The single thing that stands out to make create the genius of Geneva, was the Reformer’s and Calvin particularly applying Sola Scriptura to every facet of life.  They didn’t twist the Scriptures to suit their preferences or personal taste; nor did they wrest them to make them fit in to tradition. The Scriptures alone, stood as the touchstone to everything,  there was no higher authority, and the Scriptures alone ruled the whole of their lives.

The Scriptures tel us that the husband is to love his wife self-sacrificially as Christ loves his church.  And in the main, the reformer’s homes, especially in how they treated their wives were living epistles, for  them being founded on the bedrock of Scripture. So that while Calvin may seem like a cold or unfeeling individual, sometimes harsh in how he can be perceived in his writings,  his tender heart towards his wife,  shows a different side of his character altogether.  And Martin Luther, who was known to be rather explosive, as could be Calvin come to that, also when it came to his Katie,   there was no higher part of his affections to earthly things than he had for her.

Calvin spoke of his wife, Idelette as reported by James Good as:

“…the excellent companion of his life, the ever faithful assistant of his ministry”. He believed what the Bible says, “that whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing and obtaineth favour of the Lord.”

There she revealed the same beautiful characteristics of a faithful wife.She was devoted to her husband. As he was naturally sickly and weak, she watched by his bedside in sickness, and cheered him in moments of weakness and depression. She thus greatly soothed him in the midst of the tremendous burdens of his labours. Doubtless we owe much of the abundance and clearness of his thoughts to her kind ministry in the home. Often she watched by his bedside at night, holding up his weary head, for he was terrible sufferer of headache. In his sad hours, when adverse news came, she strengthened and comforted him. When the rebellious raged through the streets crying out against the ministers of Geneva, she retired to her chamber, fell on her knees and prayed. Like a good pastor’s wife she visited the sick. She was often seen comforting the sorrowing. Her house was an asylum for the numerous refugees who came crowding to Geneva. She cared for them with such beautiful hospitality that by some she was blamed for being more careful of strangers than of the natives of Geneva. She delighted in the company of his friends, especially of Farel, Beza, and others. She would accompany her husband on his walks, which he took only too rarely, to Cologny and Bellerive. Viret’s wife was to her as a sister.

Martin and Katie Luther also followed the same steps of exhibiting the beauty of a Reformed family life:

Philip Schaff wrote:

They lived happily together for twenty-one years, and shared the usual burdens and joys. Their domestic life is ery characteristic, full of good nature, innocent humour, cordial affection, rugged simplicity, and  thoroughly German. It falls below the refinement of a modern Christian home, and some of his utterances on the relation between the two sexes are coarse; but we must remember the rudeness of the age, and his peasant origin. No stain rests upon his home life, in which he was as gentle as a lamb and as a child among his children.

Luther was to say:

“Next to God’s Word, there is no more precious treasure than holy matrimony. God’s highest gift on earth is a pious, cheerful, God-fearing, home-keeping wife, with whom you may live peaceably, to whom you my intrust your goods and body and life.”

Schaff again:

He loved his wife dearly, and playfully called her in his letters “my heartily beloved, gracious housewife, bound hand and foot in loving service, Catharine, Lady Luther, Lady Doctor, Lady of Zulsdorf, Lady of the Pigmarket, and whatever else she maybe.” She was a good German Hausfrau, caring for the wants of her husband and children; she contributed to his personal comfort in sickness and health, and enabled him to exercise his hospitality. She had a strong will, and knew how to take her own part. He sometimes speaks of her as his “Lord Katie,” and of himself as her “willing servant.” “Katie,” he said to her, “you have a pious husband who you love; you are an empress.”

Most people know the saying, charity begins at home. In the cases of the Reformers and puritans, reformation began personally with themselves, so that they and their lives, starting within the home, were living epistles, and its what we need in our day to return to.

Matthew Henry rote on Family religion:

1. You must read the scriptures to your families, in a solemn manner, requiring their attendance on your reading, and their attention to it: and inquiring sometimes whether they understand what you read? I hope that there are none of you without Bibles in your houses… But what will it avail you to have Bibles in your houses, if you do not use them? to have the great things of God’s law and gospel written to you, if you count them a strange thing? You look daily into your shop-books, and perhaps converse much with the news-books, and shall your Bibles be thrown by as an almanac out of date? It is not now penal to read the scriptures in your families as it was in the dawning day of the reformation from popery, when there were those that were accused and prosecuted for reading in a certain heretical book called an English Bible… You have great encouragements to read the scripture; for notwithstanding the malicious endeavors of atheists to vilify the sacred things, the knowledge of the scriptures is still in reputation with all wise and good men. You have a variety of excellent helps to understand the scripture, and to improve your reading of it; so that if you or yours perish for lack of this knowledge, as you certainly will if you persist in the neglect of it, you may thank yourselves, the guilt will lie entirely at your own doors.

Let me therefore with all earnestness press it upon you to make the solemn reading of the scripture a part of your daily worship in your families. When you speak to God by prayer, be willing to hear him speak to you in his word, that there may be a complete communion between you and God. This will add much to the solemnity of your family-worship, and will make the transaction the more awful and serious, if it be done in a right manner — which will conduce much to the honor of God and your own and your families’ edification. It will help to make the word of God familiar to yourselves, and your children and servants, that you may be ready and mighty in the scriptures, and may from thence be thoroughly furnished for every good word and work. It will likewise furnish you with matter and words for prayer, and so be helpful to you in other parts of the service. If some parts of scripture seem less edifying, let those be most frequently read that are most so. David’s psalms of daily use in devotion, and Solomon’s proverbs in conversation; it will be greatly to your advantage to be well versed in them… When you only hear your children read the Bible, they are tempted to look upon it as not more but a school book; but when they hear you read it to them in a solemn, religious manner, it comes as it ought, with more authority. Those masters of families who make conscience of doing this daily, morning and evening, reckoning it part of that which the duty of every day requires, — I am sure they have comfort and satisfaction in so doing, and find it contributes much to their own improvement in Christian knowledge, and the edification of those that dwell under their shadow; and the more, if those that are ministers expound themselves, and other masters of families read some plain and profitable exposition of what is read, or of some part of it.