I was wondering if there is a section in the Torah where it talks about how one should be a good wife like there is in the Christian bible.
Wonderful! Your question is terrific because, among other things, it recognizes that there’s quite a difference between the Torah and Christian Scripture.
I can’t speak much about Christianity – everybody knows a few famous lines from Christian Scripture, “it is good for a man not to touch a woman,” “better to marry than burn in hell,” “the husband is the head of the wife,” “Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the L’rd,” etc. I think there must also be some statements and ideas in there that are much closer to Torah than those few. I personally find those above pretty off-putting – they’re simply what I call “not Yiddish,” that is, not Jewish: not consonant with Torah. To me, the best thing about Christianity’s Scriptures is that they do contain so many elements of Torah, even though they are sort of scattered around.
The Hebrew word for marriage, Kiddushin, literally means “sanctification,” or “holiness.” The Torah recognizes that the purity and chastity of women is the foundation of all true civilization. It also recognizes that women, compared to men, probably constitute the higher form of life. To quote my own book, Rainbow Covenant, as I so love to do, “the human male seems to belong to the lesser sex, which in some ways must also be the weaker.” So, for instance, G’d commands the prophet Abraham to obey his wife in everything that she tells him. Not a single verse anywhere in the Bible (that is, obviously, the Torah, not the Christian Scriptures) instructs any wife to similarly heed her husband.
One of the good things about discussing this subject is that the Torah model of marriage – “a largely self-contained, romantic, biological, financial, and legal joint enterprise between husband and wife, to the complete sexual exclusion of all other men, in a permanent but voluntary partnership” (Rain Cov, p. 162) – is something that, however radical it seemed when the larger world first heard of it, has really “caught on.” It was a unique and unprecedented model, a revolutionary, extremely controversial thing back in early antiquity: a very “hard sell” initially. It’s different now, and we can talk about it easily.
Certainly, still sticking to the black-letter Torah, the Scriptural, Written Torah, the most complete and vivid Teaching on what it means to be a Jewish wife is Proverbs 31:10-31, a passage known as “Aishes Chayil,” “An Accomplished (or “Virtuous”), recited [by the husband] in Jewish homes at the start of every Sabbath. Now, no mere human can live up the ideal presented there – and Israel understands that it’s partly or largely allegorical – but Hebrew women have been trying to live up to it (and, not to brag, not doing the worst job, either; in fact, the picture there reminds me a lot, seriously, of many of the women in my own family!): for thousands of years. From Rain Cov: “The Bible’s ideal woman governs her own home – she anticipates the needs of her family and provides for them. G’d-fearing, a fully adult soul, she manages other businesses too, planning, hiring and directing employees, manufacturing and selling goods, and even buying and developing land. Generously, she personally gives charitably to, and insists on justice for, those in need. A faithful, joyful person, she counsels and instructs others in the ways of wisdom, and especially, of kindness.”
“One thing the Biblical model-woman does NOT do is work at a wage-paying job. She is exempt from wage labor, as she is exempt from performing [certain positive Torah precepts]. . . Her time is too important; she must be free to attend to the unscheduled or irregularly scheduled needs of the people in her life (including herself). Among other things, she doesn’t merely GUIDE her husband in all household concerns, excepting only matters of religion and the education of their children; she IS, in a real sense, her husband’s home.” (p.163).
I hope this helps.
Michael Dallen