Grace, Partnership, and Family

This morning I read the following article by Larry Wilson in Ethics Daily, an online Baptist newsletter: http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=9856. It speaks to many things that trouble me.

This line in particular struck me: "It is often taught that the man is the boss instead of a partner in the marriage, and this is said in the name of the Lord, which often makes God look bad. Grace is all that can save a marriage or any other relationship."

When Frank and I married, my father (an ordained minister) officiated (I am Catholic convert of Baptist background, so... a "Batholic"). He read the vows he and my mother spoke when they married in the 1950's. Part of those vows included a reference to God taking a rib from Adam's side, showing woman was to walk beside man, to be his partner. In other words, not his doormat.

Having grown up immersed in Baptist church culture, Southern culture, late 20th century culture, and a whole lot of Bible study, I have heard the verses recently adopted as creed of the Southern Baptist convention (which until the Fundamentalist coup rejected all forms of creed) that say that a wife is to SUBMIT to her husband. I have heard sermons, lectures, Bible Studies, and read books and articles on what this means. I've heard it put that because women are evil by nature, having sprung from Eve, and Adam's misdeeds flowed from Eve's (who was allegedly more susceptible to the serpent) and not of his own accord so men are not as inherently evil or easily duped into evil as women (strange logic indeed considering he is called a dupe of the so-called weak woman), that man must dominate woman or she will lead him, herself, their children, and society into nothing but evil. Perhaps this is the worst example of the interpretations of that scripture that I've heard, but it is amazing how prolific this interpretation is.

What is more amazing is how destructive it is. I tried to figure out what "submit" meant when I got married. Figuring myself a heathen by a lifetime of habit, I thought I'd gird myself in godly clothes and do this marriage right in the eyes of God and others. Understand, I've been a strong woman for most of my life with occasional bouts of weakness. Sometimes I forget who I am. Obviously, marriage was one of those moments.

Marriage turns everything upside down. I knew beforehand that I was walking Through the Looking Glass. I couldn't know until I'd done it what it was like Through the Looking Glass. It was hard. As my husband says, "the hardest thing I've ever done." When we say this (though I don't say it or think it often), usually we aren't saying that the other is the most difficult person in the world to live with. I'll let Frank say what he means by it exactly, if he wants, but when I say it, what I mean is that finding balance in the partnership, knowing how to be together every day, through thick and thin, better or worse, with such ferocious closeness requires breaking all records for diplomacy, patience, generosity, and thoughtfulness. You merge into one while remaining individual. You weigh in a little more on one count than the other on some days, and on shining, glimmering days, you sail through the balance gracefully.

How do you keep a sense of identity in all of this? In trying to understand "submit", in grappling with the intensity of marriage and then home ownership, pregnancy, and motherhood, I lost the firm hold on my identity. When I became a mother, I felt I had been reborn. Motherhood fit like a glove. (The glove loosens over time, but early on it was blissful.) But I still struggled with "wife".

It makes for an unwieldy relationship for one partner to resign herself to doormat, handing over all adult responsibility for decision-making, et al., to her husband. To question herself constantly. To make one person in the partnership the goal of all activity and joy is like trying to ride a teeter-totter by yourself. Or maybe it's like having one person sit on the teeter totter and the other use her/his hands to pump it up and down from the other side. It makes for abuse, but of which partner to the other? Perhaps the abuse is of the relationship and is conducted by both parties. it's just not a genuine way to be with someone. Or so it was for me. Add children into the mix, and they are as affected by the imbalance as everyone else.

I can't say I was a doormat, but something was askew. In all the soul-searching that came of figuring out who I was within our relationship and family, I came to realize that for our relationship, submit meant each standing on his/her own feet -- together. I had to take responsibility for my words and actions, to stand beside and help shoulder the load and acknowledge that I was shouldering the load. Where I wasn't pulling my weight, I had to confess and buck up. And I had to ask for help sometimes. Submit means I take Frank's interest to heart deeply, but without shirking my adulthood and needs. How manipulative is it for a woman or man not to set boundaries and state her/his needs? It is self-defeating and couple defeating.

You could say to submit honestly, you back up a verse and read that as Christians we are to submit to one another.

The Baptist Ethics article said that only Grace can save a marriage. Our first few years prove the truth of that. I'll show a little restraint and leave out the details, but it was Grace, nothing more or less, that made our marriage. Under the waterfall of Grace as it healed and reconstructed, I sat silent, in awe, with a gratitude I hope never to lose or to find swiftly whenever I misplace it.

I love you, Frank.