What does it mean that a wife is supposed to be a helpmeet / help meet?

The Christian wife is to be in subjection to her husband. If he is a Christian he obeys the word and she obeys him. A most excellent and delightful arrangement made according to the wisdom of God! Subjection, be it remembered, does not mean inferiority. In business partnerships two men may be equal partners and yet one is recognized as the senior with whom the final decision rests. So in the marriage bond the man has been creatorially fitted for the senior, directing place in the partnership, the woman for the subject place, though she is an heir together with her husband of the grace of life, and a sharer together with him in his exercises and prayers. If the husband loves and honours his wife as a fellow-heir and partner, and she honours and obeys him, an ideal marriage is the result.

First we learn that the one who is to be his helpmeet must be his "counterpart" or "his like," for thus should we read the last two words of verse 18. The one that can satisfy the heart of Adam must be "his like," and thus have the same thoughts and affections, and be able to respond to his love. For love can only be satisfied with an object that responds to love.

The lower creation is passed before Adam. He gives them each a name — not a fanciful name, for in Scripture a name signifies the distinguishing characteristic of that which is named. Hence in naming the animals we see that Adam had perfect knowledge of the animals. But with this full knowledge he fails to find one "his like." In all that lower creation there was not one that could share his thoughts, feel as he felt, and respond to his love. He was on an immeasurably higher plane than the animal creation.

Accordingly, the woman was formed by Divine handiwork, not from the dust of the ground as Adam had been, but out of Adam himself, so that literally the woman was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Eve was the Creator's provision for Adam. Discerning the incompleteness of Adam in his solitude, God provided for him a consort designed exactly to meet his deficiencies. Accordingly, in their marriage the two became one flesh, each being the complement of the other.

We are introduced to another great thought of God in verse 18. Man was not created to be an altogether self-sufficient being. He needed not only companionship but an "helpmeet" or "counterpart." We see the goodness of God as well as His wisdom in the way by which the counterpart came into being. The object being the good and profit of Adam, he was allowed to see for himself that no such counterpart existed in the animal creation by the whole range of beasts and fowls being brought before him.

Mark, the bone was not taken from the man's head, nor from his feet, but from his side. The Creator's purpose was not to form for him one equal to him in every particular, still less was it His thought to create for him a slave. From his side the bone was taken, indicating the place of the woman in relation to the man; ever by him as his companion and counselor, and the object of his love.

Apples of gold truly in baskets of silver! The God Who wrought has communicated the truth worthily to us. He would give man the boon of companionship, the joy of fellowship, the interchange of affection; and as the end was good, so the way. For He threw the man into an ecstasy, as the LXX. render it, that he might not feel painfully, yet know perfectly what God was giving him. It was not a separate human being independent of Adam, nor yet a female half severed from the male half of a Janus-like creature as Rabbins fancy. It was not from the head nor from the feet, an absolute equal nor an utter inferior, but from his side, as has been remarked by others of old, the object of nearest love and sustaining care, an associated yet dependent sharer of all joy and sorrow.

Yet that "it is not good for man to be alone" is the word of his Creator as to Him. Looking at the circumstances of the fall, he who has learned to suspect God everywhere may suspect Him here. He provides in the woman one whom Scripture itself pronounces inferior naturally in wisdom to the man, but on the other hand supplementing him otherwise. The rib out of which she is made is taken from the breast; and if man be the head of humanity, woman is its heart. Even spite of the fall, this still is clear and unmistakable; and man's heart is correspondingly drawn out and developed by her. The awful perversion of this now shows but the fact the more; and the perversion of the best thing commonly produces the worst. For Adam, where all was yet right, here was not only a spiritual being with whom was possible that interchange of thought and feeling which our whole being craves, but also an object for the heart. Pledge of his Creator's love was this fair gift, in whom love sensibly ministered to him and drew out his own, redeeming him from self occupation as from isolation: surely it was not, — "is not good for the man to be alone," and the help provided was a "help meet for him."

Membership in the body of Christ automatically means service. Every part of a body is in necessary working relationship with the whole, and there is no independency. Each part needs and serves and is served by the whole. God has acted on this principle throughout nature and nowhere more fully than among men. God said, “it is not good that man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18), so He made a helper for him — woman, the complement of himself. He united the weaker to the stronger so that by her weakness, his strength is better served. She is given to him to be ministered to, so that she may minister to him also, drawing him out of himself, developing his heart — a blessing that all he gives to her cannot repay. Similarly, society has been built up by men having different interests and jobs; and even the regions of the earth are helpful by the differences of their productions in binding together the nations of the earth. A city is the highest development of this principle among men; all must work together to make it function properly, and God has prepared for His people “a city that has foundations” (Heb. 11:10) where all will function perfectly together, forever.

Zelah, "rib," that which the Lord God at the beginning took from Adam, and built up into a woman, and ordained her to be the help-meet of man. Here the weakness of the creature was recognized and provided for. "It is not good that the man should be alone," God says; and yet he was then as he had been made exactly. The woman, weaker still than he, is ordained his helper. Was she not in some way that by her very weakness? Cast upon him in his strength, a being formed for affection, as an object for the heart to develop the heart in him, deliver him from self-occupation, and, by the help she needed, help her helper? Here is natural ministry, ordained at creation, by which we are linked together by the need we have of one another, and in giving receive, and receive more than we give. Thus, indeed, is ministry as mercy "twice-blessed": and this reflex influence of it Zelah seems to stand for and suggest.

The very fact that woman was taken out of man proves her equality with him. She is not his inferior, but his equal, his helpmeet. There is equality, but with it diversity. Woman was made for man and to be with him at his side. God never intended that woman should be an independent creature apart from man, but that she should be associated with him, and that together they should be one flesh typifying Christ and His bride, the Church. Woman never shines more brightly than when fulfilling the object for which she was created, which primarily was to be man's helpmeet.