1 Timothy 5:8 and women working

8 Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

I keep hearing this verse used in support of a woman staying home to raise children and men being the lone providers for the family. How is this passage supporting this concept given the context of children and grandchildren taking the burden off of the church by supporting widows?

Is the entire premise (only men being 'breadwinners') mere legalism, or is it truly supported in Scripture? How does the apparent career of the woman in Proverbs 31 play into the discussion?

 

Where did this teaching come from? In my church if the woman does not stay home to take care of the children and the man be the sole earner it is deemed unusual and anti biblical from what I sense.

 

I think MacArthur makes the same error when he says...

"While husbands and fathers have been given the primary responsibility for the leadership of their children (Eph. 6:4; Col. 3:21; 1 Tim. 3:4–5), wives and mothers are urged to be “workers at home” (Titus 2:5), meaning managers of the household. Their home and their children are to be their priority, in contrast to the world’s emphasis today on careers and fulltime jobs for women outside the home."

In context, first its speaking of 'older women' who when compared to older men would most likely have grown children. Second, Paul was just discussing elders in chapter one not to mention the reason for the letter, "For there are also many rebellious people, full of empty talk and deception, especially those from Judaism.11 It is necessary to silence them; they overthrow whole households by teaching what they shouldn’t in order to get money dishonestly.". Wouldn't these be the requirements for the elders' wives, the very thing he addressed in chapter 1?

Paul's comment rides on the heels of what he said in 1 Timothy 5:12–13 (ESV)
12 and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. 13 Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not.

The NIV reads... to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

It appears the issue is gossip and spreading fallacies, ...their integrity...not women in the workplace.