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Luna_Lovecraft
Guest
Nope. I meant exactly what I wrote.
Practical ways that a wife should be submissive to her husband
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C
Corki
Guest
No, it’s not the same. Christlike love is demanded of both spouses as part of the Sacrament. Submission is not.
M
Mulligan2
Guest
After reading your post, I searched for Mr. Conte’s views on this, and found his website link on this topic:
catholicplanet.com/women/roles.htm
If someone told me they believed as Mr. Conte does on this topic, I would think they were pulling my leg. I cannot fathom the notion that anyone would still believe this.
E
EasterJoy
Guest
Practically speaking, how do good Catholic marriages that last 50 years do it?
Either both parents are behind the Disneyland trip, or the family doesn’t go. Neither spouse would dream of steamrolling the other on something like that. The mother genuinely listens to the father’s concerns about money, the father genuinely listens to the mother’s reasons that this is a particularly good time to go in spite of the money situation not being the best, and the two make a decision together. If either says, “no,” there is no trip. In the best case scenario, if one gives in and the decision goes badly, there is no “I told you so” or “I knew I was right.” There is a “well, that didn’t go as we had hoped. Now we have to deal with it.” When we make a decision together, we live with it together.
On the family rosary, they talk about it and again go with the family devotions that both are willing to get behind. All that is necessary is that both are willing to do it in order to please the other; they don’t necessarily have to wait until both are thrilled with the idea.
What they do not do is to contend against each other in front of anyone. It is a violation of trust to say, “Your mother has no sense when it comes to money” or “Your dad is a wet towel” about the Disney trip. You say, “I think it would be a great idea, but your dad and I are still looking at whether it is a good idea in terms of the money it would take” or “I know you’re all excited about the idea, so I’m looking into how we can swing the money to do it, but your mom and I have to be convinced together that it is a good idea before we say yes.” IOW, when things are going well, all the decisions are “our” decisions. When they are not, that is not a good sign.
Children, BTW, are enormously comforted when their parents have a “we decide together and we stick together even when one of us thinks the other may have lost a marble” policy. They want to know that nothing will come between their parents, that their parents have made a decision to love and respect each other no matter what. Fear of parental divorce is a major fear of today’s children, and they are particularly wary of any sign that might indicate it could happen to them.
As Steven Covey once said, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. The main thing is that everyone in the world, especially your spouse and your children, knows that there is nothing that would put you on anything but on the same side with her, disagreeing or not, and that you are altogether willing to suffer whatever consequences that might bring. Short of abuse, go with that.
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EasterJoy
Guest
Ephesians indicates that “be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ” looks somewhat different for husbands than for wives, but there is mutual self-sacrifice. In every Gospel, the Lord taught that the nature of Christian leadership is to be a servant. So yes, a husband does have authority in his own house, but it is not an authority that “lords it over” anyone. It is a first into the fray and a last to retreat sort of leadership.
Probably the most telling is the advice to the wives of non-believers: “Likewise, you wives should be subordinate to your husbands so that, even if some disobey the word, they may be won over without a word by their wives’ conduct when they observe your reverent and chaste behavior.” 1 Pet. 3:1-2. The submission of the wife preaches the Gospel of the submission of Christ, the Master who washed feet, who taught by example. That is not just an example of “I do what you say,” however. No, it is an example of all the Christian virtues, which means not just humility, but also prudence, temperance, chastity, and so on. A Christian wife wins over her husband by shining the light of Christ, not by being a doormat. She submits not out of fear or a sense of being without dignity, but as a free choice made out of love.
Even after this passage, however, the Apostle returns to the most important theme: Finally, all of you, be of one mind, sympathetic, loving toward one another, compassionate, humble. 1 Pet. 3:8 The requirement to submit our own agenda for others is binding on all of us, IOW. The nature of a wife’s submission does not remove that duty from her husband.
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LongingSoul
Guest
Using the example of the two families I know closely who I think embody the beauty of healthy marriage and family here is how I see the wife submitting to the husband.
In my brothers marriage, he married a girl who was not Catholic at the time of marriage. She agreed to have the children raised Catholic, but for her that meant that my brother would take them to Church and see to all that sort of stuff… but not that they should necessarily go to Catholic School. She was from a non practicing Protestant family who had a negative view of Catholicism basically.
My brother was very adamant about them attending Catholic school and she eventually went with that despite her discomfort about how that would be viewed by her friends and family.
Long story short, she made many good friends with Catholic mothers, was moved to join RCIA and became a Catholic about 10 years ago. Even her family have been pleasantly surprised that Catholic ceremonies that they come to for family things, didn’t turn out to the pagan festivals they had been led to believe they were.
The other family… my best friend. She is Catholic and although her husband is Catholic he had rejected the Church. At the marriage he agreed to raise the children Catholic, but didn’t think that necessarily meant attending Catholic schools. He cited bad experiences of his own schooling with the Christian Brothers as his objection. She was upset about it but went with him on that, and took her children to the Atrium program after school once a week where they learnt Catholicism. She also took them to Mass every Sunday.
When the son said he wasn’t going to Mass anymore becuase the father didn’t, the father agreed to attend Mass until the son finished school. He is a well known tradesman in his area and of course, as soon as you set foot in the door of a Catholic Church you are nabbed for your skills to do something for the Church or the Presbytery or school and that is how he became involved in the families faith.
That is how I see the richness of wifely submission working in the life of the family over time.
In my brothers marriage, he married a girl who was not Catholic at the time of marriage. She agreed to have the children raised Catholic, but for her that meant that my brother would take them to Church and see to all that sort of stuff… but not that they should necessarily go to Catholic School. She was from a non practicing Protestant family who had a negative view of Catholicism basically.
My brother was very adamant about them attending Catholic school and she eventually went with that despite her discomfort about how that would be viewed by her friends and family.
Long story short, she made many good friends with Catholic mothers, was moved to join RCIA and became a Catholic about 10 years ago. Even her family have been pleasantly surprised that Catholic ceremonies that they come to for family things, didn’t turn out to the pagan festivals they had been led to believe they were.
The other family… my best friend. She is Catholic and although her husband is Catholic he had rejected the Church. At the marriage he agreed to raise the children Catholic, but didn’t think that necessarily meant attending Catholic schools. He cited bad experiences of his own schooling with the Christian Brothers as his objection. She was upset about it but went with him on that, and took her children to the Atrium program after school once a week where they learnt Catholicism. She also took them to Mass every Sunday.
When the son said he wasn’t going to Mass anymore becuase the father didn’t, the father agreed to attend Mass until the son finished school. He is a well known tradesman in his area and of course, as soon as you set foot in the door of a Catholic Church you are nabbed for your skills to do something for the Church or the Presbytery or school and that is how he became involved in the families faith.
That is how I see the richness of wifely submission working in the life of the family over time.
R
Razanir
Guest
The statistician in me cringed at this sentence. Correlation does not imply causation. The Amish take Biblical values very literally. This causes both their preference for “Biblical-style” submission of the wife AND their exceedingly low divorce rate. Neither causes the other. They’re both caused by the same thing.
Much more important than either spouse submitting to the other is being able to compromise.
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EasterJoy
Guest
I hear what you’re saying. For the most part, I agree–that is, when people marry, their complementarity doesn’t fit a pre-determined set of “roles”. There is no reason the wife can’t do the bills and choose the investments. There is no reason a father cannot be the one who stays at home and takes charge of the children while his wife works for a wage. In that sense, most of the “roles” having to do with marriage are flexible, something the couple can change at will.
Having said that, I don’t totally buy the argument. Sometimes you do need your spouse to fulfill a role. You need your wife to act like a mother, because you are a dad, not a mom. You can need your husband to act like a man or your wife to act like a woman just as you needed your parents to act like adults. All in all, though, you are right: What is needed is for each of the pair to be willing to pitch in, to not believe that they are too high or too low to do what the situation of their family demands.
No one is above the wisdom to be found in the New Testament, so I hope you were not saying that. Neither does the Bible say that a woman can’t run things. Even Proverbs 31 describes an* extremely* capable woman as the *ideal *of a wife–she picks out a field and acquires it, she exerts her arms with vigor, she enjoys the profit from her dealings, all her charges are doubly clothed! Her husband is at the gates of the city listening to everyone praise her because she is so good at running everything!
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Xantippe
Guest
I’ll repeat a couple of anecdotes I mentioned in a previous thread on wifely submission.
In my immediate circle, there’s a Protestant family where the husband wants the wife to homeschool their severely disabled older child. The wife has attempted to homeschool the severely disabled child, struggling to meet the needs of both a younger child and the disabled child and her normal household duties, and has had some success with academics, but there is a lot of reason to be concerned about other areas of the child’s development. It isn’t clear how well it will be possible to remediate the child, but it’s becoming clearer that there are certain kinds of progress that he can’t make at home and that he’s running about three years behind other children his age. But his dad (who doesn’t spend a lot of time with him and isn’t that familiar with normal development for children that age) won’t hear of it.
I see the potential in this situation of lifelong harm being done to this child and his parents, if it is possible for him to get help in the public system that he can’t get at home. (Ideally, I think he probably needs a one-on-one aide.) It’s quite possible that with appropriate intervention, he’ll be able to live an independent, productive life, but that without it, he won’t. (Of course, it’s also possible that nothing will make much of a difference.)
I have encouraged the mom in this case to stop homeschooling and told her that her husband can’t stop her.
I think it is very, very unwise for a husband to insist that a wife homeschool if she doesn’t want to homeschool anymore and doesn’t believe anymore that she can adequately meet her child’s needs at home.
I’ll give another (happier) case study later.
In my immediate circle, there’s a Protestant family where the husband wants the wife to homeschool their severely disabled older child. The wife has attempted to homeschool the severely disabled child, struggling to meet the needs of both a younger child and the disabled child and her normal household duties, and has had some success with academics, but there is a lot of reason to be concerned about other areas of the child’s development. It isn’t clear how well it will be possible to remediate the child, but it’s becoming clearer that there are certain kinds of progress that he can’t make at home and that he’s running about three years behind other children his age. But his dad (who doesn’t spend a lot of time with him and isn’t that familiar with normal development for children that age) won’t hear of it.
I see the potential in this situation of lifelong harm being done to this child and his parents, if it is possible for him to get help in the public system that he can’t get at home. (Ideally, I think he probably needs a one-on-one aide.) It’s quite possible that with appropriate intervention, he’ll be able to live an independent, productive life, but that without it, he won’t. (Of course, it’s also possible that nothing will make much of a difference.)
I have encouraged the mom in this case to stop homeschooling and told her that her husband can’t stop her.
I think it is very, very unwise for a husband to insist that a wife homeschool if she doesn’t want to homeschool anymore and doesn’t believe anymore that she can adequately meet her child’s needs at home.
I’ll give another (happier) case study later.
E
EasterJoy
Guest
A husband who would use authority as an excuse to bulldoze is very unwise. Each spouse is given wisdom of his or her own for a reason! Mutual listening and mutual discernment are what wise couples do, not just mutual giving in.
A
acadian
Guest
This is my husband’s favorite Bible verse…about how he is “the master”.
Over the years of marriage, I have been to more sporting events than I ever wanted to attend, and mostly done things he wanted to do. Things began to get rough when the children began to grow up and I was able to develop opinions and interests of my own (like attending daily Mass or Bible Study at my parish or maybe the very occasional lunch with co-workers or mom-friends or a musical concert…). He has always been welcome to attend any of these, but they are not things he is interested in.
He decided to put his foot down and said that I was supposed to be where he was (doing whatever he wanted to do) unless I was at work. This really did not go well. I figure a leader should lead by example, and that if he is the leader, he should do what he needs to do to make sure everyone’s needs are met (including mine). I’ve put myself last for so many years making sure everyone had everything they needed, because it is what moms do.
Things are peaceful now, but there is still a lot of hurt over things that were said or done over the last few years. The head can not live without the heart. When you strangle the life out of the heart…
Over the years of marriage, I have been to more sporting events than I ever wanted to attend, and mostly done things he wanted to do. Things began to get rough when the children began to grow up and I was able to develop opinions and interests of my own (like attending daily Mass or Bible Study at my parish or maybe the very occasional lunch with co-workers or mom-friends or a musical concert…). He has always been welcome to attend any of these, but they are not things he is interested in.
He decided to put his foot down and said that I was supposed to be where he was (doing whatever he wanted to do) unless I was at work. This really did not go well. I figure a leader should lead by example, and that if he is the leader, he should do what he needs to do to make sure everyone’s needs are met (including mine). I’ve put myself last for so many years making sure everyone had everything they needed, because it is what moms do.
Things are peaceful now, but there is still a lot of hurt over things that were said or done over the last few years. The head can not live without the heart. When you strangle the life out of the heart…
A
Avocadomom
Guest
This is so sad. A man who feels the need to assert himself as the boss is a sad man indeed.
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Xantippe
Guest
Here’s the happier sample disagreement that I promised.
My husband and I recently bought a large, very pink house in a good location that allows us to get by with just one car. (We’re talking 20-year-old dirty mauve carpet, pink Formica, a purple toilet and purple bidet, even pinkish white paint throughout the downstairs–basically a sort of well-worn Barbie’s Dream House.) I agreed, fully intending to renovate the daylights out of it at the earliest opportunity, as there were only one or two houses for sale in this small area every year.
Some time after we bought the house, I discovered that my husband believed that any cosmetic work on the house would only come after we finished saving for the kids’ college. At $100k per kid, that would mean that we would need to have $300k in college savings. Problem 1–we don’t have any college savings at all at this point. Problem 2–my husband envisioned me doing the cosmetic renovations (which I had mentioned before to him would probably run in the neighborhood of at least $40k) in the meantime out of my “fun money.” My fun money has lately been about $30 a month. So, I’d need around 1300 months (that’s 25 years, people) to manage that, by which time it would probably be about time to start all over again with the project. So, let’s say I wasn’t happy with that idea, and I would never have agreed to buy this house on those terms.
I explained to my husband that this was a big enough deal to me that I would prefer to sell our big pink house and find a smaller non-pink one in a less nice area, if we were going to have to do nothing but save for college for the next 20 years (we have a 19-month-old). My husband, who hates moving and is hoping never to move again, didn’t like that idea AT ALL.
I pointed out that technically speaking, we don’t need $100,000 per kid, as that’s what we’d need for Big State U but Hometown College would run us about $20,000 total per child if they lived at home (that’s total–not per year).
My husband pointed out to me that it seems more than a little unfair to our kids to force them to go to Hometown College, just so I can have a nice kitchen. I had to agree, while thinking that it would be a very good thing if at least one of the kids went to Hometown College. He asked me if I’d be willing to get a job just to do the renovation, and I said I would. My husband had not realized that this was that important to me. Now, mind you, I’ve been poring over and annotating home design books and magazines for the past 10 years, but it had somehow escaped him that I want a pretty house.
We finally did the math. If all three kids go to Big State U., our total tuition costs (private school and college) will range from $3k a month (2 kids in school, one kid in college) to a doomsday scenario of $4.5k a month (1 kid in school, 2 kids in college) for one year, to $2.5k a month (1 kid in school, 1 kid in college) to a final tuition burden of something like $2k per month (although who knows what costs will be in 20 years). But by then, our house is paid off, so college will be less burdensome. This was all very rough calculation (and ideally some kids would live at home and/or work), but it was helpful. We realized that our main goal should be to prepare for the one year where we may need $4.5k a month in tuition. There was some more math, and we decided that if we were able to save $10k a year for the next six years, then any money in excess of that would be available for home projects.
And there was much rejoicing!
This was a big, tough talk, but it was very productive, and we were both happy with the outcome. It remains to be seen if we will manage to save anything for college (as I mentioned, we haven’t saved a dime yet), but there’s all the difference in the world between being told, “First we save $300k for college, then you get to repaint the peeling pink paint everywhere and replace the dirty pink carpet,” versus “We’ll try to save $10k a year for college and if there is any extra, it can be used for the house.”
My husband and I recently bought a large, very pink house in a good location that allows us to get by with just one car. (We’re talking 20-year-old dirty mauve carpet, pink Formica, a purple toilet and purple bidet, even pinkish white paint throughout the downstairs–basically a sort of well-worn Barbie’s Dream House.) I agreed, fully intending to renovate the daylights out of it at the earliest opportunity, as there were only one or two houses for sale in this small area every year.
Some time after we bought the house, I discovered that my husband believed that any cosmetic work on the house would only come after we finished saving for the kids’ college. At $100k per kid, that would mean that we would need to have $300k in college savings. Problem 1–we don’t have any college savings at all at this point. Problem 2–my husband envisioned me doing the cosmetic renovations (which I had mentioned before to him would probably run in the neighborhood of at least $40k) in the meantime out of my “fun money.” My fun money has lately been about $30 a month. So, I’d need around 1300 months (that’s 25 years, people) to manage that, by which time it would probably be about time to start all over again with the project. So, let’s say I wasn’t happy with that idea, and I would never have agreed to buy this house on those terms.
I explained to my husband that this was a big enough deal to me that I would prefer to sell our big pink house and find a smaller non-pink one in a less nice area, if we were going to have to do nothing but save for college for the next 20 years (we have a 19-month-old). My husband, who hates moving and is hoping never to move again, didn’t like that idea AT ALL.
I pointed out that technically speaking, we don’t need $100,000 per kid, as that’s what we’d need for Big State U but Hometown College would run us about $20,000 total per child if they lived at home (that’s total–not per year).
My husband pointed out to me that it seems more than a little unfair to our kids to force them to go to Hometown College, just so I can have a nice kitchen. I had to agree, while thinking that it would be a very good thing if at least one of the kids went to Hometown College. He asked me if I’d be willing to get a job just to do the renovation, and I said I would. My husband had not realized that this was that important to me. Now, mind you, I’ve been poring over and annotating home design books and magazines for the past 10 years, but it had somehow escaped him that I want a pretty house.
We finally did the math. If all three kids go to Big State U., our total tuition costs (private school and college) will range from $3k a month (2 kids in school, one kid in college) to a doomsday scenario of $4.5k a month (1 kid in school, 2 kids in college) for one year, to $2.5k a month (1 kid in school, 1 kid in college) to a final tuition burden of something like $2k per month (although who knows what costs will be in 20 years). But by then, our house is paid off, so college will be less burdensome. This was all very rough calculation (and ideally some kids would live at home and/or work), but it was helpful. We realized that our main goal should be to prepare for the one year where we may need $4.5k a month in tuition. There was some more math, and we decided that if we were able to save $10k a year for the next six years, then any money in excess of that would be available for home projects.
And there was much rejoicing!
This was a big, tough talk, but it was very productive, and we were both happy with the outcome. It remains to be seen if we will manage to save anything for college (as I mentioned, we haven’t saved a dime yet), but there’s all the difference in the world between being told, “First we save $300k for college, then you get to repaint the peeling pink paint everywhere and replace the dirty pink carpet,” versus “We’ll try to save $10k a year for college and if there is any extra, it can be used for the house.”
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Bill1125
Guest
Next month we will have been married for 56 years and we have not been sumissive to each other.
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LongingSoul
Guest
I know you are sincere but… Lol… first world ‘Christian’ ideals are so materialistic!
Y
yellow8yellowM
Guest
I believe one of my duties as a husband is to die for my wife. Even though I do not live up to it on a daily basis, this does not mean I disagree with scripture. I just do not live up to it.
But it seems that there is a large contingent of posters here who dismiss outright the directives given in Ephesians 5. I am curious to know on what basis you think that this should be dismissed?
But it seems that there is a large contingent of posters here who dismiss outright the directives given in Ephesians 5. I am curious to know on what basis you think that this should be dismissed?
X
Xantippe
Guest
LongingSoul,
So, how would you feel about living in a house where everything was pink for the next 20 years? Pink everything. Or if you like pink, imagine some other color that you HATE with the intensity of a million suns and imagine that your spouse says that you get to live with it for the next 20 years.
It’s not a first world thing to have aesthetic preferences–places like India and Mexico are famous for their decorative arts. As a matter of fact, the decorative arts are often more prominent in poorer countries.
yellow8yellowM said:
“I believe one of my duties as a husband is to die for my wife. Even though I do not live up to it on a daily basis, this does not mean I disagree with scripture. I just do not live up to it.
But it seems that there is a large contingent of posters here who dismiss outright the directives given in Ephesians 5. I am curious to know on what basis you think that this should be dismissed?”
We haven’t been dismissing it, but we have been pointing out that it’s better to focus on other people’s rights and our responsibilities, rather than standing too much on our rights.
If I were to make a big fuss about my husband’s duty to lay down his life for me every day, I would be being a bad person.
So, how would you feel about living in a house where everything was pink for the next 20 years? Pink everything. Or if you like pink, imagine some other color that you HATE with the intensity of a million suns and imagine that your spouse says that you get to live with it for the next 20 years.
It’s not a first world thing to have aesthetic preferences–places like India and Mexico are famous for their decorative arts. As a matter of fact, the decorative arts are often more prominent in poorer countries.
yellow8yellowM said:
“I believe one of my duties as a husband is to die for my wife. Even though I do not live up to it on a daily basis, this does not mean I disagree with scripture. I just do not live up to it.
But it seems that there is a large contingent of posters here who dismiss outright the directives given in Ephesians 5. I am curious to know on what basis you think that this should be dismissed?”
We haven’t been dismissing it, but we have been pointing out that it’s better to focus on other people’s rights and our responsibilities, rather than standing too much on our rights.
If I were to make a big fuss about my husband’s duty to lay down his life for me every day, I would be being a bad person.
X
Xantippe
Guest
LongingSoul said:
“first world ‘Christian’ ideals are so materialistic!”
Our family gives 10% of net income to charity, by the way.
If we didn’t, it would be much easier to save for college and a renovation.
“first world ‘Christian’ ideals are so materialistic!”
Our family gives 10% of net income to charity, by the way.
If we didn’t, it would be much easier to save for college and a renovation.
E
EasterJoy
Guest
I hope you are not suggesting that when one spouse does not want to spend a great deal of money for a vacation that the other one ought to simply overrule the objection and go anyway! I cannot imagine it.
E
EasterJoy
Guest
I have told younger relatives that they ought not marry someone for whom they would not live in a house painted a ghastly color.
For me, it was purple…for my husband, I’d live in a purple house, yes. An icky lavender, even. Maybe even with those icky-pink sinks, that kind of dirty pink that was popular for awhile in about 1972, and with rust stains. In a town with hard water that smelled like sulfur, so the white laundry wouldn’t ever really get white. And no decent restaurants. (OK, I’d be feeling very much the martyr by then, but I’d at least try!
)Seriously, though, if an unattractive house is as bad as “for worse” gets, well, it could be a lot worse than that. I wouldn’t go looking for a house that made me sad that I couldn’t make myself color blind, but…well, you know you’ll get through it with some humor, for as long as you have to.
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