God/Culture/Women

[marietta]

“Family”.
“Love”
“Trust”
Not dirty words? They are nothing to me, neither dirty nor beautiful. Just words.

I vehemently disagree about the money issue. If you have not had the power of the pursestrings held over your head you are fortunate indeed.

Life is not a partnership for some. The tales I read here are harder to believe than “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.”

marietta

 

[Della]

“Family”.
“Love”
“Trust”
Not dirty words? They are nothing to me, neither dirty nor beautiful. Just words.

I think that a very sad comment. I truly do.

I vehemently disagree about the money issue. If you have not had the power of the pursestrings held over your head you are fortunate indeed.

Who said anything about anyone holding the pursestrings over anyone’s head? Marriage is more than who controls the money. Once again, it’s a sad comment that you think otherwise. Truly.

Life is not a partnership for some. The tales I read here are harder to believe than “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.”

marietta

Marriage isn’t a partnership either. It’s a blending of two lives into one. It’s not always easy, but a good marriage is like nothing else on earth and a foretaste of our union with God in heaven. You probably don’t believe that, but it’s true just the same.

 

[thenewmrssears]

I stumbled in from the Family Life board, because this post caught my eye.

Assuming you haven’t read any of my posts over there, I am 24, married just under 3 months, I am in grad school, and I have a really good corporate job. My husband freelances for magazines, but he mostly performs the functions of a stay-at-home spouse. He is Lutheran. I am a Cradle Catholic who has never left the Faith. God has not yet blessed us with any children. We have 2 pets.

I never once thought of my husband as anything less than the head of the household. It was always my assumption that no matter the tasks he performed in the relationship, there were things to which I would always defer. These range from small decisions of which football game to watch to big things of where will we take a long weekend vacation.

He has deferred to me on raising future children Catholic. He will not convert, but he is fully committed to raising a Catholic family. He defers to me on finances. I handle our budget, money, and anything else that relates to our financial well-being.

Following one’s husband isn’t a means of complete and utter submission. It doesn’t mean giving up everything and doing exactly as you are told. It is understanding that a family is a team, and he is like the team captain.

My parents were the perfect example of this. My mom is a VERY strong woman, and she is well-educated and Godly. She has a college degree, worked for 9 years, and then she stopped to be a SAHM and raise 5 children. My dad works full-time, and he also has a college degree, and he runs a company. All five of us children were told to go to college, have a good career, have a good family, and do what GOD called us to do. There was no talking of “Women don’t do that” or “Men don’t help around the house.” My parents’ team approach to marriage showed me that partners are equal. On days my dad was off, he would do the laundry, cook, clean, and send my mom off to the spa or out to shop with her girlfriends.

My husband and I operate the same way. Nathan stays home and handles the day-to-day of our lives, and I work full time and go to school for my MBA part time. These decisions weren’t made on a whim, and he and I discussed them thoroughly. There was never any thought to the fact that we had reversed the traditional roles of a marriage. What was important is that I gave him my opinion, and then I deferred to him to make the final decision. It is what God had called us both to do with our lives.

One day if God blesses us with children, he will continue to be the stay-at-home parent while I work. Once again, this is a decision that we thought through completely, and we realize this is what is best for us. However, I never assumed he would be up for that. It took a few discussions and some prayer.

When some people see that women are submissive line, they freak out! I’ll never really understand why. It doesn’t mean we are less of a human or never supposed to say what we think or do what we want. It is about striking a balance and appreciating the fact that there is someone else in our lives with whom we must think of at all times. Why do people see that as a bad thing?

 

[Oscarthecat]

From what I understand (from Dei Verbum, the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, the other Encyclicals on intrepreting scripture), God is Truth, and what God reveals to us about Himself is always absolutely true, but it must be expressed through language, in the context of human history and culture. This is why the Church recognizes that properly reading scripture requires an understanding of the 4 aspects of scripture.

So, it is true, for example, that women in Paul’s day were morally obligated to cover their heads. But that requirement didn’t mean that head coverings have an innate moral quality. Instead, in Paul’s day, women’s head coverings were an ordinary expression of reverence, such that NOT covering one’s head where one should show reverence would be a deliberately irreverent act.

So, the absolute moral truth of the scripture in that case is that there is a moral obligation to express reverence to God during worship in accordance with the cultural norms. Obviously, this presumes that the norm is morally acceptable in and of itself. The purpose of this should be clear— we express ourselves through our entire beings, in what we do and say, and so we must express our reverence to God in what we do and what we say, and since we live in society with other people, we should express it in such a way that is recognizable to one another.

Therefore, it isn’t that the Truth of what Paul said about women covering their heads in Church has changed, because it will always be true that we must show proper reverence to God. What has changed is that women’s head coverings are not universal expressions of reverence today.

Of course, some people have used this same kind of explanation to try to re-interpret everything in scripture as they see fit, even when their interpretations lead them away from the Church.

Thankfully, the Church is here to guide our understanding. We should be humble enough to accept that, when we find differences between our understanding and the teaching of the Church, are due to a lack of understanding on our part.

 

[Oscarthecat]

“Family”.
“Love”
“Trust”
Not dirty words? They are nothing to me, neither dirty nor beautiful. Just words.

I vehemently disagree about the money issue. If you have not had the power of the pursestrings held over your head you are fortunate indeed.

Life is not a partnership for some. The tales I read here are harder to believe than “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.”

marietta

You may not have any connection to those words you listed, but you do seem to hold very tightly to their opposites.

Ideally, marriage draws people closer to each other and to God as the family continues to grow in their love and trust of one another. But when marriage is infected with stubborn self-interest (instead of family), resentment and hate (instead of love), and suspicion and greed (instead of trust), then it hurts everyone involved, even those who had no fault, as the whole family becomes disconnected from each other and from God.

 

[EasterJoy]

Was this God’s influence on Paul, or was Paul simply speaking by means of what was best in those times for that culture to worship? This doesn’t imply God changing with the times, only that people talk, act, and speak differently throughout every culture…

If you go back to that passage, you’ll note that St. Paul tacks on at the end of it that none of the other churches recognize any other usage. With regards to covering the hair, he wrote “if it is shameful for a woman to have have her head shaved…”

Both of these will tip you off that he was talking about the prevailing discipline within the Church, not an unchangeable dogma about moral behavior. This is not about culture, then, so much as it is about which things are at a bishop’s discretion and which are not.

And how a woman is to be submissive to her husband, while that is a God commanded doctrine, it seemed the majority of the world also held that, until our modern times.

Funny how the submission quoters so often leave out the part about the husband sacrificing himself for his wife as Christ does for the Church. A person has to want to twist that reading to make it into an argument in favor of any kind of abuse of wives.

 

[marietta]

I stumbled in from the Family Life board, because this post caught my eye.

Assuming you haven’t read any of my posts over there, I am 24, married just under 3 months, I am in $grad school$, and I have a $really good corporate job$. My husband freelances for magazines, but he mostly performs the functions of a stay-at-home spouse. He is Lutheran. I am a Cradle Catholic who has never left the Faith. God has not yet blessed us with any children. We have 2 pets.

I never once thought of my husband as anything less than the head of the household. It was always my assumption that no matter the tasks he performed in the relationship, there were things to which I would always defer. These range from small decisions of which football game to watch to big things of where will we take a $long weekend vacation$.

He has deferred to me on raising future children Catholic. He will not convert, but he is fully committed to raising a Catholic family. He defers to me on finances. I handle our budget, money, and anything else that relates to our $financial well-being$.

Following one’s husband isn’t a means of complete and utter submission. It doesn’t mean giving up everything and doing exactly as you are told. It is understanding that a family is a team, and he is like the team captain.

My parents were the perfect example of this. My mom is a VERY strong woman, and she is $well-educated$ and Godly. She has a $college degree$, worked for 9 years, and then she stopped to be a SAHM and raise 5 children. My dad works full-time, and he also has a $college degree$, and he runs a company. All five of us children were told to $go to college$, $have a good career$, have a good family, and do what GOD called us to do. There was no talking of “Women don’t do that” or “Men don’t help around the house.” My parents’ team approach to marriage showed me that partners are equal. On days my dad was off, he would do the laundry, cook, clean, and send my mom off to the $spa$ or out to $shop$ with her girlfriends.

My husband and I operate the same way. Nathan stays home and handles the day-to-day of our lives, and I work full time and go to school for my $MBA$ part time. These decisions weren’t made on a whim, and he and I discussed them thoroughly. There was never any thought to the fact that we had reversed the traditional roles of a marriage. What was important is that I gave him my opinion, and then I deferred to him to make the final decision. It is what God had called us both to do with our lives.

One day if God blesses us with children, he will continue to be the stay-at-home parent while I work. Once again, this is a decision that we thought through completely, and we realize this is what is best for us. However, I never assumed he would be up for that. It took a few discussions and some prayer.

When some people see that women are submissive line, they freak out! I’ll never really understand why. It doesn’t mean we are less of a human or never supposed to say what we think or do what we want. It is about striking a balance and appreciating the fact that there is someone else in our lives with whom we must think of at all times. Why do people see that as a bad thing?

Economic security. Privilege. Your life would have had a vastly different outcome without money. Why do people see submission as “a bad thing?” Have you given any thought to the possibility that because economic security, support, love are not the backdrop for every marriage, women, by default, must assume the reins for every detail of their lives and the lives of their children? Sorry, I just don’t view life as my own personal marshmallow. I am not surrounded by love, love, love. Submission stinks.

marietta

 

[Della]

Economic security. Privilege. Your life would have had a vastly different outcome without money. Why do people see submission as “a bad thing?” Have you given any thought to the possibility that because economic security, support, love are not the backdrop for every marriage, women, by default, must assume the reins for every detail of their lives and the lives of their children? Sorry, I just don’t view life as my own personal marshmallow. I am not surrounded by love, love, love. Submission stinks.

marietta

There is no rule that says a wife shouldn’t/can’t know what is going on with the family finances nor that she must give up all rights to spend money as she sees fit nor that she shouldn’t/can’t be ready to take over complete control (instead of shared control) of the family assets if her husband dies. Proper submission asks women to do none of those things. I’m afraid you’ve been influenced by a very Puritanical image of male domination that isn’t a part of the Catholic faith. Societies that had kept women from doing those things were not following Catholic teachings but the norms of their society. The Church considers men and women equals–equals in love, equals in dignity, equals in personal responsibility. Always has always will. Any woman who is being abused and/or her children by a husband/father of her children has every right and duty to leave him for their safety. That is only common sense.