Male Leadership and Female Submission: A Personal View for Today
It only takes one out of many hard decisions to go unresolved between husband and wife to cause a severe marriage problem with consequences far beyond a decision's true importance. The stress of the years of pregnancy, birth, and attention to babies is particularly high during a time of life when neither the mother or the father is as mature as might be needed to overcome that stress through the intellectual discipline needed for frequent negotiations on decisions.
Men can much more easily abandon wife and kids when family decisions are contrary to their best judgement. Thus, promoting decision making "equality" in the family promotes the disruption of the family. Male dominance in the family is simply God's design to promote harmony in the family, making the best out of a difficult situation. For those who do not understand what God is, much less his design, it might be easier to view God's design as what you get when you apply the experiences of family and society over many generations.
How do "feminists" resolve disagreements between two equally strong and determined mates? Draw straws? Take turns leading? The National Organization of Women, to serve women better, should be more realistic and less idealistic. One can best achieve idealism by first accepting those things that are immutably real. The entire Soviet Union disintegrated because the idealism of communism ignored the reality of human weaknesses. Most people take the path of least resistance, regardless of the obviously more idealistic path available to them. One cannot legislate realism to change it into idealism and, if one tries, cannot expect to be successful for very long.
Establishing an understanding of which of two mates should submit rather than both fight is merely one way of overcoming a decision-making problem that spawns absurdly outrageous family consequences. The notion of one partner being more submissive is not perfect, but it is the best we can do for the family. Making the family leader, whether male or female, more familiar with Godliness and good behavior in general simply minimizes the potentially adverse consequences of the pre-determined leadership role. For example, an unGodly or badly behaved man or woman in charge of family decisions is less likely to lead to good family relations and a strong, cohesive, cooperative family.
Other family harmony schemes are likely to be less effective for the average family because of the lack of a means to establish, refine, and prove the set of principles needed to establish that harmony. The primary value of any religious system is in its codification of principles that are at least intended to promote a happier, more manageable life on Earth. Their secondary value is providing hope for some kind of unending existence within the scope of the as yet unresolved technical questions of life, soul, time, and Universe. These are both positive benefits of religion, benefits that we all should strive to guarantee for our children.
Families are not the only entities where leadership between two equals is potentially problematic. Similar difficulties occur in small companies having two equal owners, where minor problems can cause the partners to split. It would be nice to have a more natural and "fair" mechanism to resolve leadership issues between two people, but the most frequent model we see in nature is where one animal fights the other into true, physical submission. There are also examples of the female lunching on the male after intercourse, but human beings are mostly disposed to establish a long-term, committed relationship if that relationship is reasonably agreeable. The Bible at least provides suggestions as to how to established a reasonably agreeable relationship between the key leaders of the family. Equal marriage partners are like corporate partners, and when they disagree they usually go to court. If divorce is an acceptable option for the marriage union, then equality is also acceptable.
The Bible reflects an even deeper wisdom for families. Included in the Bible are the dictums to honor mom and dad, so the wisdom and experience of one's elders, male or female, should also be respected. Thus, there is perhaps a more complete family framework available to us in the Bible than this narrow focus on "mate dominance" implies. Moreover, Christ washed the feet of his disciples, clearly demonstrating the subservient role of the leader that he envisioned to be most useful for each of us to undertake. Thus, we need ask only whether the leader is also the server. If so, there is no further problem unless we prefer problems.
It would be acceptable to many for women to be the family leader. Indeed, this has been the mode for many families for the last few decades. The consequences are that men are more likely to seek respect and control elsewhere, and there are certainly enough submissive women out there to accommodate their need for respect and control. Thus, a strong wife who submits to her husband is more likely to keep him interested in the relationship and has established control if not respect simply by submitting to him. What control? Control of her husband, who might just as well be happier and more fulfilled with a less "equal" woman. Men and women are very different in many ways, and they are only "equal" in the need for them to search together for good.
We can also take a more stark, secular view. The modern notions of evolution and survival of the most fit to survive suggests that a man who is ready to wander outside marriage is more likely to contribute more sets of his genes to mankind's gene pool, ensuring that wanderlust genes survive. If a woman can control this natural male inclination over many years through an attitude of submission, then she has more power than is likely to be achieved through many years of confrontation and negotiation. There is power in submission because many people simply do not tolerate a climate of continuous confrontation and negotiation well. Men in particular are likely to find more comfortable opportunities and more happiness by rejecting a woman's insistence on equality and going elsewhere, breaking rather than keeping his promises. In less Godly terms then, submission is sexier than equality.
Detractors happily point to the Bible passage that tells slaves to be submissive to their masters. Their assumption is that this politically incorrect language in the Bible is an argument against male dominance in the family. Their glee is misguided because the Bible deals with good and evil as it exists and as it existed in centuries past. Slaves can best resist their masters by force, perhaps deadly force, or by running away. In either case they are more likely to be killed than is their master. Slavery may be evil and still be included as part of God's guidance to mankind.
Thus, to the extent that slavery still exists in the world, slaves should submit to their masters, and masters should be kindly disposed toward their slaves. "Freeing the slaves" is a political or military action that is easily distinguished from the immorality of slavery. Modern versions of slavery exist even in many of today's larger corporations and even in politically controlled programs such as welfare, where many workers and families are subjected to trapped conditions that closely mimic the frustrations and unfairness of slavery. While slavery in any form may require violence as part of self defense or as a way to end slavery, it does not necessarily follow that violence in the face of oppression should be required by God. As Moses found out, God is in charge of freeing the slaves and punishing wicked masters.
A Technidigm-2000 Level One Opinion
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