I had a chuckle while following a recent debate about marriage in which the egalitarians were doing battle with the complementarians, as if they were playing a game of football, when the accusation of “extreme complementarianism” came up.
It was a timely thing to read since I have spent a great deal of time on the internet getting kicked around and banned from a couple of blogs, Biblical Gender Roles being the most recent, Tomassi of Rational Male coming shortly before that. Alas, both of those men seem to be rather defensive and afraid of my sweet, gentle words. That’s not even sarcasm, I really have done my best to speak to both of these men as gently as possible, but to no avail.
Why try to speak to them? Well, because they are wrong about a few things, the first problem being, they believe themselves incapable of being wrong about anything. Would I call them “extreme complementarians?” No, no, they are not even worthy of that complaint. What they are is so full of male ego and injured pride, they seem to be unable to see the forest for all the trees. Their concept of “complementary” pretty much revolves entirely around them and their own needs, which is evident in the outright contempt for women being expressed, including sexual contempt. There was a most unfortunate comment about not looking at medusa’s face while being intimate with her….
It is so not good for man to be alone…. Ahem, Genesis 2:18.
Naturally the world loves a good sex scandal…..and anything that portrays Christians in a negative light. BGR has now been covered in HuffnPuff, Jezebel, CNS, and the Daily Mail, as if he speaks for all Christians, as if these are biblical values, as if he represents what complementary even means.
In the interest of setting the record straight on this terrible slander of the very word, “complementary,” let’s look at the actual definition. Complementary means,
- combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize the qualities of each other or another
- completing something or satisfying a lack in something,
- two things when added together helps to make the other better
- mutually supplying each other’s lack
- serving to fulfill and complete
Now if that is not the sweetest, most romantic thing ever, I don’t know what is. Darling, you complete me, you enhance me, you call me to my higher self. You fill me up, you lift me up, and you bring out the best in me. You are my other half, my better half, not my main squeeze, but THE squeeze. You are the cheese on my pizza, the amore in my moonlight…
Works for me, I am falling in love already….
The very word “complementary” speaks of love, of humility, of respect, of having the good grace to realize that together we are better than we were before, that there is a lack within us that can only be filled by another. Alone we are incomplete. Together we are one flesh. “Love lift us up where we belong, Far from the world below, Up where the clear winds blow….”
Sorry. Anyway, what both of these men have gotten wrong is that they confuse fear with love, leadership with control, domination with destruction. Authority with lording power over, rather than having power within. Given their rather contemptuous view of women, as well as their completely loveless presentation of what a complementary marriage is, it is no wonder so many people recoil in horror and start speaking of being egalitarians.
No doubt both of these men now try to perceive me as a raging feminist or downright delusional, but what I really am is a biblical literalist, as in scripture is not be bent to conform to our world view, but we are to bend to conform to scripture. So marriage, even complementary marriage from a scriptural view, is not designed to demean or debase women at all, in fact there are some very pertinent scriptures being all but forgotten here.
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. 1 Peter 3:7
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it… Ephesians 5:25
Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.- Colossians 3:19
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband… Ephesians 5:33
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. -Ephesians 5:28
He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Proverbs 18:22
Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman -1 Corinthians 11:11
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal….Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful… -1 Corinthians 13:1-13
The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain -Proverbs 31:11
Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her –Proverbs 31:28
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church -Ephesians 5:29
See, the very word “complementary” speaks to becoming complete, to symbiosis between the two genders, inter-dependence even. I call it a Divine comedy because men and women often perceive the world differently, meaning we sometimes must struggle to speak each other’s language, but it is also in that struggle that we come to know the nature of true love, the love our Creator has for each one of us, and the love He has for His church. This one flesh concept is a spiritual union, born oflove not condemnation and contempt.
Do I romanticize and feminize the entire love story? Oh absolutely, but little brothers, if you’re talking about draping a cocktail napkin over your wife’s medusa face or as Tomassi says, creating dread by flirting with other women so your wife will fear you could leave her, you’re doing the whole darn tango wrong. I mean seriously, either count your darn blessings that you have found someone foolish enough to put up with you, or get the heck off the dance floor.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
You are disagreeing with red pill men? What do you expect? Respect? They don’t respect women!
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Hope springs eternal…. ?
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Amen!
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I wish someone would explain to me why the whole complementarianism thing is a problem in the first place. I can’t get beyond why it’s even an issue. Being simple is such a joy to me, because I only worry about what I said for about 10 seconds a month, then I just thank God for the fact that we are complimentary. And I take back what I said. I really don’t wish somebody would explain why. That was not an invitation, but thanks just the same.
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Simple men are the best kind, Wally. They cut to the chase and know what’s important. That’s the kind of man I married too, which is a good thing indeed because we complement each other. Without him, I’d probably fall down one of those Alice in Wonderland rabbit holes and get lost 😉
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IB, that is a great point actually simple and complex people mesh together very well. I get depth and width from my wife that I simply don’t have, and I am good to have around when things just need to get done. It’s funny when she tells a story, it takes forever, and forever, and yet more forever. As she says, “Before I can tell you what time it is, I have to build the clock.”
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Ha! Funny, Wally. I try to build entire clocks, too.
Simple and complex people do compliment each other. I can do taxes for hubby very well….but he still needs to remind me that the reason I can’t find my glasses is because I’m wearing both pairs on top of my head. True story. 😉
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Well said Insanity!
I didn’t know you were banned from BGR 😦
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Don’t bother with them, have you read their idealogy, BGR just wants sex from his wife, at all costx and god only knows what the Rational Make and his jargon actually means for the women he knows. Its all about getting sex from their wives, in rapey ways! Only sex, nothing about love, or grace in God, or even what the girl they LOVE wants. You are above that. You are one of the few trads I can understand/respect, don’t play with dogs and get flees.
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If people don’t get that woman exists because man alone is not enough, I don’t know what else needs to be said.
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Interesting. Your version of submission is a strong woman playing a kinky game in a partnership she can can easily control and manipulate. When you encourage other women to to submit within their relationship, you’re encouraging them to open themselves to being trodden on and abused by pathetic little men on power trips. I hope you learned your lesson with BGR. 🙂
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“Your version of submission is a strong woman playing a kinky game in a partnership she can can easily control and manipulate. When you encourage other women to to submit within their relationship, you’re encouraging them to open themselves to being trodden on and abused by pathetic little men on power trips”
No Violet, that is the precise false stereotype I try so hard to fight against. That is a perversion, a distortion of the entire concept of submission, one that these men make so much harder to shatter.
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Hmmm. makes sense.
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Nothing makes much sense when human beings are involved, Paul. 🙂
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Very, very true – Unfortunately the malady you relate is more relevant in the male than the female. But both suffer from the opitical rectitus you describe.
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I don’t read BGR at all, nor Rollo Tomassi unless I am uncharacteristically summoned, ;). So I have no dog in the particulars of this hunt.
My position on complementary roles within marriage is actually a pretty simple one, crystallized very recently as I was offering a prayer of gratitude for my husband and the sacrifices he makes for me. It is quite simple and 100% in line with the Biblical outline of the whats and whys and how-tos of interdependent, complementary marriage:
Husbands serve through sacrifice. Wives serve by obedience
Christ’s ultimate act of love was the sacrificial laying down of his life: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13
We (the Church) demonstrate our love for him by keeping His commandments: “If you love me, keep My commandments. John 14:15”,/i>
What we have right now, in the modern/post-modern age is a generation of men who balk at the idea of sacrificial for a woman without an equal return on their investment (unloving and un-Biblical), and a generation of women who buck against the idea of obeying any man and refuse to even serve unless she is satisfied that his love conforms to her ever changing definition (rebellious and un-Biblical).
Sadly, I am referring to professed Christians here, but there you have it, and the result is an unbalanced and unhealthy interpretation and/or execution of what God gave to us as a beautiful gift.
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Amen, Elspeth. I believe I am with you there as to what is biblical.
Marriage requires a bit of sacrificial love, so rather than thinking, “what’s in it for me”, we should be thinking “what can I give that expects nothing in return?” Rather than asking, “will he or she make me happy,” we should be asking, “can I be pleasing and serve this person well?” And rather then obsessing over the faults of our spouse, we should be rejoicing that out the billions of people in the world, we were blessed to have found one willing to put up with us. Gratitude is much faster path to joy and peace, than a sense of entitlement.
Also, love, marriage, romance, these are great blessings meant to be enjoyed, to be celebrated, to rejoice over.
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HTML faux pas. Sorry.
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Great thoughts.
Even greater closing sentence. 😉
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Telling a woman that she owes you sex, provided she puts a bag over her head first. How romantic—I wonder why the doofus at BGR doesn’t write for Valentine’s Day commercials? And Tootsie-Rollo chimes in that chasing other women will endear a man to his wife. These Gamecocks are almost too ridiculous for criticism.
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There are husbands who tell their wives to put a bag over their heads at the most intimate of times? They call that “love”? Seriously????? Sounds rather monstrous, frankly.
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Seriously. You would not believe what some of these men come up with. One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
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I know someone who is borderline Extreme Complimentarian and it flows more from his personality than his theology. His theology is wagged by his personality and will not yield to the clear teaching of Scripture. Instead he warps the clear teaching to rationalize his positions. Thanks for a great post.
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Awesome IB! I tried to find your comments on the other blogs, but wasn’t able to find them. Even if they were unwilling to hear your words, if you were a witness to the truth you still fulfilled your purpose. That’s what’s most important. (John 18:37)
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