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gender roles, marriage, men and women, opinion, submission, values
I promised another post on submission within marriage, but the Peaceful Wife has many lovely articles that address these issues even more thoroughly. Here is a link to one I enjoyed in which she dispels some misconceptions “Biblical Submission is Not Passivity.” Here is a key phrase I really liked, “from this position of great strength in Christ, we submit to our husbands.”
My own words often reflect that idea too, submission is actually strength in Christ, it is not weakness before men. It is actually an empowering tool for women that allows you to have a more peaceful marriage, enables communication, and helps to facilitate more love and empathy between husbands and wives.
There are many misconceptions about wives being doormats or Stepford wives and marriages being dictatorships, prone to abuse. It’s kind of sad, biblical concepts of submission are so maligned and misunderstood, some people reject them out of hand, and some women reject faith entirely based simply on those misunderstandings.
Another way to look at the word “submit” is that it simply means “to yield.” The opposite of submit is actually “to engage in battle.” There’s nothing wrong with a bit of friendly competition between the genders, a good water fight or wrestling match, but to be “engaged in battle” as a way of life within marriage is exhausting and tends to make everyone miserable.
Submission plays well with natural biology, even outside of the context of faith, and it tends to bring out the best in men and women. There are two forces at work there, the male and female. All in good humor here, but those two forces play very well with each other when they are in harmony and working in a complimentary manner.
When a wife says something like “I will never, ever submit to his authority!” it kind of makes me laugh, because you already have, or at least you are halfway there if you have married someone! “Authority” however, is another word that tends to conjur up all kinds of resistance and negativity. Like it or not however, there is authority granted in marriage. Just from a legal perspective you have now granted a husband authority over your debts and finances, authority over your health care decisions, authority over many aspects of your health and well being. They are now responsible for those things simply from a legal perspective. From a Christian perspective, their responsibility extends even farther.
To grant somebody all of the responsibility and yet to deny them any authority, is actually somewhat cruel. I’ve been in that situation myself, where I have been expected to take on all of the responsibility for everything that can go wrong, but was granted none of the authority that might have enabled me to actually have some influence and say in the matter. It’s kind of an exploitative, unpleasant situation to find oneself in. I referred to my job title as scapegoat, because that is really what I become, someone designated to take all of the blame with no power or influence.
It can be really beneficial for wives who resist the idea of submission within marriage to really explore what that means and what is going on within you. There can be great healing that comes from taking that journey, from facing our fears, from exploring our perceptions about authority, and from contemplating our trust issues. It not only can help us to get to know the nature of our own selves better and lead to happier marriages, it can strengthen our relationship with Christ Himself.
Delightful and very true IB. Another one of those apparent paradoxes in Christ. Full submission results in great strength and power. And your thoughts on responsibility and authority are right on. In B-school the profs were all in agreement on this: Never take an assignment when you are not given the authority to meet your responsibilities. It will result in failure – always. And in some cases it is designed as such to ensure your failure so you can be terminated.
Great post IB.
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Great comment, Paul. It really is yet another paradox, isn’t it? Submission, rather than creating weakness, results in great strength and power. There’s an old fashioned saying, “men under authority, have authority.” They just do, they have a touch of humility, a bit of wisdom, and it simply draws people towards them because it is a position of strength and leadership and it is simply natural to want to follow them.
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Such a great post. Sometimes I think that maybe couples choose to lived in together rather than get married and aside from not having money of course. They also chose not to have a religion because of these misconceptions. But they don’t the whole truth.
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I think you’re right, maybe many people do chose to live together, chose to avoid faith entirely, because of fears and misconceptions about authority. The really do not know the whole truth however, and even outside of the context of marriage, these are issues that impact our whole culture.
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That’s true. Outside the context of marriage, they are also not aware of the whole picture. It is just too bad, because they chose to live in sin and by their own rules instead of accepting God’s will.
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This is where I go to my gaming system and slaughter thousands to get the pissed off rage out of my system.
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Yet another terrible post trying to convince women to be less, to be exploited and open to abuse in their marriage. And the great shame is that there are always people who agree with you. The opposite of submit could equally be ‘discuss as equal partners’ – it’s only war in your little world.
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This is why I will NEVER marry a woman educated under feminism. Why any sane man marry anyone who hates men to this degree? No wonder more and more men in our culture and marrying outside of it; and more and more women in our culture are turning Lesbo.
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So discussing as equal partners means hating men? How odd.
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Eric,
The feminists are very sad you will not marry any of them, but they will try to survive..
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Actually men and women exist in complete symbiosis with each other. Feminist will not survive, in fact, none of us will at the rate we are going.
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Don’t worry, Ladies. David Futrelle is still single. LOL
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“Yet another terrible post trying to convince women to be less, to be exploited and open to abuse in their marriage.”
To be less? How sad, Violet. I wish women to be more, to embrace the nature of themselves and to truly enjoy husbands and marriage.
” …..to be exploited and open to abuse in their marriage..”
You’ve never answered me, but every time you say these words, you imply that women cause their own abuse by being too submissive. Is that not victim blaming? Are you not then placing all the blame on women, implying they cause abuse?
I suspect the “hate men” accusation partially stems from the hidden message there alleging that all men are known to be exploitative and abusive, therefore women must always keep them under her thumb. It really is a demeaning and offensive stereotype, especially in the context of marriage where men are often offering to make huge sacrifices on our behalf.
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You know IB, I’ve seen a very similar argument in an odd place – when we discussed excellence in business. We had a Geology PhD holder in our class who ran his own exploration company – he was a multi-millionaire. He could not understand it when we discussed a book about the leader knowing the direction and yet giving themselves entirely to the employees by removing obstacles, encouraging and assisting employees – or to quote a paper I wrote: “Perhaps a “framing” issue? That is why I see your book [the prof wrote the book] as so important, because it provides a pathway from personal survival to vision realization, from transaction to core values, from position to integrity, from responsive to self-authorizing, from compromise to confrontation, from rational to action learning, from conceptual to symbolic, from conventional to unconventional, from comprehensible to incomprehensible and finally, and most important (ref: Inco) from administration to re-birth.”
It seems the same issue with Violet.
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“To be less? How sad, Violet. I wish women to be more, to embrace the nature of themselves and to truly enjoy husbands and marriage.”
You wish women to be more by behaving like a child or a junior partner in their marriage? I wish for women to feel they can act like an adult of equal importance to a man. An adult with just as much to contribute to the relationship in terms of decision making. You want them to ‘yield’ like children to sad men who clearly have power complexes.
“You’ve never answered me, but every time you say these words, you imply that women cause their own abuse by being too submissive. Is that not victim blaming? Are you not then placing all the blame on women, implying they cause abuse?”
I never knew you’d asked such a weird question. Women and men can be abused in any situation. We can educate women and men to treat each other with respect, and we can educate women and men to avoid falling into situations where they risk being abused. Who’s victim blaming?
“I suspect the “hate men” accusation partially stems from the hidden message there alleging that all men are known to be exploitative and abusive, therefore women must always keep them under her thumb. It really is a demeaning and offensive stereotype, especially in the context of marriage where men are often offering to make huge sacrifices on our behalf.”
Power corrupts. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Stanford prison experiment. It happens to men and women alike. That’s why I say a marriage is a relationship of equals – no-one should be in charge, no-one should be the junior partner. And enough of these huge sacrifices you imagine all over the place! We’re social animals, we feel for each other, we love each other, and we often makes choices to benefit others, especially our family. We don’t need to make a song and dance of looking after each other.
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This is some serious brainwashing right here. I’ve stumbled into hell. This is just like my last church. It’s taken me 3 years with REAL counseling (not that biblical pastoral crap) to really overcome all the damage people like this do to women. My daughter started cutting herself being in a church that taught this garbage. Do some research. This is not healthy! Telling your daughters they can’t lead, can’t speak up, can’t have certain jobs…it’s not 1950 anymore. Way to ruin a girls life! Puke to this entire blog post.
Good for you violet. I totally agree with your assessment on marriage. Since switching from having an imbalance to being equals, my marriage is now thriving and awesome. The results speak for themselves, unlike when I was listening to this crap being spouted off at me weekly and sometimes daily by church people — I wanted to jump off a bridge. How about this, how about “love your neighbor as yourself”? Why the power trips and emphasis on roles. It’s damaging and destructive.
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Reblogged this on The Sunshine Thiry Blog and commented:
Worthwhile reading for wives.
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Thank you for the reblog, much appreciated.
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There’s a way of looking at this “submission” thing as a recognition, at least in that era, that men are often lacking in self-control. I know that I wasn’t given much guidance regarding how to accommodate others. This changed at some point in the ’90s: my two sons received conflict-resolution training in preschool. So basically, it’s, “Hey girls, if you want to get married and have a stable family for your children, this is the reality.” There are, of course, more sophisticated forms of partnership, but those are rare.
Just as a anthropogical aside: I saw a movie on Gauguin tonight, and before he agrees to marry his Tahitan wife, he threatens that he will beat her. Her response was “But how else will I know that you love me?” Apparently other cultures have surrendered to this reality.
In the movie, Gauguin eventually realizes that he loves his wife. It was in her submission that he found peace, and grew into maturity as a man. That is a beautiful act of healing, and one that I have seen very few men accomplish.
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” It was in her submission that he found peace, and grew into maturity as a man. That is a beautiful act of healing, and one that I have seen very few men accomplish. ”
Quite true, healing can be rare these days, but then again so is submission. There are also many men in the world that don’t require much healing at all.
I’m really fortunate to work with so many elderly people because they are from an era where marriage was a commitment and I get to see the genuine fruits of those labors.
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Important lesson you have taught here.
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I don’t necessarily agree but you did write it well. If I follow your logic here, outside of the context of religion, you are discussing the need for a leader and a follower within a solitary union? If so, why couldn’t the lady lead and the man follow? And how would you address this dynamic within the context of a homosexual union? Not trying to stir hate and discontent, just thoughtfully engaging. (Disclaimer: I’m not religious)
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Well, I do call this blog, “see there’s this thing called biology,” because biology actually matters, what some would refer to as “natural law.” Men and women are obviously different, which is half the fun and one the reasons why we pair up. So, working within the framework of our own biology, men and women tend to be a whole lot happier when we have leaders and followers, biblical concepts around love and submission. One thing women often feel is emotionally overburdened, put in a place where we are forced to lead. That can make women feel maternal towards men, which than becomes yet another burden on us.
As to homosexual unions, I couldn’t answer that, they don’t work within the framework of the bible, of basic biology, or natural law. That’s politically incorrect to say and I don’t want to sound unkind, but I simply cannot place homosexuality into either a biblical or a biological framework.
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So you discount a woman might actually WANT to be the head of her union/relationship/marriage?
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I think I do. What women may “want” is not always what is going to make us happy in the long term. Women lead and have responsibilities in a myriad of ways and if we must also be the head of our relationships, it can be a short hop and a skip to, “does this man even serve a purpose in my life?” So in today’s society there is whole lot of divorce and single parenthood and I think part of that stems from the break down in the natural order of the family.
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This is beautifully done, IB. Thanks for the post, and thank you for the thoughtful, Bible-based, understanding responses to those who disagree.
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Ok, you can go back the kitchen now.
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