The Weaker Sex

The other day I was waiting in a co-worker’s office while he was finishing a phone call. While I waited, I started flipping through the paperback he had on his desk: The Man in the Mirror by Patrick M. Morley. This is your typical Christian man’s guide to leading a good life. I scanned the table of contents:

Children: How to Avoid Regrets
Time Management: Doing God’s Will
Money: A Biblical Point of View
The Secret of Job Contentment
Wives: How to Be Happily Married

This last one caught my eye. I was curious what advice this book has to give men about their wives, so I flipped to page 116 and managed to scan the entire chapter before my co-worker got off the phone. We then had a rather long, heated discussion. I won't bore you with the details, I will just present, for you amusement, some of my favorite pearls of wisdom from The Man in the Mirror:

"A man’s need to be respected far exceeds a women’s need"

What? I don't feel the need to be respected as much as Russ? Riiiiight.

"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22). Your wife’s duty
is to submit to you, which is the ultimate expression of respect."

I just threw up.

"Your wife’s submission to you is to be in the same manner, or equal to, the way
she submits to Christ. Don’t you think that puts a pretty large responsibility on you as the husband?"

Now wait one freaking minute, you mean the women should spend as much time praying to her husband as to Jesus? Um, Pompous, table for one…

"Women take exception to this concept of submission. It just seems archaic to many women… The word "submit" translates from Greek into English as "to subordinate, to obey, or to submit one’s self unto." The goal of this instruction is not to reduce women to servants and doormats, but to provide an authority structure in the marriage."

Genius! How could I have been so blind? All I need is an authority figure in my marriage! I mean duh, I always responded to being controlled so well in the past.

"In any business organization, high productivity and good morale result from a
clearly defined authority structure…When our marriage doesn’t run by God’s
authority structure… "morale" and "productivity" go down. Some women even
join feminist groups – marriage’s version of the labor union."

Here is where we start comparing a relationship to a business, where the guy is supposed to put the "man" in "manager." If your wife isn’t behaving the way you want, you, as the man, need to look at how you are "leading" her.

"How has your "management style" contributed to her morale?"

He then breaks relationships down into four different types of marriages depending on if the man loves or hates his wife and whether the wife submits or resists her husband’s wishes.

"Hate and Resist Marriage: a prominent example in the 1980s is J.R. and Sue
Ellen Ewing. In the Hate and Resist marriage the wife nags her man, she idles the day away, and she contends with her husband’s authority. He keeps several girlfriends around town."

But I love to idle my days away. Bad lada, bad wife!

"Hate and Submit Marriage: Edith and Archie Bunker – he is the domineering
emperor of his house and she is the submissive attendant to his demands.
If this sounds like your marriage… turn it around by following biblical
commands: Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your
wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner… (1 Peter 3:7)"

Oh for goodness sake, it is just a penis.

"Love and Resist Marriage: The feminist movement has fueled the Love and
Resist marriage syndrome. But today a professional woman overly devoted to
her career might be a …example of the resistant wife. The two-income family
puts extra tension on a marriage.
Several years ago, my wife started feeling inadequate because she was "just a housewife and mother." After some discussion we realized she was being influenced in her thinking by the editorial bias of certain women’s magazines. She promptly cancelled her subscriptions."

He didn’t like the articles about women in the workplace but I bet he didn’t complain about Cosmo’s article titled "The Hottest Things to do to a Man with Your Hands."

"Love and Submit Marriage: Abraham and Sarah, and Joseph and Mary, two
prominent examples characterized by love and submission."

Didn’t Abraham have three wives?
I checked the publication date on this book, certain it would be 1954. Nope, 1997. God help me.

101 Things to do (or don't) before you die - #10:
Do leave your mark in graffiti.
Don't accumulate nonfunctional pens