The enslavement of marriage

I recently wrote a post over a feminist poster that I saw, something that I tried very hard to just skim past when I saw it but then what I saw stayed with me so much that I needed to write just to clear up my own thoughts.

Well, today I saw something that effected me very much the same way. It was once again something having to do with feminists although I was kind of amazed that this came straight from a man's mouth. I know there are all types out there and I know that there are men that support women't causes but...feminism is so much of an anti-man cause that I would think that no man would want to support it. I know I wouldn't want anything to do with it if I was a man and yet...a man said something that was so disturbing to me that I am once again writing about feminism, not because I really want to but because my mind simply has a hard time understanding how anyone out there can think this way, much less how men can think this way.

Doesn't feminism directly disregard men?

Aren't feminists of a mindset that women are somehow victimized because they are women and that all men are the reason for all their woes simply because they are men?

And yet...there was this man saying what I wish I could quote word for word but what amounted to:

Women are so brainwashed by a fake sense of needing to conform and to have security that they willing enter into the 'marriage tradition', possibly the most horrid example of enslaving one person to another in all of history. People take their kids to church were they are taught that women can never reach the heights that men can. There are feminists that still want their dad to walk them down the aisle and 'give' them away. Homosexuals didn't fight for equality in all things they fought to be allowed to marry. Social pressure toward marriage is so strong that they actually fought to be included in this 'disgusting ritual' that is the base of enslaving women. Women will never be equal until we get rid of such enslaving traditions.

Oh...my. I don't even know how to respond to that. My first thought...that was written by a MAN. Um, what man is so for women usurping them that they would think such a thing much less give voice to it?

I know someone that claims that women aren't treated fairly because they make less money than men do. Maybe I'm super sheltered, I've only held a handful of jobs in my life. I've never tried to climb a career ladder, never desired to gain ground in a job. But...isn't minimum wage the same for women as it is for men? Do men make more money as a whole? I have no idea. I know when I was in high school I had a teacher encourage all the girls to go into construction work because federal laws require equality in the workplace and that means construction companies must hire women to meet a quota of female to male workers. Trouble is there are very few, at least at that time, women that want to do construction work. And so...said our teacher...women in construction can pretty much set their own pay rate because the construction companies have to hire a certain number of women to keep out of trouble with the government.

My high school years were a long time ago and so much has changed since then that we may as well be living in a different world but I'm sure there are jobs where women are paid exactly the same as men and that there are jobs that women actually make more money than men do. It's just the nature of any game. Lawyers make more money than store managers, doctors make more than taxidermists. And I have no doubt that there are some jobs out there where women make more money than men do. I know from experience that child care is a profession that is proliferated with female workers and male workers are rarely encouraged to work in that field. Having worked in several child care facilities many years ago, and knowing many parents now, that is mostly the result of the parents feelings about having men caring for their children. There is simply a safety issue involved with men looking after children that most parents don't consider to be a concern when the caretaker is female. And so...men aren't very prevalent in the childcare workers. Or at least they didn't used to be.

But whether or not women are paid equally to men...why would a man encourage this...dare I say, craziness of feminism? It seems to me that feminism is in direct opposition to men.

My faith gives me guidelines for what men and women are to be. Men are to be the providers, the protectors. Women are to be the home keepers, the nurturers. But even if a person didn't believe in the Lord...is it really all that hard to see that men and women are different? That that difference is a good thing? And even if they can't see that, can they not see that feminists are about as against men as they can get?

I've had little experience with feminists but here lately I've had a few more encounters with the feminist movement than I'd like. I've said it before, and will no doubt say it again, I believe feminists ruined life for women that truly want to be...women. They took a country that saw women as weaker vessels, a country where men held doors for women, lifted heavy items, and generally, as a whole, looked out for women and turned it into a country where women are seen as the same as men. More or less.

I've had people tell me I should put my children in daycare and go to work. Why? Not because they had anything at stake in the way I was living but because that is the mindset of our country now. Men work. Women work. This is desired.

I recently ran into a cousin that I haven't seen in years. She works full time and both her children are in public school. Over the Christmas holiday she had the same time off work that her children had off from school. This cousin actually told me, while standing in front of her daughter, that she would much rather work than be at home with her kids.

What is wrong with this thought process?

Years ago I was babysitting for a woman that was working when I started keeping her child but then wound up unemployed. This woman paid me to watch her child, day after day, while she sat home collecting unemployment.Why? Because she couldn't handle her own toddler.

This is what feminism has brought us to. This is the mindset of America today. Children are institutionalized almost from the moment they're born so that women can work.

And now I hear something so degrading to marriage that I can't even think of a proper way to describe it. I'll admit that the modern American marriage isn't what it should be. I've seen married couples stand in their yard and scream at each other. I've seen husband's abuse their wives. Seen wives chase their husband with a baseball bat. I've heard a wife speak all kinds of horrific things about her husband while said husband was home caring for their children.

Marriage today isn't what it should be. But it isn't enslavement, not by a long shot. Not in America. And it isn't just some ritual or tradition that we keep to the detriment of women.

How can anyone feel that marriage is an enslavement to women? I know there are countries where arranged marriages are the norm. I know there are cultures where women truly are treated as less than human. And I know that the very cultures and religions that practice those things also exist in America, and that they practice those things inside America despite laws that do not allow such things, but as a whole American women freely choose to marry and they choose who they will marry.

Some women chose to be stay at home wives, some chose to raise their own children rather than pass them off to others to do the job the Lord gave them to do. But with very few exceptions these are women that willingly chose to do this. They want to be a stay at home wife. They want to be a stay at home mom. They want to be there when their husband comes home from work. They want to care for their children.

These women aren't enslaved. They aren't oppressed. They aren't mistreated. I know because I am one of these women. My sister is one of these women. My friend is one of these women. We don't feel enslaved. We feel blessed. Our husbands love us. They care for us. They look after us.

My husband works long hours, often dealing with physical exhaustion and pain, working in the cold and rain, giving up his time, effort, and energy to make a living for our family. And he does it all for us. I'm not enslaved. I'm not mistreated. I'm not oppressed in any way. And no, I'm not brainwashed into thinking these things. I am loved. I am cared for. I am taken care of. I am protected from the harsher side of life. I am protected from the physical and mental demands of holding down a job. And...I am blessed.

I am not, and never have been, a slave because I am married.

I have to wonder if the man that made that statement has ever been married. Does he even truly know what marriage is like? Has he experienced it? And if he did...was he an enslaving kind of husband? If so...than maybe he should look at himself and not at marriage in general. Did he mistreat his wife? Was his dad an abusive husband? Did he feel like his mother was a slave to his dad?

What would prompt a man to speak against marriage? What would prompt him to hold such contempt of marriage, under the guise of giving women equality, that he would go so far as to say homosexuals should not have wanted the right to marry (I happen to agree with him but not for the reasons he feels that way). Do the homosexuals know something that this man doesn't? Maybe they see that marriage is a good thing. Maybe they see the give and take, the support, the security in simply knowing someone is there for you, someone to share your life with, and they wanted to be a part of that.

Now...I am NOT for a single second advocating homosexual marriage. Such a thing goes against Scripture. And it goes against the very nature of what marriage is. A union created by the Lord between one man and one woman to represent the relationship between Christ and His people. It is a holy union that cannot be attained by people committing what Scripture refers to as sodomy and is an abomination to the Lord. What I am saying is that maybe, just maybe, homosexuals somehow sense the importance of marriage and that despite the sin that holds them hostage in their thoughts and deeds, that maybe they see that there is something special in marriage. And maybe they understand something that the man that spoke against marriage, on behalf of freedom for women, does not understand.

Marriage is not enslavement. Marriage is an honor.

The role of a wife

I grew up in a family where marriage…as I remember…wasn’t something that was highly valued. I can remember several divorces that happened among family members during my growing up years. I can remember fights…sometimes physical…between husbands and wives. The message I walked away from my childhood with was that marriage was something people did but that it didn’t necessarily require any real commitment. Despite that I held a different view.

In my teen years I remember wanting to be married forever. I had virtually no experience with boys at that time and yet I knew when I married I wanted it to be forever. Even as I observed the less than ideal marriages among family members I knew marriage was something special…sacred…and that I wanted mine…when it came…to be forever.

What I didn’t understand was that marriage was more than the worldly relationship that we view it to be. Even as I was surrounded by examples of what marriage shouldn’t be….I had a deep longing for what marriage should be. Back then I had no idea that Scripture lays out for us exactly what marriage should be.

Right now, as I write this, I have a long time friendship that may not be a friendship anymore. I don’t know…can’t know…what will become of that friendship. I don’t know what happened to turn such a good friendship into a quickly deteriorating friendship. It just sort of…fell apart…mostly without warning. This friendship got to a place where things weren’t what they had always been and it was kind of like the aftermath of a disaster…although it was a disaster that wasn’t seen. All of a sudden, with little to no warning, things blew up, got damaged, and fell apart.

This may be the Lord’s way of removing me from that friendship or it may be a test of the friendship. I don’t know. Only time will tell what is to become of it. From where I’m standing though…I’m left looking back on all the years of friendship, looking at the last weeks and days of friendship, and left wondering…what happened? Where did it go? How did it get to this so fast?

This friendship has no bearing on marriage whatsoever. But it is a good example of how things can go so wrong. So fast.

I doubt any of my family members dreamed of getting divorced on the day they married. I doubt that they thought that this new union would come to an end. I doubt they even thought that there would come a day when things would fall so completely apart with this person they were pledging their life to.

But it happened anyway. Like a tornado hitting an area where tornado’s aren’t supposed to hit, divorce hit these marriages. Trouble came, the marriage fell apart, and the couple were left standing in the midst of the wreckage, scratching their heads and wondering what happened.

I’m going to go ahead and say that the couples in these marriages weren’t regenerate. They didn’t belong to Christ though they may have thought they did.

When I was 12 years old I spent the summer living with my grandparents. One day, while my grandparents were gone, my aunt and uncle who lived on the same property began to fight. I knew nothing about it until my six year old cousin came to me crying that ‘Daddy’s hitting Mama.’ I had no idea what to do. I had never been in a situation like that before. I was scared. All I could think of was to get the kids away from it…they were 6, 2, and under 1. A child myself, I did my best to protect the children.

Looking back on that day I can clearly remember so much of it. It left a lasting impression on me. I remember how scared I was. How much I wanted to protect the kids. How much I wanted to make things better for my aunt after it was all over. I set with her while she cried, spent the rest of the day by her side. I gave her the dog I loved because I knew he would protect her. It was all I could do.

The day that happened, before my cousin came to me, I was sitting in the house safe, happy…secure. Then out of nowhere disaster struck and it left a lasting impression. What, exactly, the impression was, I don’t know. All I know is that memory is one that has stayed with me all these years. And that it did leave an impression.

That was probably the worst example of marriage I grew up with. The rest were more cases of arguing and indifference. During my growing up years all of my uncles got divorced and so did my mother. While I was in my 20’s my grandparents got divorced.

There were no examples in my family for the sanctity of marriage. It was much like the cheap items bought at one of those everything’s-a-dollar stores…bought, used until it’s not desired anymore, then thrown away.

But I walked away from that with a different belief in marriage.

I know now it was the Lord’s doing. I understand that there was just something in me that made marriage something sacred. It is the one relationship that we have in life that is truly sacred. It shouldn’t be messed with. Not by outsiders. Not by ourselves.

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:9 esv

I was told recently that my marriage was a choice I made but Scripture clearly tells us that marriage is a union created by God. It also says that man is not to separate that union. Man. As in any of mankind. Man or woman.

Including the man and woman in that very marriage.

This wasn’t a lesson I was taught in my childhood…but somehow the belief was deeply instilled anyway.

Marriage with my husband came easy. The relationship was easy. Rather it…he…came out of the blue one day when I didn’t expect him or the relationship. From the moment we met Someone bigger than me had hold of it and everything just happened until…I was married.

From the moment my husband and I shared that first smile things were easy between us. It was just…right. My husband and I are both Christians, we both seek to serve the Lord, and in doing so…we serve each other.

But even in an easy marriage, even when everything just flows, we still have our place…our role. Things we should do. Things we shouldn’t do.

Maybe…we have that role more so in an easy marriage, a good marriage. Because…maybe…we have more power to hurt each other. There is no one in the world that has the power to hurt me like my husband does. Because things are so good between us I know I can trust him with anything…with everything. And trust him I do. Completely. But that means he holds a power over me…one he never abuses…that no one else has.

But that role…that place…even when it comes easy…is still there. Scripture defines the roles of husbands and wives.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, ⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands…Titus 2:3-5

The King James Version puts that verse a little differently…

The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

How can we teach younger women to love their husbands if we don’t first love our own husbands? So much of the influence we have on others is through example. We must love our husband in order to teach someone else how to love theirs.

And our husbands will know if we love them. He will feel it in everything we do.

Recently my husband was away from home. I was going to meet him and was preparing for that meeting. I got a message from him that said I might want to bring a pair of jeans with me. I asked him after I met up with him what, exactly, he thought I would be wearing. He said, ‘I knew you would be wearing this. My favorite outfit.’

I had no idea that what I had on that day was my husband’s favorite outfit but I knew he liked seeing me in skirts so I wore one to please him. I wanted to please him in my choice of clothing for the very simple reason that I love him.

But there is another reason…as a wife…that I should try to please my husband…

let the wife see that she respects her husband…Ephesians 5:33

It wasn’t my intention that day to show respect to my husband…I simply wanted to please him. But in trying to please him I was showing respect to him. And he knew me well enough to know what I would be wearing even when I hadn’t said anything to him about the clothes I intended to wear.

Because that wasn’t the first time I had worn that skirt…or a different one…for the sole purpose of pleasing him. I do it often. I know he likes it and it’s an easy enough thing to do to give him joy.

We are to be discreet…self-controlled. Scripture doesn’t define when or where we are to be discreet or self-controlled, it just says that we are to be.

When I was 9 I met a girl that would become my best friend. She and I were good friends into high school. I remember well how, in our teens, she became very loud and would often yell out, scream, or whistle at others. It was embarrassing to be around her. She could be walking along talking quietly and would…without warning…make loud noises. Sometimes it seemed as if she did this for no other reason than to draw attention to herself.

I don’t want to be that kind of wife. Not in actions, not in manners, not in dress. If there’s anything in me that brings embarrassment to my husband or makes things harder for him…I don’t want to do that.

We are to be keepers at home…working at home.

Before my husband and I married we talked about wives working outside the home. We both agreed that was something that a wife shouldn’t do unless the family was truly not able to make it without her working. A few months after we married I told my husband that I could bring in money by selling things through an online auction site. He quickly told me I didn’t need to do that and we didn’t discuss it again. I knew from his answer that he didn’t want me doing it.

I am to be the keeper at home.

It’s what my husband wants me to be and it’s what I want to be. I have no desire to work outside the home. I read somewhere that when a woman works outside the home she must please a man other than her husband…as she will generally have a boss or manager that is a man. She is then under the authority of a man that isn’t her husband. Sometimes that man…that boss…will have more authority over her than her husband does as she will try to please her boss in order to keep her job…even at the expense of her husband and family.

I worked outside the home for a few years in my teens and early twenty’s…before my husband and I married. I did it out of necessity but I never did it because I wanted to or because I got joy or fulfillment from working. Even as I worked I knew that I didn’t want to have to work when I married.

My sister and I were talking recently…this sister works and is unmarried…the conversation turned to working and I told her I didn’t want to work because it would take my time and tie me down. What I didn’t say was that it would take my time from my husband and children and would keep me from being able to be who and what they needed me to be at any given moment. I can’t be wife or mom if I’m at work somewhere.

When I told my husband of that conversation he shook his head before I finished it. Then he said I don’t need to. I know my husband doesn’t want me working. Not only because we discussed it before we married but also from those little instances that have come up in conversations.

I am to be the keeper at home.

It is my job. It is my role.

When I’m home I’m available to my husband when he needs me. I’m available to our children.

Yesterday our ten year old daughter asked me if I could walk in the yard with her. I was waiting for my husband to call and had to tell her I couldn’t walk just then. She said…’you could take the phone with you.’ Just that simply she knew that I could be available to her and to dad.

I couldn’t have been available to either one of them exactly when they needed me to be if I had been working outside the home or preparing for a job outside the home. Because my husband and my children are my focus I can be there when they need or want me to be.

A wife is to be obedient…submissive…to her own husband. We see that in Titus 2 and we see it in Ephesians 5:22esv

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

A couple of months after my husband and I married he told me something that has stuck with me to this day. He said that he needed me to submit to him…even if he’s wrong.

My husband doesn’t make demands on me. He doesn’t even tell me to clean the house or cook a meal. If I fail to do something he either leaves it as is or does it himself. I clean in ways I might not do if it were just me…or me and the kids…because I don’t like to see him clean up something after he finishes working. I like to make his day easier by fixing him something to eat or getting his coffee. Submitting to my husband is that much easier because he doesn’t make demands on me.

Marriage for me comes easy. Part of that is my husband…because he makes being his wife easy…part of it is me….because I like being a wife. And so much of it is the relationship my husband and I have with the Lord. Because we seek to please Him, we can please each other.

But in that…there is still a role. I have one. My husband has one. My husband is a great provider. He is a great protector. He takes care of us and provides for us in all that he does. He loves me and I know it. He shows me daily how much he loves me and how important I am to him.

He’s said I’m spoiled.

My sister said I’m spoiled.

I am spoiled.

But…I still have a role in marriage. I have a responsibility. How long would my husband show me the love he does if I didn’t show him love? How long would he feel wanted and needed if I pushed him away…physically or emotionally…every time he came around?

How long would marriage come easy if I acted that way? How long would it stay good if I failed to be a keeper at home? If I failed to submit to him? If I failed to respect him?

There are roles to be ‘played’ in marriage. My role as wife is to keep my husbands home, submit to him…to respect him. That is the role of a wife. Because I love my husband I want to please him, but pleasing him falls into those three categories. Because I love my husband I want to keep house for him, do his laundry, fix him meals…but doing those things is being a keeper at home. Because I love my husband…it’s easy to respect him.

 

 

I am his weakness, he is my strength

I recently saw a quote that basically said…when a man loves a woman she is his weakness, when a woman loves a man she is his strength.

I found that quote fascinating, powerful, and sad all at the same time. Fascinating because it says so much about the love that should be between a husband and wife…and those that will one day become husband and wife. Powerful because there’s so much truth in it…or there should be. And Sad because it failed to acknowledge just why that saying was so fascinating and powerful.

For me that quote perfectly describes what the Lord put in place when He created the first marriage, and in each marriage since then.

Scripture tells us…

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel… 1 Peter 3:7

That verse alone explains why a wife should be her husband’s weakness. I know in our fallen world that isn’t always the case. There are many married couples who seem to enjoy hurting each other far more than they do looking after the good of the other. Because my aim is to focus only on Biblical marriage (and because it hurts my heart to think of marriage any other way) I’m going to write this post with the thought of that Biblical marriage in mind.

And so, in thinking of the Biblical marriage…I can clearly see that the Lord intended for the wife to be her husband’s weakness. I can see that very thing in my husband. I can see it in the way he treats me, in the way he worries about me. When I think of my husband…I am honored to think of being his weakness.

My husband is the type of man that would do anything for anyone. He’d help anyone that needed help. But I also know that there’s something different in the way he would respond if I were to be threatened in some way. That’s normal. We all would respond just a little different when someone we love is in danger than we would for a stranger. Sad as it may be its our human nature.

The simple fact is that when someone we love is in danger we have more to lose…more at stake. And so our actions reflect that.

But even knowing all that…I think of what it means to be my husbands weakness. I think of what he would do for me. Never having put any of that to the test I know it to be true. In any situation I might care to imagine, I can see how I am my husband’s weakness. I know without ever experiencing it what he would do for me if need be. I also know that if ever I were threatened in any way my husband would not only respond in a way to protect me but also in a way to keep me safe, even if that meant going against his natural instincts.

Because I am his weakness.

 I am, by the Lord’s design, the weaker vessel in our marriage.

But that last paragraph has a flip side. Where I am his weakness, he is my strength. I know that in any given situation he gives me strength. There are times when I may not have the strength to face something…and I know I can draw on his strength. There may be times when my weakness is a hindrance and in those moments my husband is my strength.

There is something inherently understood throughout all of humanity. It is generally understood…and undeniable…that men are stronger than women. That strength shows up in both emotional and physical ways.

My husband recently moved our living room furniture around without showing any signs of it being the least bit heavy. If I had moved the same furniture I would have struggled with it and been forced to slide it across the floor where my husband lifted it. I am physically weaker than my husband is. That physical weakness is obvious and undeniable but that isn’t the kind of weakness and strength that that quote made me think of.

The strength and weaknesses that came to mind when I read that quote was emotional. It was a balancing of roles. A completing of two people that were once only one.

You see…in as much as I am my husband’s weakness…I am also his strength. Because I am a weak spot for him he knows he must be strong for me. He must stand in leadership. He be strong when he knows that I am weak. I make him weak, but I also make him strong.

I complete him in a way he would never be complete without me.

But again that has a flip side. Where my husband is my strength…he is also a weakness. Without my husband I know that I must be strong and face whatever comes. With my husband I know that I can lean on him, depend on him, let him be my strength and therefore I don’t have to. Whether it be in a physical way…I didn’t need to move the furniture because I knew my husband would…or in an emotional way…I can fall apart because he’s there to hold me together.

He completes me by allowing me to be the weaker vessel. He completes me because he fills places in my life, in my heart, in my soul, that would be empty without him.

I am his weakness.

He is my strength.