Rules for Christian Households?

Question

The Domostroi prescribes that: the father must conduct daily religious services in the home, and the women of the house must attend church services daily. The father is head of the house and rules the home, and the wife must be disciplined most carefully – if she misbehaves, it is her husband's duty to correct her. Children and servants must also be corrected for their transgressions. The mother must keep her husband's clothes clean and mended and prepare her daughter's trousseau, and the father must set aside his daughter's dowry. The document states:

“Every day in the evening, any man who can read should sing vespers, compline, and the midnight office with his wife, children, and servants – quietly, attentively, with gentle bearing, with prayer and bows, carefully and in unison. After the service do not eat or drink at all. These instructions apply to everyone. In the morning after rising, pray to God. Sing matins and the hours. On Sundays and holidays hold service, praying silently and with gentle demeanor. Sing in unison. Listen attentively. Burn incense before the saints. If no one knows how to sing the services, it is enough just to pray every evening and morning.

Men should not fail to attend church services every day – vespers... In church stand during every service. Pray with trepidation and silently. At home sing compline, midnight office, and the hours. Anyone who adds more services for the sake of his salvation – as long as it is done freely – will receive a greater reward from God. Do not leave the church before the end of the service; always arrive in time for the beginning. Every Christian should always have his prayer rope in his hands, and the Jesus prayer perpetually on his lips. In the church, at home, the marketplace, walking, standing, or sitting, anywhere, as said the Prophet David, ‘in every place where he hath dominion, Bless the Lord, O my soul.’” (Psalm 103:22).”

How to Educate Children and Bring Them Up In the Fear of God



If God send children, sons or daughters, father and mother must take care of these their children. Provide for them and bring them up in good instruction. Teach them the fear of God and politeness and propriety, and teach them some handicraft, according to the time and age of the children: the mother instructing her daughters, and the father his sons, as best he knows and as God counsels him. Love them and watch them and save them through fear. Teaching and instructing them and reasoning with them, correcting them. Teach your children in their youth, and you will have a quiet old age. Look after their bodily cleanliness, and keep them from all sin, like the apple of your eye and your own souls.

If the children transgress through the neglect of their parents, the parents will answer for these sins on the day of the terrible judgment. If the children are not taken care of and transgress through lack of the parents' instruction, or do some evil, there will be both to the parents and children a sin before God, scorn and ridicule before men, a loss to the house, grief to oneself, and cost and shame from the judges. If by God-fearing, wise and sensible people the children be brought up in the fear of God, and in good instruction and sensible teaching, in wisdom and politeness and work and handicraft, such children and their parents are loved by God, blessed by the clerical vocation, and praised by good people; and when they are of the proper age, good people will gladly and thankfully marry off their sons, according to their possessions and the will of God, and will give their daughter In marriage to their sons.

And if God take away one of their children, after the confession and extreme unction, the parents bring a pure offering to God to take up an abode in the eternal mansion; and the child is bold to beg God’s mercy and forgiveness of his parents’ sins.

How Christians Are to Cure Diseases and all Kinds of Ailments



If God send any disease or ailment down upon a person let him cure himself through the grace of God, through tears, prayer, fasting, and charity to the poor and true repentance. Let him thank the Lord and beg His forgiveness, and show mercy and undisguised charity to everybody. Have the clergy pray to the Lord for you, and sing hymns and prayers. Sanctify the water with the holy crosses and holy relics and miracle-working images, and be anointed with the holy oil. Frequent the miracle-working and holy places, and pray there with a pure conscience. In that way you will receive from God a cure for all your ailments. But you must henceforth abstain from sin, and in the future do no wrong, and keep the commands of the spiritual fathers, and do penance. Thus you will be purified from sin, and your spiritual and bodily ailment will be cured, and God will be gracious to you.

The Wife Is Always and in All Things to Take Counsel with Her Husband



In all affairs of everyday life, the wife is to take counsel with her husband, and to ask him, if she needs anything. Let her be sure that her husband wants her to keep company with the guests she invites, or the people she calls upon. Let her put on the best garment, if she receives a guest, or herself is invited somewhere to dinner. By all means let her abstain from drinking liquor, for a drunk man is bad enough, but a drunk woman has no place in the world.

A woman ought to talk with her lady-friends of handiwork and housekeeping. She must pay attention to any good word that is said in her own house, or in that of her friend: how good women live, how they keep house, manage their household, instruct their children and servants, obey their husbands, and ask their advice in everything, and submit to them. And if there is anything she does not know, let her politely inquire about it.... It is good to meet such good women, not for the sake of eating and drinking with them, but for the sake of good conversation and information, for it is profitable to listen to them. Let not a woman rail at anyone, or gossip about others.

If she should be asked something about a person, let her answer: “I know nothing about it, and have heard nothing of it; I do not inquire about things that do not concern me; nor do I sit in judgment over the wives of princes, boiars, or my neighbors.”

How to Instruct Servants



Enjoin your servants not to talk about other people. If they have been among strangers, and have noticed anything bad there, let them not repeat it at home; nor should they spread rumors about what is going on at home. A servant must remember what he has been sent for, and he must not know, nor answer any other questions that are put to him. The moment he has carried out his commission, he should return home and report to his master in regard to the matter he has been sent for; let him not gossip of things he has not been ordered to report, lest he cause quarrel and coldness between the masters. If you send your servant, or son, to tell, or do something, or buy a thing, ask him twice: “What have I ordered you to do? What are you to say, or do, or buy?”

If he repeats to you as you have ordered him, all is well.... if you send anywhere some eatables or liquids, send full measures, so that they cannot lie about them. Send your wares after having measured or weighed them, and count the money, before you send it out. Best of all, dispatch under seal. Carefully instruct the servant whether he is to leave the things at the house, if the master should be absent, or if he is to bring them back home.... When a servant is sent to genteel people, let him knock at the door softly. If anyone should ask him, as he passes through the courtyard: “What business brings you here?” let him not give him any satisfaction, but say: “I have not been sent to you; I shall tell to him to whom I have been sent.” Let him clean his dirty feet before the antechamber, or house, or cell, wipe his nose, clear his throat, and correctly say his prayer; and if he does not receive an “amen” in response, he should repeat the prayer in a louder voice, twice or three times.

If he still receives no answer, he must softly knock at the door. When he is admitted, he should bow before the holy images, give his master's respects, and tell his message. While doing so, let him not put his finger in his nose, nor cough, nor clean his nose, nor clear his throat, nor spit. If he absolutely must do so, let him step aside. He must stand straight and not look to either side when reporting the message; nor should he relate any matter not relevant to the message. Having done his duty, he should forthwith return home, to report to his master.

How to keep your house clean and well-ordered

In a good family, where the wife is careful, the house is always clean and well-arranged; everything is in order, put away in its right place, cleaned and swept. It's like going into paradise. All this is the wife's job; she must instruct the servants and children in friendly manner or in harsher words if that does not help. But if the husband sees that wife and servants are careless and don't follow the rules set in this manual, he must teach his wife, reason with her and instruct her. If she complies and does everything as it should be done, she deserves love and favor; but if she fails to conform to precepts, to do the work and to teach the servants, let her husband discipline her and scare her in private; and after he should relent and speak kindly. Punishment must be given in love and with judgment.

The lady must look after the servants with good judgment; they will then be encouraged. But if wife, son, or daughter pays no heed to word or instruction, if they will not listen, obey, and fear, if they refuse to do what they are told by father or mother, they should be corrected according to their offense. Correct them in private, not in public; punish, then relent and say a loving word.

Answer 1

Where is the question? Is it rather or not the rules existed?

Answer 2

Sorry not in this lifetime or the next.

Answer 3

BORING

btw you're a sexist douchebag

Answer 4

I think its interesting but cant be stuffed reading.

Answer 5

I do believe you are confused

Answer 6

is there a question, thanks for 2 more points