What Men Give Up
Maggie Gallagher is a freelance writer who writes on the family, and who has written for the Bush administration. In an interview in Christianity Today called
“Editor’s Bookshelf: Raising Up Fathers”, she says some interesting things about men. As CBE is looking into new ways of attracting males to itself, and being a male as well, I’m interested in exploring these issues, even if they’re exploring the issue from angles egalitarians generally avoid. She says:
“I do think that men see the world in more hierarchical terms than women typically do. They are typically concerned with whether they are one up or one down. The reality of family life is that men have to really give quite a lot to women and to children in order to make things work. They have to give up a lot of autonomy, give up a lot of the power to do whatever they want whenever they want. They have to give up lots of income and their mission in life.
“Both men and women are happier and more effective if men see this as a manly role. Most commonly, it’s a ceremonial title—it’s an indication that this man has agreed to take responsibility for this family. And I think men need to be honored and supported in that….
“Women need to appreciate that dialogue about the family has until recently been somewhat one sided, in that a lot of women miss what men give and what they give up in order to be good husbands in families. In a lot of ways some women have been encouraged to think of the female role as somehow uniquely degrading or sacrificial. We women have an automatic relationship to our children. Women make life. We know who our children are, and a lot of strategies, like marriage itself, including the idea of recognizing (we’re not making it up) the uniquely important role that fathers have for their children, but that it needs to be publicly and physically created and affirmed through outside means. Women need to see their own power in the family, and they need to use that power to affirm their husbands and their husbands’ relationship with the children.”
Why should men give up what they see as the perks of being “the head”? Comments?
This deserves more thought than I have time for right at this moment.
Why should men give up the perks of “headship” (unbiblical word)? Why indeed? That is part of the whole problem. Power is not easy to relinquish. The one who “wears the pants in the family” and gets to be always in charge has a lot to lose. But perhaps some men are willing to consider what they may gain by losing some of the control. They stand to gain a partner instead of a subordinate. Something happens in a relationship when one person is always in charge. Something is lost. A marriage is not a business or a contract. It is a covenant between two adult people. In our marriages days of “headship and submission roles”…well, it was NOT a partnership. At least not in the fullest sense of that. My husband is loving and kind and benevolent, but once in a while the temptation to lord it over the underlings in the family (the children and me) was too great to resist, I suppose. And I seethed in resentment and called it “wifely submission.” Happily, the day came when we realized how damaging this really was to both of us. A man giving up some perks means he is going to have a partner, someone who walks beside him and not behind him, who looks into his eyes instead of “up” to him — this makes for healthier and happier interaction. He may gain a more open, giving, happy wife. Sex might improve too. 
SingingOwl, thanks for posting your thoughts. Could you give an example (or even more than one) of how your husband “lord[ed] it over the underlings”? And of how such a tendency changed once you both realized the damage being done? What “perks” did he give up? What did all this look like in real life? I’ve been trying to think through all this myself recently.
You ask: “Why should men give up what they see as the perks of being “the head”? Comments?”
The greatest supposed benefit that men gain by claiming headship and authority over women is an unrivaled license to sin. And the ones they sin the most against are women.
The temptations to be the arrogant rooster are just too great. The temptation to demean women’s thinking as different and inferior because she is restricted from anything resembling male headship and authority is just too easy and readily available. The temptation to chauvanistically bestow the best honors on men in everything one thinks is truly important seems just reasonable. The temptation to consider one’s own desires, dreams, goals, hopes and wishes first seems so reasonable when you are “the man”, the one who stands in front representing the family. The temptation to require those you have this supposed authority over to arrange themselves to fit into your desires, dreams, goals, hopes and wishes is only normal since that is what corporate leadership, and business ownership does with it’s workers. To call any small deference and considerations on your part toward those you have final say and authority over a sacrifice, which means you don’t expect to do that on a regular basis, is so convenient. And so on….
To give up easy sin is without doubt one of the toughest challenges that any Christian is called to do. Why do we make it harder for men to be holy like Christ by giving them false claims to sinful behavior?
Hmmm….thinking. It’s been a while (not since thinking–lol–since living the “headship” model). Well, I would prefer not to get too specific, and there are reasons for that….but in general…well, I’ll say that money was spent that would have been spent differently if we’d been true partners. I asked permission, but he just spent if he felt like it. And I fumed, but said nothing. Actually, how our money was spent was a big one. We have disagreed about money issues since before we married, and actually we still do. Imagine the kinds of things that happen when one of the parties in a marriage/family thinks he gets to have the final say about what is spent, and when, and why. Some actions were taken with which I vehemently disagreed (and said so) but since his was the power to choose, I was overruled. The consequences were painful.
A move happened that would not have, or would have been delayed, if we had made decisions as partners. Later, a move (and I mean a physical move to a new location, new address, etc.) did NOT happen when it probably should have. The delay, caused by thinking the husband had “final say” again caused needless heartache, IMO .
If we disagreed on childrearing issues, it was assumed by both of us that he would be the final decision maker on how we would handle things. If we argued, he could always (thank God, he did not do this too often) eventually play the trump card that he was “the head of this house.”
I’m not saying these things happened every day. But the underlying assumptions skewed things, caused resentment and a tendancy to pout on my part. Oooh, not pretty, physically, emotionally or spiritually!
I remember telling my daughter that she should look for a husband who was spiritually stronger and more mature than she was, since he would be leading her spiritually.
Perks he gave up? Well, since he IS the love of my life, he still gets a few perks of the position — ha — but he gave up being able to come in the door and boss us all, me included. Ah, I know comps say they don’t do this. I’m not going to write right now what I think about that, but I’ve seen and heard it too often.
He gave up the perk of always having the final say, of having us tiptoe around if we disagreed with him, and of having me acquiesce in(relative) silence when I disagreed. He had to realize that he was not always prone to be right just because of having the right combo of chromosomes. He had to acknowledge that there were many times when I might see something that he did not. He is more logical than I am and a much better debater than I. But once he got over the idea that women were more easily deceived than men, well, we made better life choices together than we did apart. And we discovered that a combination of logic and intuition is hard to beat. This is not to say that all men are more logical, or all women are more intuitive, but it is very true in our case.
It’s late, and I’m rambling. Did I answer the question? LOL
Why should men give up what they see as the perks of being “the head”? Comments?
Hello, I am enjoying my first visit to your site. I am an egalitarian male, so I agree that being “the head” is a bad and unscriptural thing.
I have to take a little issue with this question. I perceive it as weaselly, a variation of the “have you quit beating your wife, yet?” question. There is no reason to try to convince the kind of man who considers headship a perk to be grasped, and you will only offend the kind of man that I was. I struggled with whether to accept headship only because it seemed scripture required it of me.
Since my divorce, these discussions are much harder for me. It is hard to have a confident opinion after failing in the key relationship at hand. My wife left me shortly after leaving the Lord. While we were married, and now that we are divorced, we live as equals. Egalitarian divorce is definitely a lot more survivable than headship divorce.
While we were together, giving up money, time, and autonomy was a nothing for me. Union was a far more valuable gift. My mission in life, though, I never surrendered. I still don’t know whether that was wrong, but it is interesting to me that you list it as an automatic throw-away.
I can see why my question as stated seems like a two-edged sword to you. The reason I asked it, though, is that many hierarchical men don’t understand the union/intimacy part because they concentrate on, and are told that it is good to concentrate on, the money, time and autonomy parts. Looking back from a fresh divorce I’m sure would raise questions in anyone’s mind concerning whether the path taken was the right one. Doing what’s right is never a guarantee of success, but it does increase the odds. And let me assure you, this blog commends you.
I really like the great things that are being said about egalitarian marriage here. Of course, no marriage is perfect or always easy, but a marriage of equal peers is much closer to Biblical teachings than hierarchy is. I will add that Biblical “headship” does not mean “leader,” as some have already found, but “source” or “origin,” and is a picture of Genesis 2:22.
CT, I saw your question in a positive rather than negative light, but I think I was mistaken. I interpreted it to mean - Since men have to “give quite a lot to women and to children in order to make things work,” why would they see egalitarian marriage as fair?
I think for a lot of intelligent non-egalitarian men, egalitarianism isn’t popular because the men feel like they’re being played for suckers. The women in these relationships generally still implicitly expect the man to be “traditional” (chivalrous, a gentleman, protector, provider, etc.), while also wanting him to give up the bulk of control (ultimately over his own life). On the other hand, what I’ve noticed recently are men accepting the egalitarian relationship view, but also demanding that women pull their own weight in the relationship. I read of a woman in NY City complaining that she can’t find a date because every man she meets opens by asking her “How much money do you have invested.” She’s dismayed when these men express their refusal to have a women “physically, financially, mentally, or emotionally dependent on them in any way.” This of course is true equality, which a lot of men could handle, but which most women, egalitarian or not, want to avoid like the plague.
As a side note, I’ve often wondered how many people blame hierarchical marriage for their problems when the real source of their marital dysfunctional is:
a) they’re not Christians
b) they married the wrong person without heeding God’s direction
c) they never should have been married in the first place
d) they had a poor example, or none at all, set by their parents
e) they never developed healthly interpersonal skills for handling problems.
f) they have unconfessed rebellion and sin in their life
I think JR expresses a lot of the feelings/issues I was originally feeling/thinking of when I made the original post, and I can´t much of anything wrong with what he has said. As I have said in other postings, I do not consider myself a feminist and I do not like that word; I do prefer the term egalitarian. That said, even though my wife and I think we have an egalitarian marriage, and others who observe our marriage usually think so too, both of us don´t think the other is very good at it. So my take-away is that marriage, no matter what theological descriptor you put to it is still a very difficult business — taking great effort from either egalitarians or complementarians.