I wear the pants in my family; my wife picks them out

As you guessed, I mean what follows in the next sentence: “When Romeo adores Juliet, she is not a tyrant over him, even though he might be willing to do anything and everything she asks.”

My wife and I are not equal for the same reason apples and oranges are not equal, or, to be precise, the way an ogre is not equal to an elf maid or a malodorous ape to a pure angel. When I approach her loveliness, so absolute she seems, and in herself complete, so well to know her own, that what she wills to do or say, seems wisest, virtuousest, discretest, best; all higher knowledge in her presence falls degraded. Wisdom in discourse with her loses, discount’nanc’d, and like folly shows.

Surely you did not think I was hinting ME to be over HER??!!

And yet, despite her obvious superiority to me, she yields to my will in all things, obedient and meek, and calls me the master of the house and lord of the manor (except when I am in the wrong, of course, and then she corrects me while I stand blubbering and dumbfounded).

I cannot explain this to someone who is not in love. There is no place, no place at all, for equality in love. The question never comes up.

Only in the squabbling of politics, which is a type of war by other means, when every faction seeks advantage over each other, and the rich yearn to trample the poor, the poor to loot the rich, or the strong to exploit the weak, only then must we speak of equality. Equality is an armed truce, where each enemy group jealously seeks to secure itself from being ruthlessly used at the hands of others.

Equality is an agreement to keep the Law as an umpire, and keep the mechanisms of the law neutral in our struggles for dominion over each other, so that there are certain minimum spheres of privacy where the law-wars cannot reach, such as freedom of speech or religion. Love is not politics. Love is the opposite.

My wife is my heart: I would die for her, because her life means more than mine. She is my superior, for I exalt her above me. Yet she looks up to me, and she would say I was in charge, not her, if the matter ever came up at all, which it does not. We live our lives revolving around our children, and make all our schedules and sacrifices for their sake. And yet I am the master of my children, and much train and teach them.

How can any of this symbiotic life even be expressed in terms of equality? No one who is in love, true love and not infatuation, talks about whether one partner loves the other “more” or “less” than the other. Is infinity bigger than eternity? Love blinds oneself to selfishness: and without looking at oneself, how can one hold up a measuring stick to judge who is greater or smaller?

When I think of equality, particularly equality of people, I think always first of equality evaluated in terms of our humanity. Christianity answers the question “are some more human than others” with the answer “no, we are all in the image of God”, although in a completely different sense it answers that we can expand or diminish our humanity, our being-hood (for lack of a proper term), by moving closer or farther from the source of all Being. In the first case, the claim of inequality between a husband and a wife seems anti-Christian, because women are imago Dei as are men. In the second case, the evaluation of the relative saintliness of the couple seems… risky at best. If an objective evaluation determines that the other is more saintly than the self, perhaps there will be no conflict; perhaps more love will be inspired; perhaps the self will decide to abandon the love so that the loved can be with someone better. If, on the other hand, an objective evaluation determines that the self is more saintly than the other, then how can they be sure they are loving fully enough? Will they be tempted to abandon their reason, their objective evaluation, in favor of always considering the other as better? Better not to make the comparison in the first place. Yet surely God knows that he is better than us, and this does not diminish his love for us. How does he do that? The Bible says to consider others as more important than ourselves (Phil 2:3). How do we do this without abdicating reason? Is there some reason why God is capable of considering himself objectively greater than us, and not loving us less for it, but we are not capable of considering another objectively less than us without also loving them the less for it? Or is there a way to distinguish between two sorts of self-other comparison, one that we may make without loving less and one that we may not?

Most of this was not what was on my mind in the original question, though. If all are equally imago Dei in their personhood, there is the lesser issues of equality in particular aspects of our lives. Equality before the law might be considered one of them. I thought it possible, but not terribly likely, that you might refer to an inequality of authority within the home. Christians for centuries have maintained the duty of a wife to submit to her husband, not necessarily because he is greater than she, but because God meant him to be in charge. This is usually either disagreed with or at least played down in Christianity in Western cultures; depending on one’s view, this can be viewed either as an abandonment of scriptural principles or as enlightened progress. It sounds like you think that for a husband to insist on his wife’s submission would be a violation of his love for her, although a woman might voluntarily choose to submit of her own love.

Ah–Forgive me, I thought you were talking about legal equality. Usually equality refers to quantities, not qualities. A cup can be more or less full of water; you can add water or subtract it; but a man cannot be more or less stamped with the image of God; it cannot be added or subtracted.

To answer your question, I am the opposite of a feminist. A masculinist, I suppose, you could call me: I do not think the sexes are the same, and I think attempts to treat women by the male rules of the mating dance have led to disaster, and destroyed the romance and mystery of love in our modern world. You cannot waltz with both partners leading.

I have heard that most divorces these days are petitions by women who are dissatisfied: that women leave their men more often than men leave their women. I have also heard that couples who hang on through the first three to five years, even when on the brink of divorce, find themselves after that in loving, satisfactory relationships. These two facts taken together would seem to indicate that a little bit of submissiveness and meekness on the part of wives will tend to reward them with long-term happiness.

However, the Christian idea of women submitting to their husbands expressed by St. Paul (if I have understood this concept) is that the husband is the head of the household as Christ is the head of the church: in other words, that the husband’s love is such that he would gladly sacrifice himself for her good as Christ sacrificed himself for us. Far from a call for men to be domineering, it sounds like a call for men to be loving to the point of self-abnegation.

My own amateur observation of human psychology has led me to the conclusion that girls (unselfish ones) often have a sort of maternal instinct that makes them want to serve their lovers and husbands, and that boys have a learned habit of chivalry that makes them want to protect and adore their women.

Even in this age of equality between the sexes and despite it, most women naturally fall into submissive and nurturing roles. Whether this is good or bad, there is no arguing with the fact that it happens. But the men do not naturally fall into the role of being chivalrous, gentle, protective, devoted: so all the sexual revolution has done is ameliorated the protective learned habit which once restrained the young male barbarians among us, and eroded their devotional attitude into a selfish and domineering attitude.

Naturally, this is not true of all women nor of all men: but enough women have low self esteem issues, or a natural saintly meekness of character, that they can be happy with the man “in charge” provided the man in charge is devoted to being in charge of making her happy.

A gentle, submissive woman with a gentle, chivalrous man can make a happy couple: neither one will notice or care who is actually in charge.

A gentle, submissive woman with a selfish, sexually aggressive predator type man will be used and exploited and abused, and the cruel rules of psychology will send her from one domineering cruel partner to another. She will find herself attracted to and trapped by a series of one-way dead-end relationships.

The sexual revolution, promising freedom and equality to these women has not changed human nature or female psychology: all that has happened is that chivalry, the sense of honor and gentlemanliness which once checked the ruthless male predation has been removed: and so was have Marylin Monroe, on the one hand, a mostly helpless sexual object exploited and neglected by powerful men, so that she died alone; and on the other hand we have the miserable wretched satyr known as Hugh Hefner. The new rules of equality allow men and women both to be exposed to date-rape and unwanted pregnancy, but, of course, only one sex of the two can perform a rape, and only one sex of the two can get pregnant.

You analyze only the cases where the woman is gentle and submissive. Many women may naturally fall into submissive and nurturing roles, but not all of them do, and the feminist movement encourages them to do otherwise.

What happens in the scenario where a nonsubmissive woman is with a selfish, unchivalrous man? Does her lack of submissiveness protect her from his abuses? What happens when a nonsubmissive woman is with a gentle, chivalrous man? Ought he to gently encourage her to be submissive? Will he be unhappy with her? Or ought he, as modern culture tells us, accept her as she is and allow her to be as “in charge” as she wants to be?

Is the only truly happy possibility for a couple that of a submissive woman and a chivalrous man, or are other combinations equally workable, equally likely to result in happiness and objective growth towards God?

And I will say that, on the whole, women are just as likely to be selfish as men, so that if submissiveness is the natural state for women, and chivalry for men, then women are just as likely to be unsubmissive as men are to be unchivalrous. Or so I would expect, at least. (If this weren’t true, I would think that the injunction in the Bible and elsewhere for women to be submissive would not have been necessary; and I can’t, off the top of my head, think of any married woman I know who wouldn’t bristle in anger if her husband tried to give her an order, even an otherwise kind and sensible one).

Indeed, I’ve never heard anyone suggest that women be submissive to protect themselves from predatory males. I *have* heard people suggest that women ought to be unsubmissive to protect themselves from predatory males – that within a relationship, women need to stand up for themselves, defend their rights, however you want to say it, so that they do not get trampled over. I’m not sure if there’s a clear line between “not being trampled on” and “having it all my way”. Either way, that way of thinking seems to me to be at odds with the injunction to be submissive; I’m not sure if there’s a way to reconcile it or not. IF the man is being selfish (in the wife’s view), does that null her obligation to submit? If so, what’s the point of the obligation in the first place (after all, won’t a woman always think that the man is being selfish, if he wants her to do something that she is contemplating submission for?) If she still has an obligation to submit when she thinks he is being selfish, then doesn’t that put her at risk for abuse?

In the case of the nonsubmissive woman and the chivalrous man, you seem to contradict yourself. On the one hand, you say that he ought not to try to encourage her to be submissive (i.e. to change her), yet you say that he ought not to accept her “as is” (being an imperfect human). How do you reconcile those two? In general when dealing with someone else’ imperfections, what options are there besides doing something about it (encouraging them to improve) and not doing anything about it (accepting them “as is”)?

Also, why would it have to be selfish of him to encourage her to be submissive, if her lack of submission is causing her to be a domineering shrew? Granted, it would be a temptation for him to insist too much on his own way; but isn’t it (at least theoretically) possible that he could gently encourage her to be less domineering without actually crossing the line into selfishness?

“Really, questions about who is in charge simply don’t come up when the relationship is healthy: you both are devoted to the household as a whole, not to yourself”.
If this were all there was to it, then an unhealthy relationship would only have to focus on decreasing each person’s selfishness, yes? The Biblical command for a wife to submit would then be… wrong? superfluous?

“On the one hand, you say that he ought not to try to encourage her to be submissive (i.e. to change her), yet you say that he ought not to accept her “as is” (being an imperfect human). How do you reconcile those two?”

Perhaps I misunderstood the question. It is not the husband’s place to try to teach his wife to be submissive, for the reason I gave. Likewise, I do not think the husband cannot, with love, or by example, urge the woman to be a better person than she is–that is one of the prime benefits of marriage. The distinction is between urging her in general to be virtuous, and urging her specifically to be meek toward his authority.

Remember again, the injunction in St. Paul is for the man to be the head of the household like Christ is the head of the Church. There is not a word in the Gospel where Christ orders his disciples to straighten up and toe the line. He tells them the last shall be first and the servant shall be the leader; he tells them his yoke is mild; he says he is meek.

When talking about the whole mystery of the war between the sexes, nothing is ever going to be “all there is to it.”

Like anything else, the injunction on women to submit to their husbands is limited to the context in which it is spoken: I don’t think the Christians who want women to put up with wifebeaters have read the passage correctly.

Would you understand me if I said unselfishness in women is submission, and unselfishness in men is chivalry? A man is not being selfish when he leads in a waltz, or when he doffs his hat, or when he holds the door for a woman, but these are all signs of masculine dominance. They are specific gestures of manliness in our culture, little outward symbols of a difference between male and female nature.

Can a woman whose husband is prone to laziness verbally encourage him to be industrious? Can a man whose wife is prone to greediness explicitly encourage her to be more generous? If so, and if domineeringness is a fault in a woman, then why may a man not explicitly encourage her to be more submissive? If not, if he may only urge her to virtue in general and not to specific virtues, why not?

Christ has a gentle side, but he has an unyielding side, too. He upsets the tables at the Temple, he chastises the woman at the well for her relationships with men, he corrects Simon for not understanding when the sinful woman annointed his feet, he warns people against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees, he warns people that the consequences for wickedness is eternal hellfire. He seeks, not to force, but to draw people away from sin. Theoretically, I don’t see why a Christlike man might not also try to draw his wife away from any any sin that he thought she was committing (so long as he is not trying to force her, but only encourage or persuade her).

“I don’t think the Christians who want women to put up with wifebeaters have read the passage correctly”.

I agree, but the follow-up question to that is where, then, do you draw the line? Ought a woman to submit to verbal abuse? Simple inconsiderateness? I think it was Flannery O’Connor that wrote a story of a woman who was mostly submissive to her husband. He had promised when they married to build a better house than the one they had, up on the hill. For 20 or so years, he neglected that promise, then, when their daughter was soon to be married and still living with them, he started building a barn in that place. While he was away on a trip, when the barn was almost but not quite done, the wife took the initiative to move all the household belongings into the barn, thus making it their new house. Was she overstepping her bounds? If, on the one hand, there are some things which a woman ought to submit in, and other things (like wifebeating) that she ought not to submit to, is there a qualitative difference to tell the two apart, or only a quantitative difference, with every instance being a judgment call?

“Would you understand me if I said unselfishness in women is submission, and unselfishness in men is chivalry?”

Sure. It amounts to a restatement, or endorsement, of the Biblical view that submission in a woman is virtue, something I was not previously sure you agreed with. Most Christians I know view the whole idea as an anachronism, to be ignored or interpreted away, rather than a part of the Bible to be taken seriously.

I wonder if there is any word besides chivalry that would capture manly virtue. “Chivalry” carries connotations in my mind (and probably others) of specific cultural-dependent expressions of manly virtue, so that a wifebeater might be called chivalrous if he also opens the door for his wife. (It also carries images in my mind of men riding horses and jousting, for some reason). But that is neither here nor there, as the saying goes.

Whoever told you that chivalry permitted or allowed raising a hand against a woman is a damn liar.

As evidence, let me quote the dictionary: “CHIVALRY: The qualities idealized by knighthood, such as bravery, courtesy, honor, and gallantry toward women.” No one can possibly twist the meaning of the word “gallantry toward women” to include striking a woman. No one can call that brave, courteous, or honorable.

As more evidence let me direct your attention to ORLANDO FURIOSO, written centuries ago, and set in the days of Charlemagne: about as good a source for what constitutes true chivalry is you will find. This book is all about brave knights doing brave deeds and pitting their life and sacred honor on the line during jousts and wars.

There is also a famous passage where the poet says that a man who beats his wife is more of a savage beast than a wolf or a lion. Even these so called savage beasts are kind to their mates: in mankind alone is this horrid sin found, that a man would raise his fist against she whom he should most love in all the world.

Whoever told you this damned slander should not be trusted in other things. I call him a liar and a slanderer, whoever he is: and I will be happy to meet that fellow on the field of honor if he disputes that he earned the name I hang on him. If he does not understand the meaning of my challenge, if he does not understand what it means to be a man who is willing to stand by his words, I doubt he has the first glimmer of understanding of chivalry.

On the other hand, I am a Virginian, and we have always been a gallant race.

Feminism argues that equality is the basis for a woman’s rejection of an abusive husband. If Christianity argues instead that real love does not even consider self, but gives anything for what is best for the other, then there must be an objective basis for saying that what is best for an abusive man is for his wife to leave him – or else she shouldn’t do it. But we don’t encourage women to stop and consider that when we tell her to get out of an abusive marriage.

There is a whole variety of sins a man might commit that affect a relationship; admitting that a woman ought to leave an abusive husband means that there is at least one sin he can commit that she ought to leave him for. The next obvious question is what, if any, other sins can he commit that would justify or even make it her duty to leave.

Perhaps a better way to say that is this. Our culture right now, steeped in feminism, claims that equality is the *reason* a woman ought to leave a husband if he abuses her, and extends that line of thinking to much milder trespasses on his part. Christianity (and you) wipe out concern for equality as a consideration in a relationship. If you still maintain that a woman ought not to stay in an abusive relationship (especially in an abusive marriage), then there has to be some other *basis* for that claim: a line of reasoning that could then be applied to other situations.

Still wondering about this part, too:
Can a woman whose husband is prone to laziness verbally encourage him to be industrious? Can a man whose wife is prone to greediness explicitly encourage her to be more generous? If so, and if domineeringness is a fault in a woman, then why may a man not explicitly encourage her to be more submissive? If not, if he may only urge her to virtue in general and not to specific virtues, why not?

… three children just fine. I remember one of them was born on Groundhog Day (Imbolc for you pagans, Candlemas for us Christians), one was born sixteen days before Michaelmas (on St. John Chrysostom’s Day, the patron of orators), one born of the feast of St. Justyn the Martyr, patron saint of philosophers.

In any case, the little woman does all the brain-work in the house, and I just show up to eat meals and cough up cash. So everything is run in the Wright household as it should be, and all is right with the world.