Recent statistics show that about 60% of women over the age of 16 are either employed or actively seeking employment. The female sector comprises about 46% of the U.S. labor force (U.S. Department of Labor). Also significant, from our vantage point, are the kinds of work that women are doing today. In the 1950's, women were typically working in fields with other women and children. Many were schoolteachers and nurses. Large segments of those workers were also secretaries, working in offices with men, but generally finding themselves in different social circles from their higher-paid bosses. Today, lots more women are working in high paying, even high-tech arenas. My friends work long hours, side by side with men, as computer programmers, aerospace engineers, and medical professionals. They are actually in the presence of male co-workers for the majority of their waking hours.

            This article is not to discuss the effects of feminism on the economy or even on society in general. This is about protecting our homes from adultery. However we slice it, this evolution in the gender picture at work has profoundly and negatively affected the strength of the American family. When a woman works closely with a person of the opposite sex for more hours each day than she sees her husband, it only takes a little chemistry for temptation to rear its ugly head at the workplace.

            Let me begin by stating an unpopular but obvious truth. Our homes are better off, particularly when the children are growing up, with Mom at home. I do not see how we can apply the eternal principles of Deuteronomy 6:4-8 (all-day-long teaching) when we have our children for only about a third of their waking hours, and into these hours we are trying to cram all of the chores, shopping, cooking, dinner, and any extra-curricular activities. I think Titus 2:3-5 clearly teaches that the most important career for a Christian woman is to be a home-keeper. I believe it’s a stretch to think we can work forty hours a week and have enough left of ourselves to joyfully keep and protect our homes physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I think we have to journey away from God’s Will and into the culture of our day to convince ourselves that it’s a good plan for mothers to place their children’s souls in the care of others day after day.

            Having said all of this, let me hasten to add that I have seen desperate situations in which mothers had to be in the workplace. For those mothers who truly find no alternative, I offer my support and prayers. May God help them in this and every decision provide for and protect those little souls who are dependent on them.

            So what precautions should working women take to guard their marriages from adultery? First, it’s important to remember that adultery doesn’t begin in the bedroom. It begins in the boardroom, the office, on the ball field, or at the mall. It doesn’t begin with intimacy. It begins with a look, a comment, a conversation, or a hug. Satan can get us incrementally when he can’t get us all at once.

How Can We Prevent Adultery?

            Here are some terribly antiquated rules to follow to safeguard an institution that is itself as old as the Garden of Eden. (Remember God’s Word is very old!)

1. Avoid being alone with any man. If you make this a general rule of thumb that applies to all men of all ages, you won’t have to deal with any claims that you are prejudiced or just don’t like certain men. Work in areas where there are lots of people. If you have to go to a private room, keep the door open.
2. Don’t go to lunch alone with a man. No exceptions.
3. Be accessible by phone and/or email to your spouse at all times of the day.
4. Don’t ever share relational problems you may be experiencing at home with a man at work.
5. Don’t flirt or participate in electronic conversations. People at work talk about ridiculously personal things (the way someone’s bottom is showing as she gestures at the plans spread out on the table, the frequency with which a woman has to go to the bathroom, the way a man’s pants are unzipped, etc…). Avoid personal conversations. When you begin to feel that lines of discretion are being crossed, change the subject. If you feel that someone is flirting, say something about your wonderful spouse. (This works every time.)
6. If you ever feel a physical attraction or “chemistry” with a person of the opposite sex, get yourself immediately out of the situation (change projects, change jobs, ask for a transfer, etc.). Do what Joseph did in Genesis 39:13. Never put your marriage at risk.
7. Share details of your day openly and honestly each evening with your spouse. Never lie to your spouse about anything. Every totally honest day you spend with your spouse strengthens the barriers you are erecting against adultery.
8. Speak often and glowingly about your spouse when you are at work.
9. Whenever possible, avoid taking assignments that will take you out of town for lengthy periods of time without your husband.
10. Avoid projects that demand lots of overtime, especially projects that would keep you apart at bedtime.

The Internet

            You don’t need statistics to know I’m accurate in telling you that internet relationships are a serious threat to our marriages in the twenty-first century. I can tell you from just observing people I thought I knew quite well and from watching these same people wreck and ruin innocent lives, that when we begin spending seemingly innocent private time on the computer, the anonymous relationships we form in chat rooms and on web sites can turn into spiritually deadly trysts in the bedroom. I learned that my friend Janice, after twenty years of marriage to a faithful gospel preacher, had left behind her husband and two teenage children to travel across the country and move in with a man she met in a chat room. I learned that my friend Sam was losing his job as a gospel preacher because his computer pornography addiction had led to physical acts involving women in the Church. I learned that my friend Mary Ann had walked in on her husband…again…as he closed the door to his home office and nurtured his perverse pornography habit to the neglect of his three young children and his beautiful and dutiful Christian wife. I learned that my friend Dara recently discovered the “other” life her husband had been living for the past 15 years. Her husband Tim was a computer programmer. His own personal computer, when finally examined after one slip-up, let his wife know there was an infidelity problem. It revealed a long, deceptive, sordid tale of pornography addiction and repeated liaisons with women even as he served their congregation as one of its ministers. Many counseling situations have found me sitting across the table from a wife whose world has just collapsed because of behavior triggered by internet misuse. It used to take a lot of rather bold immoral behavior to engage in conversation and liaisons that might escalate to an affair, but now that behavior is easily concealed and solicited by lonely people in chat rooms and on instant messaging services in your most private world. Pornography formerly required going into a store and purchasing magazines or going to an adult movie store for a rental. At least that was a deterrent for one who was the least bit concerned about reputation. But the devil now peddles pornography in private perverted sanctuaries. He has successfully removed the stigma, and he loves it when we step on the path to ruin thinking, “No one will ever know.”

So what can women do?

• Keep computers in open and busy places in your home.
• Purchase internet guards that are reliable in blocking pornographic material from your computer.
• Stay out of chat rooms in which you talk to people of the opposite sex you don’t know.
• Don’t get on the computer at night after your husband goes to bed. Go to bed with your husband.
• Use your email server’s blocking service to automatically delete emails that have sexual content. Most servers have the ability to delete emails that contain certain words. I have blocked all emails with heading containing the words breasts, Viagra, sexy, sex, fantasy (and lots more that I won’t include here). This is a simple step to take, but your email content will be much less provocative if you do this at the outset.
• When suggestive emails do get by your guards, hit “delete.” Never open questionable emails from people you don’t know. If you accidentally delete an email you needed, the sender will find another way to contact you. Take precautions. Sometimes one click can put an image in your mind that you can’t easily erase.
• If you already have a problem with pornography, quit cold turkey. Any attempt to wean yourself away from this temptation is merely feeding the addiction. If after quitting, you have a relapse (even one time), then set up an accountability system by which you will report to a responsible person daily. Tell someone outside of your family about the problem. Choose someone you respect. Then set up a daily communication system with this person, so you know every day that you are committed to honestly “coming clean” with him/her about your addiction. If you still have relapses, seek professional Christian counseling and therapy.
• Stay away from www.myspace.com. This popular social utility remains largely unprotected from pornographers and sexual predators.
• Always err on the side of caution. If you veer into an area of internet use that makes you uncomfortable, whether it is a web site or a conversation via internet, just click away. Just as surely as you are always a click away from temptation, you are always a click away from safety. Just remember that the devil works very subtly. What is fun, interesting and just a little risqué at first can lure you into deeper waters. The temptation to do something you never dreamed of doing doesn’t appear with sirens and warning signals on your screen. It happens in a slow progression, and you’re suddenly more intimately and deeply involved than you ever could have imagined.
• If thy computer offend thee, cut it off (Matthew 5:30). If you find your computer is a negative obsession or a constant temptation and you just can’t overcome it, then get rid of it. If you have to change jobs to get away from it, change jobs. Whatever sacrifice it takes to preserve your marriage and ensure your salvation is a small price for eternity in Heaven. I’d rather be totally illiterate in Heaven than be the most computer-savvy woman in Hell.

Works cited:

U.S. Department of Labor (2007) Quick Stats 2006 [On-line] URL:   http://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/main.htm