – how in the old days when we had to do without did we manage? – has made a big difference.

Congregations – prompted by 121 George Street – have a new concern for the minister and his wife, praise be. The telephone rental may be paid, the kitchen equipment brought up to modern standards, even central heating installed. Allowances may be given for heating and lighting (or allowed by the Income Tax) a car grant given and the wife’s part recognised by allowing so much of his salary for housekeeping and charing expenses.

Women’s rights.

How did we cope when we had to pay everything out of the manse purse and there were no educational grants for the family? The holiday many had was an exchange of manse for the month which meant only a change of pulpit and sink.

Nor is the manse housewife expected to be the helpmate in the parish as once was the case. The President of the Guild, organiser of bazaars, district visitor, collector, Sunday school teacher, a member of the choir – you name it and the minister’s wife was expected to show a lead. How thankful we should be for the Mission and Service Fund which puts the onus on the congregation.

Most of all, in this changing role (“Tell it not in Gath”) so many of the younger wives are holding down a job, full – or part – time. It was unheard of in my day sharing a double ministry with equal demands on both. I am not sure whether I envy the modern set-up and those who have rebelled against the restrictions imposed on the mistress of the manse in dress, manners and the isolated dignity of her lot.

For even if the minister’s wife is now looked on more as a woman among women with human rights and desires with fulfilment of her own life I do believe she has a part to play equal with that of her husband in the congregation. It has been my joy to serve as no other woman can.

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