Gideon70's blog
When you get married, the words you say mean far more than you realize. Saying, "I do." actually, in many cases, means a ton. It means the woman has a false idea of what submission means, and the man has a false idea of what leadership means. The effect is chaos, and a constant battle - the man is fighting for her to help him, and the woman is fighting for her very survival as a person. It's the same as hearing, "Let's get ready to RUMMMMMBBBBBLLLEEEE!"
But why and what can be done about it?
Addressing the why. The man. He's the initial problem. Oh, not intentionally, he's doing what he was taught. Sadly, what he was taught results in a divorce rate for first time marriages approaching 80% in some cases. He was also taught that women are both fragile and uncontrollable. That the marriage would fix itself if she only did what he said, or, if he goes to therapy, it will get better when he understands that they are only together as a team and if he just let's her do anything she wants, it will be better. Most marriages fail after this advice. Most fail without the advice. The reason? He never learned what it even means to marry, beyond what is under her clothes and the responsibility he has now, even if no one can really explain that to him in anything other than vague terms.
The woman is taught to submit. This version of submit is one where she is little more than a slave. Oh, she doesn't see it that way, but it's how it works out. He has a job, she has to beg for everything. She also has a job but every time she spends a dollar he gets upset. She goes out with her friends, and he sits and stews... the result? It will only get better if she takes charge, or leaves. If she takes charge, then she finds herself despising him. The result? She will leave to protect herself because noone likes chaos. It may take a while, and might even take years, but one day she will get sick of the fighting, or he will get sick of the fighting and one will turn to alcohol, or partying, or other men or women, and eventually the marriage ends and the woman you loved, or the man you adored, are now the enemy and your life is filled with bitter regret you gloss over with "He was a real bastard that lied to me... she was a real piece of work that lied to me from..."
So what went wrong?
Education. Knowledge. Experience. Definitions.
Education. Kids are not taught their roles, and religion makes matters even worse because the words they use have so many meanings that are so fluid that it's nearly impossible to turn them into action. Parents can't teach the kids because the parents are divorced.
Knowledge of how a family is run is scarce, and poorly taught. Sadly, many get their ideas of a perfect marriage from Disney or Lifetime television. A glossy farce that is all but a two hour lie designed t make you feel happy inside, no matter how painful life is.
There's very little experience left because with a 60% divorce rate, every other marriage fails, and the kids are raised in single parent homes where the caregivers are angry , bitter, and hate marriage even as they tell the kids, "You can do this, even if I failed." How? How can they do this when the person teaching them how, has not done it?
Definitions. They are changing so fast that the word you used last week no longer means that it does today. Faggot was once a punk stick like you use to light a firecracker, and being Gay once meant you were happy. Submit is one of the most misunderstood words in marriage today. Husband is also misunderstood. Wife has a brand spanking new meaning. Household means something different. It's no wonder marriages fail.
So what can you do? It's easy. Reeducate, then negotiate.
Start with Submission. Submit was a military term that meant a person submitting himself, his resources, and his talents to a commander. It meant he freely submitted to taking orders, and running his own troops according to the words of the general. A Captain submitted to a General. The level of submission depended largely on the strength, education, and money of the individual, and the goals of the general. A general had little use for a private who could not command troops, had no equipment, and was not able to assume command of an aspect of his army. A general also was expected to lead his commanders, manage the equipment, and run the fight. This is a truth of polygyny, a man who has more than one wife MUST be able to fight them. He has to be willing to make plans, talk those pans out, then make a decision. Read about how D-Day was planned out for an example and why the commander decided to wait and when he chose to act. This brings us to Husbands.
Husbands are supposed to be in charge of the estate and overall family. Biblically he had veto power if she made a bad decision, which tells us that she made decisions. The idea of the perfect wife is one with her own fields, workers, and products. She was a leader. A good leader. Pretty damning for the slave concept of submission. Women were NEVER supposed to be the little woman sitting at home around a table gossiping and planning the dinner. They were supposed to be active, running things, and fighting with the tools at hand.
Which would you rather be as a wife? The woman who sits in front of the television and waits for your master to come home from his day, or the woman how has a business, gets out there in her hobbies, and makes a difference? TO be whatever HE wants you to be, or someone who takes orders, and then fights with that goal in mind and becomes the best of herself. Do you see why monogamy teachings are so damned destructive?
Here's how to save your marriage if it's in chaos.
Piece of paper. Sit down with your wife. Talk it out. First, you need authorities. Ladies, he cannot be the head of the family if you don't allow it. If you undermine him, don't trust him, or let him make mistakes and learn from them, then he is going to fail. That's on you. A general cannot fight a war if his commanders fight him. A house divided cannot stand. Someone has to have the veto power, and that person is the Head of the Family. It's a granted position, as the word submission is a VOLUNTARY word, not a command. "Wives, submit to..." not, "Husbands, force your wife to..." If you chose not to submit to him, then you have nothing. He may lead, you may benefit, but he will not be your leader, and as soon as adversity comes along, you'll fall apart. It will happen,
Husbands, if you do not have an agreement with your wife, then you have nothing but a bunch of vague promises that mean nothing when push comes to shove. She will leave you just as soon as the reasons to leave exceed the reasons to stay. She is not your wife, she is a person you are dating even if the government says otherwise with a piece of paper. If you want a strong family, you are going to have to negotiate with your wife, with the goal of becoming the leader of the family and getting her to support you in that role. This means that she willingly appoints you as her leader. Now, your job is to LEAD her. To establish the framework of the household, and then to set the basic rules and guides. Think of it as a military SOP, look it up. It's important. Then when you have your structure in place, turn it over to her. Let her learn to be the leader you are going to need! The stronger you make her through structure, planning and training, then stronger your family will be and the stronger your household will be. She is the leader you want running your household.
When you have this arranged and on paper, you are on the road to healing your marriage, because it is a marriage of two things into one, now. Where before it was just a war, in your own house.
At this point, when you get to understand that you cannot do the other person's jobs, which is the next hurdle, you will be ready for plural marriage. You can add a commander, and divide your personal army up into smaller more effective commands. When you get strong enough, you will add employees who will answer to your wives. She will seek advice on strategy and planning from you. You will be stronger and stronger.
Next: The other person's jobs.
Until the last couple hundred years, love marriages were not a thing. People negotiated their marriages. The reason for the change was the Monogamy Only doctrine. Monogamy Only meant that to procreate, you had to have a single wife household. If you had a child outside this stricture, you had a bastard which meant, roughly, "child outside of marriage of a nobleman." If you married two women, the children were also considered bastards except the one by the first wife. It was a way to guarantee lineage and transfer of property on death to punish anyone who dared violate the monogamy stricture. The result? Predictable.
Imagine you were married to a wonderful provider. He died. You were left alone. Protections were assured for you, IF you lived in a poly world, but in a monogamy only world, you had a few choices. You could give your children to a baby farm where they would be adopted out (or killed) and then you were free to attempt to find someone willing to marry you. Your choices would be slim, and mostly undesirable. You could attempt to work, and that left you at the mercy of your employer for his work and pleasure... because jobs were difficult to get, and you may get a good one where you worked on the floor in the daytime, and in his bed at night, or you were fired and left with the last and only option open to you. Prostitution.
So there were very valid and legitimate reasons to make sure polygyny was banned. Widows and divorced women were fun, easy to manipulate, and if they died because of illness or disease, no one really cared.
The Ketubah and plural marriage changed things for the better and would not be allowed.
A Ketubah was a marriage document. It was negotiated by the woman/man and their families before marriage. Romeo and Juliette was a cautionary tale of love marriages, they failed, and people died. Arranged marriages were the standard, but we assume "arrange," meant that the parents arranged them, but that's not true. Arranged meant the marriage was negotiated and the family was arranged by design. They negotiated.
The new couple would carefully craft out their places in the marriage. She was the head of the household, or the head of the farm, or the head of the kitchen or the wash... and the women had names you've heard. The House Wife, The Farm Wife, the Washer Wife. Each aspect of a household, laid out in areas of responsibility. Just as the word for "Submit," means a woman submitting to a man as a Captain to a General, the Captain was expected to bring skills, talents, and leadership to one aspect of the Household or the entire household, although that would have been horrible. Larger households would have been a nightmare to run by one person and probably one in a thousand could do it well. So, the Ketubah.
The Ketubah was negotiated. The family would sit down with close relatives (father, mother) and hash out what the authorities would be, and how they would apply. She would generally be in charge of the household, and that could be as little as two room with a wash closet, or as large as an estate. To get around the loss of other women to help, they would talk servants, paid help, and other employees. She would run the house, he would run the business and often be the head of the Family, making the larger decisions. If it were a plural family, servants would not be an issue, but a new potential wife would be asked to negotiate with the existing wife for her place in the family. She might take over washing, or cooking, or childcare, splitting the duties and easing the burden on everyone.
But the Ketubah was more than just that. It was security. It also covered what happens in a divorce, what happens to the kids, and offered (speculation) a power of authority for one wife to speak in his name in the event he was incapacitated to continue the family, or to dissolve it, with allotments to each of the women. It covered children, raising them, and expectations. A woman knew her place, and had a place. This is where the saying came from. If a woman got into the cake of another wife, she would be told, 'Woman, mind (or know) your place." Marriages arranged like this had a terrible divorce rate. It was almost 4% Compared to love marriages where it's nearly 60% when people bother to marry.
It didn't leave women destitute, or at the mercy of unscrupulous men.
