Tag Archives: Commitment

Commentary

For Valentine’s Day, a story of lifelong love and marriage

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I found this story from ABC News on Dr Laura.com.

Excerpt:

A devoted Iowa couple married for 72 years died holding hands in the hospital last week, exactly one hour apart.

The passing reflected the nature of their marriage, where, “As a rule, everything was done together,” said the couple’s daughter Donna Sheets, 71.

Gordon Yeager, 94, and his wife Norma, 90, left their small town of State Center, Iowa, on Wednesday to go into town, but never made it. A car accident sent the couple to the emergency room and intensive care unit with broken bones and other injuries. But, even in the hospital, their concerns were each other.

“She was saying her chest hurt and what’s wrong with Dad? Even laying there like that, she was worried about Dad,” said the couple’s son, Dennis Yeager, 52. “And his back was hurting and he was asking about Mom.”

When it became clear that their conditions were not improving, the couple was moved into a room together in beds side-by-side where they could hold hands.

“They joined hands; his right hand, her left hand,” Sheets said.

Gordon Yeager died at 3:38 p.m. He was no longer breathing, but the family was surprised by what his monitor showed.

“Someone in there said, ‘Why, then, when we look at the monitor is the heart still beating?'” Sheets recalled. “The nurse said Dad was picking up Mom’s heartbeat through Mom’s hand.”

“And we thought, ‘Oh my gosh, Mom’s heart is beating through him,'” Dennis Yeager said.

Norma Yeager died exactly an hour later.

“Dad used to say that a woman is always worth waiting for,” Dennis Yeager said. “Dad waited an hour for her and held the door for her.”

The inseparable couple was engaged and married within 12 hours in 1939 on the day Norma Yeager graduated from high school.

“She graduated from high school on May 26, 1939, at about 10 a.m., and at about 10 p.m. that night she was married to my dad at his sister’s house,” Sheets said.

The vibrant duo had a “very, very full life.”

They worked as a team. They traveled together, they were in a bridge club together and they worked in a Chevrolet dealership, creamery and other businesses together.

“They always did everything together,” Sheets said. “They weren’t apart. They just weren’t.”

I think that this kind of lasting love is a mystery to many people who come from broken homes. It’s good for us to reflect on a couple who got it right on Valentine’s Day.

Commentary

A summary of Dr. Laura’s Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands

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Sue Bohlin of Probe Ministries read the book and her assessment is here.

Excerpt:

Talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger has written a book that is improving thousands of marriages: The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands.{1} We need this book because millions of wives either don’t know how to love their husbands wisely and well, or they’re too self-centered to see it as important. Dr. Laura credits this dismal condition to forty years of feminist philosophy, “with its condemnation of just about everything male as evil, stupid, and oppressive, and the denigration of female and male roles in families.”{2} While the women’s movement certainly had a hand to play in the disintegration of relationships and the family, I believe the core cause is our sinful self-centeredness, just as the Bible says.{3}

Which is why we need help, and God instructs older women to train younger women to love their husband and children, 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.{4} The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands is a great resource for learning these important values and skills.

She talks about men’s needs for direct communication, respect, appreciation, support, and sex.

And ends with this:

I can’t recommend The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands highly enough. In fact, I gave a copy to my new daughter-in-law! Let me close with one more piece of wisdom from Dr. Laura: “[M]en are simple creatures who come from a woman, are nurtured and brought up by a woman, and yearn for the continued love, admiration and approval of a woman. . . Women need to better appreciate the magnitude of their power and influence over men, and not misuse or abuse it.”{25} Amen!

And here’s another summary of the book that I found.

Full text:

Dr. Laura Schlessinger has written another book that deserves a place on the best seller list with six of her other books, such as Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives and Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives. The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, from this unmarried man’s perspective, is an excellent manual for women on how to get want they want from men and marriage and, generally, how to be happy. Dr. Laura makes a number of important, practical points, based on her experience in private practice, from advising her radio callers, and from literally hundreds of letters and emails she received from men and women while she was writing the book. Here are the points that struck this writer, together with commentary:

1. Men Need Women, and This Need Gives Women Huge Influence. Dr. Laura states the point as follows: “[M]en are simple creatures who come from a woman, are nurtured and brought up by a woman, and yearn for the continued love, admiration, and approval from a woman.” Women have great power and influence over men, and wives in particular have tremendous power over their husbands. How they use this power essentially controls the relationship, because women are the masters of most relationships and marriages. That’s why Dr. Laura says that she probably won’t write The Proper Care and Feeding of Wives: wives already have most of the power and their marriages depend, for the most part, on them.

2. Women Err in Favoring Children Over Husband. A friend once told this writer that once a woman has children, her husband is relegated to the moral equivalence of a piece of furniture. How sad if this is true in many marriages. Here’s how Dr. Laura puts it: “Once wives became mothers, they had no time to be wives. The men would even compliment their wives on being great mothers, but expressed considerable pain over not being shown love, affection, or sexual interest. The typical reply from a wife challenged with this was ‘I only have time to take care of one person, and our child is that person. I’m just too tired for you.’ This puts fathers in the ugly and uncomfortable position of feeling competitive with and resentful of their children, whom they love so much.”

3. Men and Women Are Different. That men and women are deeply different ought not to be notable, but for the fact that it is so often challenged today. Dr. Laura says that society tries to make both men and women “unisex.” But men are happiest being men, and women are happiest being women, with few exceptions. The differences start to manifest themselves very early. In one study Dr. Laura mentions, a barrier was placed between 1 year-old babies and their mothers. What did the little boys do? They attempted to get around the barrier or knock it down. The little girls? They cried until their mothers’ picked them up. Men tend to respond to things physically, women verbally. In fact, the two sexes are just right for each other.

4. Not Every Thought and Feeling Needs to be Said. Women tend to be so verbal, so expressive, that they can tire out men easily unless they exercise some restraint. Dr. Laura reports that wives generally overwhelm their husbands with communication. “Husbands imagine (so foolishly) that their wives are telling them something they actually need to know because they’re supposed to do something about it. Otherwise, men can’t imagine why the ‘communication’ is happening at all. It confuses them, frustrates them, and their response is to turn off. That’s when they unfairly become labeled insensitive.” Husbands and fiances are not girlfriends or psychologists, and women who want attention should adjust their communication style accordingly when speaking with them.

5. Men Are Not Mind-Readers. Most men are not very intuitive compared to most women. Many women “get caught up in the absurdly romanticized notion that ‘if he loved me, he’d just know what I’m thinking, what I’d like, what he should say.'” If a woman wants her man to do something, she should just ask him plainly, without nagging, and show appreciation when he does it. To act otherwise, as many women do, shows arrogance and lack of respect for the husband’s difference, and it leads to unhappiness in the marriage and in the family.

6. Man Is an Embodied Soul. No, Dr. Laura didn’t put it that way; “embodied soul” is a Catholic concept. But that concept is what underlies her discussion of how important it is to a man that his wife try to keep up her appearance. What does it mean that we are embodied souls? It means that our bodies are integral parts of who we are. We are not just souls. Our bodies are not like clothing that we can take on or off. There was no time during which we had only souls and not bodies, and in eternity as well we will have bodies. It is through our bodies, in fact, that we communicate to our loved ones and to the rest of the world. One thinks of the beautiful line from the old Anglican marriage rite: bride and groom pledge to each other “with my body I thee worship.” It is ironic, but in many cases men–sex-crazed pigs in the minds of many women–actually have a truer understanding of the beauty of the body and the meaning of the marital embrace than their wives do. “Objectification” may come as much or more from the woman’s side as from the husband’s if the woman sees her own body as being separate from rather than an integral part of herself. Dr. Laura writes: “In reading all the letters from men, I was struck by their depth of senstivity about the issue of women’s appearance. It wasn’t an impersonal, animal reaction (as it is with women the men don’t personally know), it was a deeply personal one. The wife’s comfort with and appreciation of her own body and femininity, and her willingness to share that with her husband, actually fed his sense of well-being, his feeling of being loved as a husband and valued as a ‘man.'”

7. Infidelity by Omission. Brides and grooms make a number of vows, not only of sexual fidelity. Marital vows include and imply words like love, honor, protect, and care for. “[W]hen one breaches those vows by neglect, is that also not a form of infidelity? Perhaps we should start looking at the act of intentionally depriving a spouse of legitimate needs as infidelity, too, because it stems from being unfaithful to the intent of the vows.”

8. In the Bedroom. To her credit, Dr. Laura gives due place to the importance for marriage of the marital act: “The bedroom is the foundation of marriage and family.” St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, that supposedly conservative institution within the Church, put it this way: “The marriage bed is an altar.” Enough said?

9. Women Should Appreciate Men’s Masculinity. Dr. Laura relates a trip she made recently to a swimming pool. A mom and a dad were wading with their infant child. Mom held the child against her chest, cooed to him, and swooped him up and down. She passed the baby to dad. He turned the baby’s face outward and swooshed him forward and up into the air. “Mom equals protection and nurturance. Dad equals autonomy and adventure. It is the perfect balance that helps produce a functional, secure human being.” Too many women, though, act like Alice Kramdens, constantly belitting their husbands, shooting down their aspirations, treating them like children. Dr. Laura writes: “When a wife treats her man like he’s one of her children, when she puts him down or thwarts his need for autonomy, adventure, risk, competition, challenge, and conquest, she ends up with a sullen, unooperative, unloving, hostile lump.”

10. Thou Shalt Not Covet. Dr. Laura contributes a novel (to this writer) and insightful contemporary application of the commandment, “thou shal not covet.” Specifically, she understands it as a rebuke to people who want it all, especially feminists. “Perhaps the feminist notions about women having power if they do it all has obstructed too many women’s ability to realize that in real life we all make choices, and that the true joy and meaning of life is not in how many things we have or do, but in the sacrifice and commitment we make to others within the context of the choices we’ve made. The Tenth Commandment, about coveting, reminds us that none of us can have everything there is nor everything we want. Without enjoying and appreciating our gifts and blessings, we create a hell on earth for ourselves and for those who love us.”

Please make an effort to buy this book and read it.

News

New study: feminism pressures women into unwanted sex

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This Yahoo News article explains, citing the research of Mark Regnerus. Notice that they use the phrase “gender equality” as a euphemism for feminism. The idea that men and women have no innate differences and no differing roles is the core feminist belief.

Excerpt:

In his presentation, “Sexual Economics: A Research-Based Theory of Sexual Interactions, or Why the Man Buys Dinner,” Baumeister, a psychologist, explained how applying economic principles helps understand people’s sexual decision-making, especially when they’re just beginning a relationship.

“Women’s sexuality has a kind of value that men’s sexuality does not,” he says. “Men will basically exchange other resources with women to have sex, but the reverse doesn’t work. Women … can trade sex for attention, for grades, for a promotion, for money, as in prostitution or sex with a celebrity.”

The idea, he says, is that men want sex more than women do (on average) and that sex in a relationship begins when women decide it’s time. Supply and demand rule, so whichever sex is more scarce has more power. The theory focuses on heterosexual interactions only.

When women outnumber men (as on many college campuses today) there’s more competition among women for those guys, says Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas-Austin. He addressed that in the book he co-wrote, Premarital Sex in America, out earlier this year.

Regnerus says Baumeister’s theory of sexual economics was a key element. “It’s a perspective through which to understand sexual relationships and sexual behavior,” he says.

Regnerus’ research attributes the rise of the “hookup” culture on campus to the fact that there are so many more women in college. He says Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs “wrote the key work on the subject” in 2004. Because a woman’s sexuality has a value to men, a man who wanted sex typically had to give her something of value, such as a marriage proposal.

Notice that marriage proposals don’t just come out of the blue. They need supporting evidence and accomplishments, or they look ridiculous.

Traditionally, a man would have to show a woman his suitability for the traditional roles of husband and father. He would have to demonstrate that to the woman, and to her father. He would have to declare his intentions, produce his “prospects”, including his degree transcripts, work history and financial holdings. That was before feminism. After feminism, women decided that men don’t have any special roles to fill, so there was no need for men to “apply for the job”, so to speak.

After feminism, we also had no-fault divorce made into law. This was done to accommodate women who had made poor choices when they married. No-fault divorce led to a massive exodus of fathers from the home. So now many women are growing up without fathers. We have also witnessed the rise of single motherhood by choice. With sex education, and the free availability of contraception and abortion, men have been taught to assume that sex is no big deal, and they are able to avoid committing and just get sex from the women who are giving it away for free. The remaining women who want a commitment quickly lower their expectations in order to avoid being passed up entirely. Consequently, many women have decided to get pregnant without a man, just so that they can have a relationship with someone who will not leave them. And this fatherless procreation is all taxpayer subsidized, often including free IVF for childless single women who put recreational sex and careers above marriage and child-bearing for the first 40 years of their lives.

Fatherlessness causes women to have sex at earlier and earlier ages, without any guarantee that the man can fulfill traditional roles or hold to a commitment. Feminism denies that men have distinct male roles, so women are giving up sex to men based solely on the man’s appearance and based on the approval of their peers, which is determined by a pop culture that denigrates chastity, courtship and marriage.

Fathers matter to daughters. In order to make a good choice of a man, a woman needs to see her father’s husband/father behavior to use as a measure. She needs to have a father to help her to moderate her emotions and to make romantic decisions based on practical demands of marriage and parenting. She needs to employ means/ends reasoning to evaluate a man for those roles. But feminism ejected fathers from the home, reducing the male role to sperm donor and taxpayer for welfare programs. Today, we have a generation of women who are basically giving away sex for free, with no romance or commitment in sight.

The feminist idea that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” sounded good to a generation of feminists who had been mistreated by the “bad boys” whom they freely chose, but now we can see the result of that policy for their daughters. Oral sex on the first date is not uncommon for many teens, with no expectation of a follow-up phone call. That’s what feminism got women. All this raving about rape epidemics… and it turns out that feminism is itself largely responsible for the epidemic of forced/coerced sex. Surprise!

It looks like all those bossy, controlling, judgmental, logical, exclusive, intolerant, Christian fundamentalism men were actually more concerned with women’s happiness than feminists were all along. Maybe those boundaries were there for a reason? Maybe the Bible knows what it is talking about when it speaks about marriage, courting, family and chastity? Maybe.