I Am Woman. Hear Me Roar.
Linda Rogers is a pleasant-looking woman. Linda Rogers is sixty-five, single, and divorced. Linda Rogers is coming to a conference center near you in order to convince women in your town to return to Victorian-style spousal submission.
According to an article in the Spiritual Life section of my local paper, The East Valley Tribune, Linda speaks at 6 major women’s conferences every year, teaching women to be . . . well, what the scriptures say they should be.
While many modern Christians choose to ignore certain biblical passages, Linda wants them them to face what they say, and obey them. The passage in question is Titus 2:3-5.
“Teach the older women to be quiet and respectful in everything they do . . . These older women must train the younger women to . . . be sensible and clean-minded, spending their time in their own homes, being kind and obedient to their husbands, so that the Christian faith can’t be spoken against by those who know them.”
A person who knows history would interpret that passage to be a reflection of Roman culture, as opposed to a commandment from God, let alone the secret to healthy marriages. In the first days of Christianity, women led many of the church meetings, which were held in private homes. Women originally had strong influence in the Christian church. Some Christian women, in those earlier days, were independent and controlled their own businesses and money, unlike the other Roman women. The submissive wife icon in Titus probably surfaced to appease the non-Christian Roman majority and traditional Christians, who disapproved of a stronger woman. It was a move toward mainstream. It is possible that Christianity could have led the world in gender equality. Instead it squashed its initial trend toward freedom and equality for women and reversed it.
The passage in Titus is now irrelevant since our culture does not respect the idea of a wife who “obeys” her husband, as the scripture suggested. It will not now improve the Christian image. But more revelent than their image, is that it is harmful to society.
Linda Rogers gave an example of a person’s relationship to her boss, to describe the appropriate relationship of a husband and wife. According to the article, she teaches women to”submit to husbands as they would bosses.”
Why do some people not see the sick nature of the “Husband is the head of the wife and children” idea? Do they not know what it means for a woman to consistently subvert her opinion concerning her own life and the lives of her children? It makes no sense whatsoever. A healthy relationship is give-and-take. A marriage is a partnership. They work out the problems together. If they cannot come to agreement, they may decide not to move forward on that particular matter. Or one may relent because the subject is more important to the other. Or the other may give in because they realize they don’t understand the subject as well. Each partner in the marriage has their own various strengths, wisdom, and passions regarding certain matters. Each partner is just as vested in the direction of the family as the other. It is nonsensical to live by a concept of one person being the head, who always makes the final decisions on matters.
This subject enrages me. I cannot believe the arrogance of the man who accepts such a tradition. I cannot believe the selfishness of him who pretends it comes from God.
I am not worried that Linda Rogers will succeed in her goal to enslave women. I think she will fail. In fact, my hope is that more people will face the destructive verse in Titus and decide it is healthier to take the Bible with a grain of salt; to see it more as guide with some meaningful (and some not so meaningful) symbolic stories, rather than a literal instruction manual.
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January 26th, 2006 @ 9:46 am
I am right with you, Noell. This is the one part of Christian tradition that burns me up more than any other. I am the not-so-submissive wife of Ron (who, if he reads this, is snorting loudly at the understatement). Some of our closest couple friends are dedicated Christians, very active in a church that tries to be strictly bible-based. The wives in these partnerships struggle mightily to follow Paul’s instructions regarding Christian womanhood. And the result is almost laughable. These women are strong, intelligent, capable, stubborn,competitive - and they have as loud a roar as any liberal feminist I have ever met. Yet they believe god requires them to sit down and shut up and do what their husbands say. The good news is, they are rarely successful at subverting their true personality
Of course, the un-funny part of this is that many of them have daughters, who are fed the submissive pill. That scares me. But then again, I was fed that pill too, and it didn’t take. So I have hope.
For others I have met, the Titus approach is the ultimate license for passive aggression. It allows them to embrace weakness and abdicate responsibility for their lives and the lives of their families. If things come out less than perfect, it’s not their fault. They were just being good submissive wives. That attitude is cancerous. It does a huge disservice to women and their entire families. But it is what makes following a large organized religion so much easier than finding your own path. It’s so much easier to do what someone tells you than to reject a black and white view and muddle through all the shades of gray in the world. Anyone who’s ever been married knows that ultimately it would be easier for one partner - man or woman - to just shut up and let the other one make all the decisions than to hash it all out and discuss and argue and compromise.
Anyway, Linda Rogers and her type can preach submission all they like. But for the most part, we cannot change who we are fundamentally. I tend to believe that the strong women out there will continue to be strong - even if it’s in spite of themselves. Conversely, people with weaker personalities will always be weak, and they will welcome the excuse to remain that way.
January 26th, 2006 @ 10:02 am
Allison! It’s so good to hear from you! You are right on with the enabling aspect of the “submissive wife” rule. It allows women take on a victim complex. It also inspires women to become sneaky and manipulative. I discovered this first when I was a teen and decided to watch an old Bewitched rerun. I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid, and I was shocked to see how women were treated. I observed that some women were going to have their way, regardless of the rules. The way to do it was to lie to and manipulate their husbands. So much for an open, healthy relationship.
January 26th, 2006 @ 3:37 pm
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who in 1848 called for an effort to secure the vote for women, had this to say about the Bible:
“I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of women”.
One must reasonably assume that fundamentalists see it as nessesary to repeal the vote for women (who may choose not to marry - or vote in opposition to their husbands). Whether this would happen before or after the reinstatement of biblically approved slavery is hard to tell - I guess it depends on if they plan on turning back progress in strict sequential order.
As for Allison, get back in the kitchen and make me some samitches!
January 26th, 2006 @ 4:28 pm
Look at this! My site has become a place for married lovers to meet up. Where the man is free to yell demands to his wife in the safety of them being in separate locations. Just wait till she gets home Ron.
January 27th, 2006 @ 11:20 am
A good post Noelle. If I may take it a little further & mention that Christianity does not hold the lock & key on these issues with women.
We have women being mutilated, tortured, raped, murdered, forced to marry & then accused of adultery & stoned to death & muliple other horrors going on all around the world now.
I think what gets my blood rushing is that women of the west, (so many of them of Christian faith) with countless more opportunities to make a difference in bringing the treatment of women to the forefront & helping the suffering sisters around the world, are sitting down mouthing off about this & that (the new colour of upholstery on the church pews, Mrs. So & So’s new hair colour, the cute new worship leader…and doing piddly squat about those women who suffer.
Oh, oh, I’m on a soap-box here & feel my own post coming on.
January 27th, 2006 @ 11:22 am
P.S. I’m mad at myself for not doing enough & this is one area I get all ticked-off with & can’t think straight.
January 27th, 2006 @ 11:29 am
Ok, you make an excellent point. Christian treatment of women is so much better compared with other parts of the world and other religious culture. Not to excuse the practice of one spouse making all the decisions for the other spouse!
It’s easy to harp on the mild injustices being done here and close your eyes to the madness going on elsewhere. There is also the matter of feeling helpless.
May 8th, 2007 @ 6:11 am
After reading the posts here, it is apparent that the word “submissive” is quite misunderstood. Even many Christians misunderstand the word “submissive” and Paul’s intent on writing about it in the Bible. Being submissive does NOT mean that you blindly obey… or that you must “get back in the kitchen and make sandwiches”. Those of you that think it does need to do more research and try to understand that principle better. You should also further investigate the role of a MAN in marriage and how it relates to the passages of submission. This is Scripture that is also widely misunderstood by many. Just because a man should be the Christ head of the household does not give him license to treat his wife like a slave. As for “being woman and hearing me roar”…. God gave us each a different spirit and personality. He made us who we are and if he made us all the same we would be clones. There is nothing wrong with a woman who has a stronger personality. There were also women who were leaders in the Bible. Do you think they had a meek personality? Your spirit is a gift from God and He would not want you to be someone you’re not. But be careful not to use that as license to be overbearing and have an “in your face” attitude. There is a big difference. I also see references in the posts here about women being abused, etc. Many people also don’t understand that there is a difference between Forgiveness and Trust & Reconciliation. Forgiveness does not mean that you have to keep letting him beat you. It is quite apparent that some of the Scriptures being referred to here have not been well studied and put into context. I would encourage individuals to really study and understand the whole concept… not just take a few lines of Scripture and base an entire interpretation on it. I am a very independent, strong woman with an MBA and make many of the household decisions…I have been married many years and have a 14 yr. old, 11 yr. old and one on the way….God loves me just as much as a woman who has a less independent personality.