Tag Archives: Marriage

Commentary

Commenter Rose accepts male leadership in marriage

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Recently, I decided to write again on the question of whether women should be willing to have sex with their husbands when they are not in the mood for sex. Commenter Rose wrote a passionate statement recognizing that men need to be the leaders in the home. I kept reading the comment expecting to find some point where we disagreed, but I could not find one. I was especially pleased to see that she was very careful about qualifying her view so that she was not coming across as a doormat. Men need to be leaders, and it’s the woman’s job to make sure that they can be leaders without opening up the door for men to abuse the power that they are entrusted with.

Anyway, here is the comment by Rose. (I broke it up into paragraphs)

Thank you for posting this blog.

What I have to say is more than likely, not going to be very popular with the other women who have posted, and I want to give a brief bit of background information. I have been married twice. In both marriages, I was the leader. I was the leader spiritually, financially, emotionally, intellectually (and that isn’t saying a lot), and physically. Both of my ex-husbands wanted me to be the one to always initiate the sex and they had this desire for ME to be in charge. I am a very independent woman and in every area, I took the lead, except (as much as either of them would have enjoyed for me to) in the bedroom.

Now that I am not in either marriage and I have had the opportunity to look back, I can safely tell you that being in a leadership position is NOT where I was created to be. I honestly feel that God created woman FOR man. In Genesis 2:20-22 we see these words: “ But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib[l] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.” It is very clear in that scripture that WOMAN was created to be MAN’s helper.

Before I go any further, I want to state for the record that I know that above all, our purpose is to glorify God and to build God’s Kingdom, and I do take that very seriously. I do not worship the man in my life, but I feel that my purpose, after the Kingdom work, is to please the man God has blessed in my life.

I am in a new relationship that is above and beyond the answers to all of my prayers. I have taken a vow of abstinence and that vow is not only honored, but expected of me. This man is a wonderful Christian man and has the need to be the leader in the home. For me, having a man who leads is not just a want or desire, but a NEED. We have discussed the very topic of your blog and I strongly feel that there is NO reason that after he is my husband, he should be told no to sex. My greatest pleasure, as a woman, is making him happy, pleasing him, and I feel more alive, more cherished, more protected than I have ever felt in my life. Paul gives us very clear on how we are to treat each other, as a married couple, sexually and why. (1 Corinthians 7:3-5: The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.) This scripture relates in clear understanding that the ONLY reason either husband or wife should “deprive” each other is when it is mutual (meaning both agree) and for devoting yourselves to prayer. This doesn’t say that we deprive our husbands because we aren’t in the mood. Perhaps if a woman isn’t in the mood, then she should explain this to her husband and they could take time to pray that together for understanding and for an agreement.

Sex is an emotional thing for both men and women, but our emotions are different. As maturing Christian adults, we should be able to recognize that about each other and communicate with our spouses what we feel and think. I am so glad that, in our relationship, we are taking the time, before hand, to relay those feelings, those insights about each other. We have found ways, even before we are married to practice and discuss him being the leader. Some of the things we have incorporated (even in our different homes) are:

  • I discuss decisions with him before I make them. He listens to what I have to say, we discuss it, and he gives me his opinion. I have not found a time, yet, that I didn’t see things his way after we discussed them and prayed about them;
  • I know what his tastes are as far as clothing and even though he has not “insisted”, I find myself wearing the things I know he would like or approve of, and it makes me feel wonderful to know I am doing something to please him;
  • We discuss financial matters and have begun to set up our future budget to have the same goal of paying off debts in our sights.
  • We are both teachers of God’s Word, but he still teaches me so much and helps me keep my focus on the woman God has created me to be. Likewise, he expects me to respectfully let him know if he is making decisions or acting in a manner that is not glorifying God.

As I see Eph. 5:22-33, A man may not always “feel like” submitting to God’s will, but it isn’t an option, it isn’t a request, it is a command. Husbands may not always feel like loving their wives, but again, it is a command. Wives may not always “feel like” submitting to their husbands or the Lord, but it doesn’t say “submit when you feel like it.” This again, is not given as an option, it isn’t a request, it is a command, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”

For me, and I know that most women will not agree, I think the idea of being available to my husband whenever he wants me is a very sexy, very exciting, very natural thing. I also believe that if I am available to him anytime he feels the desire for me, then when I have a desire for him, that need will also be fulfilled. According to WintryKnights reply, in today’s society, I am a minority. I go against the grain, and that is where I know I belong. I AM pro-life, pro-family, pro-guns (and I hunt and fish, too), pro-male, accept sex roles, focus on raising children, am chaste, court on substance, (and I must respectfully disagree on the fun statement because we have had a blast getting to really know each other), am very serious about the challenges to marriage posed by socialism and secularism, study apologetics (we actually do this together and discuss it, I am for small government, small business, small education, small taxes, males teaching males and females teaching female, and so on.

In the past, I think I have wanted that Prince Charming or Knight (no offense, Wintry) to come riding in to save the day. The more I have grown and thought about it, I am under the impression that arranged marriages are not such a bad thing. I feel like my Father, the King of all Kings, has arranged a marriage for His princess. He has let me know that I don’t need a prince or a knight, but I need someone with KINGLY characteristics, someone who can lead, someone who can rule, someone who can follow HIS lead and be an example to me and our family.

In submitting, to my “future King”, he has made it very clear that he does not want a doormat. He wants a woman who has an opinion and doesn’t mind sharing it, and he has to know that I can make the right decisions for our family on a whim when he may not be there to help in those decisions. He has to know that he can trust me to be a portrait of what a Christian woman looks like, to his children. His sons need to know what God’s word says about submission and so does his daughter. What better way to teach them than through our example.

I have found so much freedom in submission. I am truly happy in a relationship for the first time in my life and I look very forward to our future together as his wife to bring him all of the desires of his heart, his mind, and his body!!

In Christ,
Rose

Now when I read that comment, I immediately cautioned her to test this new guy severely and to be certain that he could be trusted with this much authority, and that he was capable of doing his job as the husband and father.

I wrote:

Now obviously you are going to have to vet this man like crazy before giving the lead role in the relationship – so please make sure you do that. But I have a feeling that you know this and are willing to take the responsibility for making a good decision. The time to check the man to see if he can handle being the quarterback is before the marriage. Test him every way you can – insist on seeing evidence that he can do the job of protecting, providing and moral/spiritual leading. Don’t marry someone who hasn’t demonstrated that he can fulfill his obligations.

And I hasten to add that I think that submitting to a man should never be done when the man is committing one of the four As: adultery, assault, abandonment or addiction. But honestly, I think she provided enough background there to see that her basic bias is in favor of submitting to male leadership because she understands men. Men like to get involved with women and start homes when they feel like they have a special role as leader of the home.

Having said that, there is nothing in the idea of male leadership that says that a women can’t make the man spend a year of his life completely abstinent in a courtship with her where the focus of the interactions is on the man proving that he can do without sex for two years while he is courting the woman. Courtship is the time to make sure that the man has self-control and will not be a brutish beast. That’s why we have that “no sex before marriage” rule.

Women: Make the man prove himself before you decide whether to give him the leadership of the home. Look at his resume. Look at his portfolio. Interview his former girlfriends. Interview the fathers of his former girlfriends. Be thorough. You are responsible for making a good choice. It’s your JOB to read everything, understand everything, and choose wisely. Making a wise choice is how you serve God. Choose what’s right. Don’t choose what you like. Don’t choose what makes you happy.

Commentary

Wes Widner wonders if there are worse things for children than spanking

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This is a magnificent, must-read, post. (H/T Wes Widner)

Excerpt:

I got into a discussion a while back about the legitimacy of corporal punishment. Liberal parents are fond of labeling any form of punishment child abuse1.

Corporal punishment aside, lets look at the notion of child abuse a bit more.

That’s all you get. The post is amazing. Go read it. You will not be disappointed.

And I think that it is here where there is a way for Christians to distinguish themselves by caring so much about children that they are willing to restrain their pursuit of pleasure to make sure that children get a safe, stable and moral environment to grow up in.

Commentary

The New York Times explains why the leftist elite supports narcissism and divorce

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Here’s a wonderful romantic story endorsed by the New York Times, which represents the worldview of elite leftists. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

WHAT happens when love comes at the wrong time?

Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla met in 2006 in a pre-kindergarten classroom. They both had children attending the same Upper West Side school. They also both had spouses.

[…]Mrs. Riddell was a reporter and anchor on WNBC television in New York and a mother of two.[…]Mr. Partilla, then a 42-year-old triathlete and a president of media sales at Time Warner, recognized a kindred dynamo. “She’s such a force,” he said. “She rocks back and forth on her feet as if she can’t contain her energy as she’s talking to you.”

The connection was immediate, but platonic. In fact, as they became friends so did their spouses. There were dinners, Christmas parties and even family vacations together.

So Ms. Riddell was surprised to find herself eagerly looking for Mr. Partilla at school events — and missing him when he wasn’t there. “I didn’t admit to anyone how I felt,” she said. “To even think about it was disruptive and disloyal.”

What she didn’t know was that he was experiencing similar emotions. “First I tried to deny it,” Mr. Partilla said. “Then I tried to ignore it.”

But it was hard to ignore their easy rapport. They got each other’s jokes and finished each other’s sentences. They shared a similar rhythm in the way they talked and moved. The very things one hopes to find in another person, but not when you’re married to someone else.

Ms. Riddell said she remembered crying in the shower, asking: “Why am I being punished? Why did someone throw him in my path when I can’t have him?”

[…]As Mr. Partilla saw it, their options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly.

[…]“I did a terrible thing as honorably as I could,” said Mr. Partilla, who moved out of his home, reluctantly leaving his three children.

[…]The pain he had predicted pervaded both of their lives as they faced distraught children and devastated spouses, while the grapevine buzzed and neighbors ostracized them.

[…]All they had were their feelings, which Ms. Riddell described as “unconditional and all-encompassing.”

“I came to realize it wasn’t a punishment, it was a gift,” she said. “But I had to earn it. Were we brave enough to hold hands and jump?”

[…]“I didn’t believe in the word soul mate before, but now I do,” said Mr. Partilla.

[…]“My kids are going to look at me and know that I am flawed and not perfect, but also deeply in love,” she said. “We’re going to have a big, noisy, rich life, with more love and more people in it.”

Just FYI, I am using the word “adultery” for this because I consider carrying on an emotional affair while you are married to be adultery.

I think that this view is very popular among liberal elite circles, such as New York city. These elite liberals get very impatient with morality once they have risen to a certain level. They tend to want to elevate the pursuit of happiness (the “right” to be happy) over moral obligations to other family members who depend on them. There is no transcendent purpose for marriage, on their view – it is just another thing that is supposed to make them happy, like cars, vacations and careers. It doesn’t really matter what happens to the children. The leftist elites blunder their way into marriages thinking that marriage is just another accessory added to their exciting glamorous lives, like triathlons and careers in news media. (Or yoga, recycling, animal rights crusading, and vegetarianism in other cases). Then they find a way to weasel out of their marriages so that they can be happier and more fulfilled with more glamorous and exciting partners. But what is the deeper issue underlying this view of marriage? After all, people didn’t use to treat marriage as being about personal fulfillment… what happened?

The root cause

Obviously the people in our story are either functional atheists or outright atheists, since they are unrepentant adulterers. So why do atheists struggle so much with staying married? Let’s see.

You know how I am always talking about how atheism doesn’t rationally ground self-sacrificial moral obligations? Well this instance of adultery is exactly the kind of example that I am talking about. The problems with atheism and morality arises when an atheist is confronted with a desire to be happy that goes against what his society in that time and place considers to be moral. On atheism, right and wrong are relative to an arbitrary time and place in which the atheist was born – they are just like traffic laws and clothing fashions. It’s arbitrary. And no atheist in the world is going to sacrifice a moment of happiness because of arbitrary customs and conventions that change over time and place – as long as they can escape the consequences. The whole point of atheism is to dismiss moral obligations, to look down on those who are moral as stupid, and to pursue selfish happiness in this life. But what happens when atheists face a “moral obligation” (as defined by culture) that goes against their self-interest, i.e. – their feelings?  Well, the moral obligations go out the window – as long as they can avoid the social costs and punishments of their society (which is why the left is always so busy breaking down the Judeo-Christian morality of parents in the secular leftist public schools – they don’t want your kids to judge them for things like adultery and divorce). This is why the left support same-sex marriage – they want to redefine marriage so that it is based on the feelings and needs of selfish adults, not on moral obligations to children. The left doesn’t care about born children any more than they care about unborn children – they care about themselves. And they spin these self-serving “i’m the brave victim of your silly cultural prejudices” stories to minimize their culpability for the damage they cause. They are inventing a new standard of morality – one that glorifies selfishness and the triumph of the strong over the weak (children, born and unborn).

On the Christian worldview, God is real, and he has a design plan for us. Part of that design plan is that we were made to honor our relationship with him. Honoring that relationship with him means treating others a certain way, especially our spouses and children. We have to train our whole lives in order to be able to shoulder the burdens of family relationships – to our spouse and to our children. If a man neglects his education or his employment history or his investment portfolio, then he cannot be a provider. His feelings on those obligations don’t matter. If he wants to marry, he has a God-given obligation to provide. If a woman reads “The Shack” instead of “On Guard”, votes Democrat because she thinks that the Comedy Channel is more reliable than Fox News, and sleeps around a lot in college after freely choosing to make herself drunk, then she has failed to prepare for her role as a mother and wife. Denying yourself happiness as you prepare for moral obligations in a marriage is not rational in a godless universe. If God does not exist, then there is no way you ought to be, and no way marriage ought to be, and no way children ought to be treated. Children are the biggest victims of all – if the leftists aren’t killing them outright through abortion, then they are voting for no-fault divorce, single mother welfare, same-sex marriage, etc. in order to encourage selfish adults to deny children relationships with their two biological parents.

The problem with the left is that they want the prestige of marriage, but they won’t give up their selfish moral relativism. But how can marriage, which is built on the idea of vows and self-sacrificial moral obligations, be entered into by non-theistic self-centered leftists who are guided only by their self-interest and their emotions? It can’t. What they should have done is invented a new relationship, like cohabitation, and entered into that. But what they did, and what same-sex marriage activists are trying to do, is entering into marriage and then changing marriage into cohabitation by law. This is what conservatives mean when we say that no-fault divorce and same-sex marriage change marriage. If one party can dissolve a marriage unilaterally, then marriage has no meaning. If marriage can be had by people in non-exclusive relationships, then marriage has no meaning. They should have invented somethings else – something consistent with a worldview that denies self-sacrifice and moral obligations to children.

Anyway, read the whole disgusting, self-serving New York Times story, and leave me some comments.