Part Two
Marilyn to John:
Thomas' second book, Sacred Influence, carries a similar message to Emerson Eggerichs' Love and Respect. Of the two books, Love and Respect has had greater impact. In part, this reflects the fact that Emerson's message is beautiful for its simplicity. He presents a framework that a couple can apply in real-time, in the middle of a normal verbal exchange that has the potential to escalate into a fight. It's short on ennobling rhetoric, but long on a Biblical framework that enables change. So, it is Love and Respect that I encourage you to read next.
John to Marilyn:
I plan to read it next. It requires great dexterity to offer gender-differentiated advice to couples without falling into time-worn stereotypes. Egals tend to give up on the notion of distinct gender identities and correlative counsel. Meanwhile, non-Christian authors including some feminists find very receptive audiences to even outlandish attempts at defining gender-based differences. The only serious explanation for this is that people by and large are aware of generalized (not absolute) differences even if it is not easy to describe them persuasively.
Marilyn to John:
Emerson argues that there can be no such thing as “mutual submission” in decision making. Mutual submission is possible to the extent that God asks different things of the husband and wife – he is to meet her need for love, and she is to meet his need for respect. Since the needs differ, mutual submission is possible in how the couple relates. However – and contrary to what CBE says – as a practical matter, it is not possible with respect to the outcome of a particular decision.
John to Marilyn:
Point taken. It sounds like Eggerichs does not find "mutual submission" as helpful an umbrella concept as "love and respect." With this I am in full agreement. I sometimes use the term "mutual submission" with couples in marriage prep, but I spend more time describing what it means to honor someone else, and what sacrificial love is about. In an egal culture such as the one we all swim in, honor and sacrificial love have largely gone by the wayside. We associate both honor and sacrifice with military mores (not false in itself) to be avoided by reasonable people (a false conclusion). That is a recipe for mediocrity. Rightly understood, honor, respect, and reverence on the one hand and sacrifice and self-denial on the other describe life-enhancing attitudes of the first order.
Marilyn to John:
I also encourage you to read Love and Respect because it is the complementarian book that has the most thorough discussion of domain-based authority. In fact, it is this discussion that convicted me. For example, Emerson points out that men and women tend to view careers very differently. Women typically view work outside the home as a choice, while men view it as a fundamental responsibility. (This thinking came through on Complegalitarian blog a couple of weeks ago, in Wayne's "what is a Christian feminist" post. Women wanted the right to choose whether they worked and the right to choose the military. Yet, none of them expressed a willingness to assume primary responsibility for supporting a family or defending their country.) Male authority in marriage follows logically from this responsibility to protect and provide. Of all the complementarian books that have attempted to answer the “why does God command me to submit to my husband when I know we’re equals” question, it is Emerson’s discussion of responsibility and authority that I found to be compelling.
John to Marilyn:
As you know, I am a big fan of domain-based authority. Indeed, I think it's important to understand how essential and life-enhancing domain-based and office-based hierarchies are in human life.
I'm also a fan of choice and your distinction between choice and responsibility corresponds well to facts on the ground. Those facts, of course, change to some extent from epoch to epoch and culture to culture.
Marilyn to John:
When I read this section of L&R, I thought back to a time in my marriage when I had just finished graduate school and had been offered my "dream job". Up until that point, my husband's career had come first. I thought that it was my turn, and my husband agreed to the move. However, he pointed out that we would be living in an area where it would be difficult for him to find professional employment. He was willing to make the move and to stay home with our child. But, he asked me to acknowledge that in accepting that job, I was assuming the primary responsibility for supporting our family. If I wanted to quit work (we had a second child on the way), there was a chance that in the near term, I wouldn't be able to. I'm so glad my husband had the wisdom to recognize the implications of the decision we were in the process of making and the maturity to share his concerns in a loving fashion. In reflecting on what he said, I realized that I did not, in fact, want to assume the responsibility of providing for our family. Rather, I wanted to keep open the option to quit work as our family grew. I turned down the job. As I reflected on that incident while reading L&R, I became convinced of the wisdom of the complementarian model.
John to Marilyn:
I'm not sure I follow everything you say, but I'm listening.
In my marriage, both Paola and I have been offered and have turned down "dream jobs" more than once out of a sense of family priorities. In my case, Paola has consistently objected on every occasion I have been offered an academic position. This has not been easy for me (I am a consummate bookworm and I love to teach).
Not that her objections even made sense to me half the time. Nonetheless, I have accepted her stance. It turns out that this stance of hers has been the greatest gift she has given to me. It has kept me in the pastorate which is a place of great blessing at least as I experience it, much fuller and deeper as a life experience than I would have had if I had pursued academics exclusively.
