As for your last comment, there is absolutely nothing wrong with traditional gender roles. They were, after all, ordained by God Himself.
This statement honestly confuses me because they have changed so many times, including within the history of Christendom (is brewing beer still 'women's work'? Does 'home economics' still cover every aspect of a family’s business and labor profile? There are a lot of historical Christian figures--St Francis and St Joan are the most obvious examples--who would manifestly not meet current conservative Christian litmus tests for gender role conformity). For a religion like Judaism or Islam this makes some degree of sense because the historically congtingent nature of a lot of divine mandates is already hard-baked into the basic premises of the theology, but in Christianity it’s a lot harder to make it coherent.
Yeah, its a weird statement. Hard to see any basis for this in scripture, but perhaps Thomas got a revelation of his own?
The idea of a married woman fulfilling a primarily domestic role is hardly without basis in a Christian worldview.
Titus 2:1-5:
"But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure,
working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled."
Ephesians 5:22-23
You can make arguments that Titus 2 isn't canonical, but it's hard to argue that what we conceive of as "traditional gender roles" have no bearing in scripture. Plus, Proverbs 31's descriptions of what an industrious wife does - including house upkeep, sewing and buying food from the market - certainly bears some resemblance to what may be considered "wifely duties" today. I do agree there are more ambiguous cases - for instance, yard work and maintenance are considered masculine, gardening feminine. Those may be different cases, but I think in general, it's not hard to make a Biblical case for what Thomas conceives of as traditional gender roles.
