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Post by humbletigger on Jul 25, 2009 11:38:28 GMT -5
Just reading the first paragraph about how your marriage began made me furious for you! You precious woman, how did that happen to you? So wrong!
This is my first post, and I must out myself as a committed Christian who thinks the whole patriarchy crapola is a distortion of the ministry of Jesus Christ and a total misuse of scripture.
Note I did not say they were not "true Christians". They are Christians, since we all get to self-declare on that one, but they are using their faith to indulge their selfish and avoid the hard work of growing emotionally as a loving person in this life.
I can thank my feminist, divorced mother (even though I did not get along with her!) for giving me a strong sense of self as a female. And I can thank the first minister at the first church I chose as an adult. He boldly spoke to us the truth that "wives submit unto your own husbands as unto the Lord" meant that IF your husband was honoring the Lord and loving you like the Lord does and acting like the Lord would toward you, then and only then did a wife need to "submit" to him.
Of course, then the word cooperate would be a better fit, because there would be no problems in the relationship. It would be one of mutual love and respect. Jesus treated women with great respect and honor.
I simply cannot imagine Jesus demanding someone clean the house spotless and then jump in the sack for him, with no thought for the woman's heart or physical condition. That just wouldn't happen.
So I offer tender sympathy to you from one woman to another, and I am so happy for you and your children that you are out of that situation.
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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jul 26, 2009 17:54:34 GMT -5
Just reading the first paragraph about how your marriage began made me furious for you! You precious woman, how did that happen to you? So wrong! This is my first post, and I must out myself as a committed Christian who thinks the whole patriarchy crapola is a distortion of the ministry of Jesus Christ and a total misuse of scripture. Note I did not say they were not "true Christians". They are Christians, since we all get to self-declare on that one, but they are using their faith to indulge their selfish and avoid the hard work of growing emotionally as a loving person in this life. I can thank my feminist, divorced mother (even though I did not get along with her!) for giving me a strong sense of self as a female. And I can thank the first minister at the first church I chose as an adult. He boldly spoke to us the truth that "wives submit unto your own husbands as unto the Lord" meant that IF your husband was honoring the Lord and loving you like the Lord does and acting like the Lord would toward you, then and only then did a wife need to "submit" to him. Of course, then the word cooperate would be a better fit, because there would be no problems in the relationship. It would be one of mutual love and respect. Jesus treated women with great respect and honor. I simply cannot imagine Jesus demanding someone clean the house spotless and then jump in the sack for him, with no thought for the woman's heart or physical condition. That just wouldn't happen. So I offer tender sympathy to you from one woman to another, and I am so happy for you and your children that you are out of that situation. Welcome, humbletigger ~ thanks so much for your sympathetic post. Your comment about how "cooperate" would be a better fit than "submit" really makes sense ~ in a healthy relationship, people (men and women) cooperate ~ the power struggle is just not an issue. Your words make me suspect that you know first-hand about such relationships ~ good for you ~ I hope you'll share more. So glad to have you here.
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Post by tammyjean on Nov 7, 2009 21:32:34 GMT -5
Hi I am new here and have spent some time reading your story-though I am very confused-have you not finished it yet because I couldn't read past the death of ur grandma??
Anyway back to the real topic here I agree with humbletigger in a lot of ways. Patriarchy is biblical and is a blessing HOWEVER the whole truth of it seems missing. Jesus loves women and HT is right, Jesus would never treat a woman like that. The bible says for men to treat their wives as Christ treats his children, that they love their wives as their own bodies-OR their prayers will be hindered.
No where do I read in the Bible that a woman has to be degraded, lorded over and controlled. If you love someone as much as you love yourself then you go out of your way to make them happy and content. And you support them in their life's work. As your wife, the mother of your children and one of Jesus' followers.
In reading your story, and I mean this with love not judgement that the reason it didn't work is it wasn't biblical!! Your first husband is a no brainer, but your second husband was abusive to your child. And he allowed himself to be 'puffed up' by the twisting of the scriptures. You had every SCRIPTURAL right to stand up to him from the beginning. You had every SCRIPTURAL right to go the the leaders in your Church and expect them to intervene and talk to him. That is what the Bible teaches. He was not following the Lords way by exasperating the children, and you.
The bible clearly teaches to do unto others as you would have done unto you. If you were wrong, abusive, hurtful and exhausting your spouse wouldn't you want someone to intervene so you didn't lose everything.
As for family planning there are many debates about this, but the Bible does say, again that husbands should love their wives as they do themselves and that that has to apply to how many children a woman has and how hard it is on her.
As for children being a blessing, well duh, we all consider our children a wonderful blessing. But that is just one of the things God blesses us with. He gives the earth, our lives, our family members etc. That scripture to me teaches that consider your children a blessing and wonderful Gift, not a command to have as many children as possible
What is sad to me is this experience has caused you to lose faith in God. What you lived thru and endured, and what your daughter endured was not because of HIS teaching, it was because of the perversion of His teachings.
Look Abigail was married to a jerk, Nabel. An abuser, a drunk etc. God BLESSED her disobedience to him, and called her righteous for it.
You know it's not all or nothing, it's righteous to be submissive but when your abused and your child is abused, that is not righteous, and it is ok to stand up to that.
If the man were truly following what God teaches, then submission would not be obvious. The husband and wife would talk, problem sove together, support each other etc. And the Christian faith would be respected because it produced these kind of people.
Anyway I totally understand your anger and frustration. I belonged to a 'cult' Jehovah's Witnesses, and I fully believed. I was like you 110% devoted. I realize now it was because I had low self esteem and highly capable so I felt that it was wrong of me to not follow all the teachings to the letter. I never felt I was doing enough. And I just knew that if I didn't do it all God would leave me, or punish me or 'teach me a lesson'.
It took several years, several before I turned to the true God and worked thru all the stuff.
The real God, the true Jesus and the true author of the Bible the Holy Spirit are nothing like that. Now that I know the true God, I have peace.
Anyway my point is I am sorry that this turned you from God. He is wonderful, the false things you were 'taught' were not. I think you are justified in being so angry at a system that did so much damage. I have been there.
Anyway I wish the best for you...And I also was a Mom of 6 children (blended family) and my husband was such a jerk, and I was wrong for enduring it. Our marriage ended in divorce. I think if I had stood up to him right from the start, and put my foot down we probably would have made it and it would not have gotten so bad. I didn't stand up to him not because of religious reasons, I just hoped he would change without nagging-LOL WRONG...
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Post by jemand on Nov 8, 2009 1:05:43 GMT -5
hey, welcome! You sound like you have a unique perspective and a kind heart, you should stick around and post more! None of the stories are finished yet, the blogging continues every few days/weeks or so depending on schedules. As for the Bible though... I must disagree that it "clearly" teaches anything. Sure you can definitely get verses and stories under your interpretation, but they also make sense under other interpretations too. I mean, just look at all the different denominations and interpretations! It's NOT that clear of a book, at all The book on it's face really isn't clear enough to keep it from having abusive interpretations which are just as supportable from the text alone. The understanding that Vyckie and others were following was wrong because it was bad and harmful and abusive, it wasn't wrong because it was unsupportable from the Bible, because there were self-consistent arguments that in fact the Bible did mandate it. But I think we could always use more people around here who have a spirit building, rather than spirit destroying, interpretation of the Bible. There's an ongoing FAQ project dedicated to helping women leave these abusive religious understandings, if you're interested, I'm sure you could help add to it! Many women like Vyckie abandon the faith entirely, but others would be very interested in a good interpretation, and I think there's more than one non-abusive interpretation as well, so more input would always be good.
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Post by arietty on Nov 8, 2009 1:36:22 GMT -5
Tammyjean thanks for sharing. A couple points..
A friend of mine tried the whole go to the person who offends you and then go to the church thing.. she got no where with her husband. The church agreed with her that he should not be acting this way, had a few talks with him and then that was it. What else could they do? Lets say they actually threw him out of the church. What would that do? He would just go to another church or go to no church and my friend would still be in the same situation of living with an abuser. For my friend it ended up that some people think she is an idiot for staying with him and some people think she stepped out of line and caused her own marital problems by talking about him (the Head of the House) in a negative way. Once again, a no win situation. Nothing actually fixed the marriage or even helped it in even the smallest way.
Second point.. why is it necessary for one person to be the head of the house and one person to be submissive? You say that patriarchy without abuse is a blessing.. I'm not arguing that if some find it to be so but I'm asking why is it necessary? My husband and I (second marriage) have no head of the house, I do not submit to him in any way. If you would believe some of the literature on how to have a christian marriage we should be living in chaos, he should be emasculated and I should be burning my bra and enrolling my children in 24 hour daycare all the while secretly miserable. We are simply two people with a family each doing our part and talking about decisions we need to make. We do not need a formula, patriarchal or otherwise, to be friends who have kids together and do do the usual stuff of house management and working.
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Post by ashmeadskernal on Nov 8, 2009 9:30:30 GMT -5
I'll have to agree with jemand and arietty. If God's word were "clear", there would not be so many millions of disagreements around the world about which book is God's word (Vedas, Koran, Torah, Tao, Book of Mormon), much less about which translation and which interpretation and which verses chosen out of the whole apply to any particular situation. Evidence shows that God's word is NOT clear, which is why everybody has their own different interpretation of whichever book they choose as God's word.
Submission always makes you a doormat. Submission to your husband makes you a doormat, to be stepped on and tossed aside when your usefulness is done. Submission to your church makes you a doormat, to be stepped on and tossed aside when your usefulness is done. Even submission to God makes you a doormat (quick, which old testament "good guys" people didn't blindly submit to God, and what happened to them?). Submission to your government... nah, I'll not go there.
The false promise of "submitting the right way = blessings on me and my household" just ain't so.
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Post by rose31759 on Jan 22, 2010 13:06:55 GMT -5
Dear Journey,
Well said. Those that are happy doing what they are doing in the movement, are certainly entitled to thier opinion and life style and I wholly support their 'calling' as it were, however, with that being said, if that is all they are doing and they are not supporting those wives and children who are being abused and tacitly standing by and letting this material be published then they have their heads in the sand. I have seen it too many times in the churches that I have attended through the years in which there woman were being told that they had to submit to abusive (on all levels) husbands because that was what was expected of them and that somehow God was going to bless the woman because she did that. I can't tell you how many times the woman finally said 'enough' and left the marriage only to be ostracized by the church because she chose to protect herself and her children.
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Post by maggieb on Mar 8, 2010 3:52:46 GMT -5
I wanted to bring attention to this because it seems like a very interesting problem, and not one that I've personally seen in real life. How does this situation usually resolve itself? Both in Christian circles and in American culture, it seems like there's an attitude that women should get to pick the number of children in a family, and if a husband wants to stop having children, well, he's just a mean man who doesn't understand that you *deserve* another child. Of course, secular culture would not expect that number of children to be five or more, but woe to the poor man who decides that he wants one or no children when his wife wants two or three. I've never ran into that mentality...Any attitude of entitlement would not go unchecked...whether it came from a mother or a father. In my experience, most people would defend the one who doesn't want more, while showing understanding to the one who wants them. Most would encourage the broody mother to give him some more time, but if he still said no, they'd defend him. I think a couple have to make a decision together on the number of children they are going to have. It's not fair for a woman to stop taking birth control in order to get pregnant, against her husband's wishes, and it's also not right for a husband to declare they will not be using any birth control when his wife is not happy with the idea. If one partner doesn't want to have any more, I think the other should let it go, at least for some time. In my experience, women whose husbands are unwilling for them to quit work and have children are in sort of a reverse-patriarchy situation--it's still patriarchy, but with a different set of ideals, or priorities, or laws. I think of all women these are the saddest--wanting kids and not being allowed. These make me very mad! I think it's important to acknowledge that patriarchy in and of itself is a bad thing, whether or not it has birth/fertility implications alongside. In my marriage, I have always wanted kids more and before my husband. Yet he is patriarchal, and is willing to admit such. I think patriarchy expressed as a refusal to have kids, or an unwillingness to consider the mom at home, is just as evil, and in some ways seems worse to me. Just to clarify, I have been blessed by God with four children, and two live with Jesus in Heaven. While I believe my husband has not always been as helpful during pregnancy as I needed, due to health issues and diet/food allergy problems, I have been blessed with the four living, and even the two I lost mid-term are precious to God and to us. My husband certainly loves the ones we have. I just get mad when men deny their wives the chance to have children during their child-bearing years. This seems as selfish as the other kinds of patriarchy. This is also my first post, and I look forward to seeing how the faith issues resolve for Vyckie and others who post. I too affirm that patriarchy is a gross twisting of fallen man's idolatries, and not about Jesus. That Mom website has a great series on the origins of patriarchy in pagan-culture, and author Leanne Payne does a great job showing where these twisted forms of masculinity, or false masculine, derive from Baal worship in the OT and have their modern counterparts. Definitely not Biblical manhood and womanhood
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Post by jemand on Mar 8, 2010 9:13:01 GMT -5
In my experience, women whose husbands are unwilling for them to quit work and have children are in sort of a reverse-patriarchy situation--it's still patriarchy, but with a different set of ideals, or priorities, or laws. I think of all women these are the saddest--wanting kids and not being allowed. These make me very mad! I think it's important to acknowledge that patriarchy in and of itself is a bad thing, whether or not it has birth/fertility implications alongside. In my marriage, I have always wanted kids more and before my husband. Yet he is patriarchal, and is willing to admit such. I think patriarchy expressed as a refusal to have kids, or an unwillingness to consider the mom at home, is just as evil, and in some ways seems worse to me. [...] I just get mad when men deny their wives the chance to have children during their child-bearing years. This seems as selfish as the other kinds of patriarchy. First, maggieb, welcome to the board! I hope you enjoy it here and I'm sure you'll find lots of interesting people to talk to! Some of the ideas in your post generated a little rant-writing session from me, just know you just sparked it, I'm not trying to direct it at you specifically, I could just have easily ranted in response to a link or something! Anyway, rant below the stars. ************************************ Ok, here's what I think about the "woman should always gets to stay at home if she wants to" meme: You think it's a woman's due to demand, I'm going to quit work and have kids you don't even want and you have to give me money because I'm tired of working anymore? You think that's fair? That's not a partnership. That's not sharing. That's demanding money from one partner to support the other partner doing whatever the heck they want when their partner doesn't even want to be a part of it! Would you support such an ultimatum if it had been anything *other* than children? What if the man wants his wife to keep working to support him and pay all his bills while he quits to, I dunno, attempt to be a rock star, when she doesn't even like rock? Now, if a man leads a woman to believe before marriage they agree on such a plan, and then renegs on it, that's not fair. But a man who isn't interested in being a parent, who makes that clear, who doesn't want to be the sole income earner of two people, especially when the other person wants to spend most of that money pursuing goals he doesn't even share?? Thats the kind of irreconcilable difference that should lead to divorce. It is not fair to foist on someone else the sole duty for paying all your bills, when they *don't want to* and *don't even share your goals!* There is always divorce, and in this disagreement, there wouldn't even be children to consider yet! Anyway, just the assumption that staying at home is the *normal* option really is only for a specific socioeconomic ideal in a particular time period, and the insistence that like it or not, a guy's gunna pick up the tab I think is rather sexist and demeaning. It is ok if *both* partners agree, but it is *perfectly* ok not to agree to such a set up, from *either* party, including the man, without them being a bad person. It is just an honest expression of their life goals, their wishes, etc. And... there is always divorce. And why do I think that in a disagreement, it's best to go with the person who doesn't want children? Because, there aren't any children yet, and I don't think it's really a nice thing to bring children into the world who's parents don't want them. If someone wants kids, and their partner doesn't, the solution is to go find another partner who ALSO wants kids, so the children have two parents who want them, not resent them.
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