Reliance versus dependence

We've been having a running discussion around here (offline) about how so many marriages where the woman works outside the home either don't seem very solid, or have ripped apart entirely. Mind you, we know marriages where the wife works that appear solid (I've worked off and on through our marriage, as an example), so we've been comparing. (Discreetly, of course.)

The working hypothesis (such as it is), is that the rocky-marriage women seem to subscribe to a notion that it is, somehow, a good idea to prove that you don't 'need' your husband. We know of at least one instance where the wife actually said to her husband, "I don't need you, so you'd better be nice to me." The sad thing is, we know of several more instances where that sentiment isn't put into words, but comes through loud and clear.

One theory behind that sort of behavior, I guess, is that if you take money out of the equation, you can (supposedly) concentrate on love (or what passes as love when you take trust out of it). Another theory is that if you prove your independence, the other person has added incentive to mind his manners because he's got no other 'hold' on you.

Having been inside the feminist camp in my sometimes-somewhat-misguided youth, I think I know where these ideas have come from, but be that as it may, shall we try putting the shoe on the other foot to see if this sort of thing sounds like a good idea when examined?

Let us say, for instance, that a husband rents and furnishes an apartment, and tells his wife about it, in the form of 'I have another place to stay, so you'd better be nice to me, because I don't need to live here with you.'

Let us say, for instance, that a husband takes a cooking class, not so he can be a better cook or so that he can pitch in more often, but to remove one obstacle to a potential divorce. Let him say to her, 'I know I don't know how to cook, and therefore it would be tough for me if we got a divorce, but this cooking class will take care of that. You can divorce me and it won't hurt me much. So, now that I don't have to worry about that, let's be nicer to each other, shall we?'

Do you think the wife, in either case, would feel that the husband was committed to the marriage? That he was making the team stronger? That he loved her? That he was aiming for a contented old age together, God willing?

Would she not be likely, instead, to see it as some sort of extortion? Or at least emotional distancing?

Would she not be inclined to wonder when he was going to bolt, since he seemed to be laying the groundwork for bolting?

And yet again and again I see women in effect laying the groundwork for an 'easy' divorce (the long term damage of divorce is usually worse than they anticipate, so it's rarely as 'easy' as they hope), and then being dumbfounded and angry when their husband feels threatened, or runs for his life.

Go figure.

Anyway, if you're young and haven't figured this out, it's entirely possible to rely on a husband without being overly dependent. And when a husband and a wife can rely on each other, that's a good thing.

So, to get back to the opening point, the working theory, such as it is, is that it's not the working outside the home per se that damages the marriage. It seems to be the 'lining up circumstances and setting aside provisions to make it easier to run away from home' that's the problem. Yes? No? Maybe?

I mean, living with somebody who insists on keeping her hand on the exit door can't be easy. Or encouraging. Or comforting.

(To be clear here, I think Christians are forbidden from divorcing for any reason except adultery. I believe that marriage is a covenant. I also recognize that the broader culture has a problem seeing the wisdom of that, much less the value of it. But can we agree that a 'marriage' where the wife and/or the husband is perpetually poised for divorce is not a healthy relationship? And can we agree that the brand of feminism brewed in the 1960s and '70s tends to encourage that? And that this is not a good thing? Or very smart, for that matter?)

Character and competence

In Fireproof: A Drop-Everything-and-Go-See-It Film (The Rebelution, September 29, 2008), Alex Harris not only recommends a film he and his friends found powerful and moving, he reminds rebelutionaries (and the rest of us) that there's a difference between striving for excellence and demanding perfection.

"Esolen's Rules"

Via Wittingshire, a half-serious list of what to look for in a husband or wife.

Laugh and learn.

The makers of 'Facing the Giants' tackle marriage in 'Fireproof'

The maverick moviemakers who made Facing the Giants are coming out with a new movie this fall, which has been getting enthusiastic response in early screenings, according to Michael Foust of Baptist Press. Like Facing the Giants, the movie features a volunteer cast and crew, many of them members of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia. The movie stars Kirk Cameron and Erin Bethea. The official movie site is here. There is a companion website: FireproofMyMarriage.com. Opening date for the movie is Sept. 26.

Parents, please note that although the movie addresses adult issues - it's about a marriage that seems to be heading for divorce - the producers have reportedly taken pains to make sure the most sensitive issues go over the heads of most kids. See the Foust article linked above for more information.

Young adults rejecting the brokenness they were raised in

From CitizenLink: 'Millennial' Generation Shows Respect for Traditional Values:

The media portray "millennials" as self-absorbed slackers. But according to a new poll, these twentysomethings show a lot of respect for traditional values.

The survey, by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, found 94 percent respect parenthood and 84 percent have great esteem for marriage. Just a quarter said they respect Hollywood.

Ann Mack, a spokeswoman for the agency, said she was surprised by the findings.

“It could be because they are more idealistic as a generation," she said, "but it could be because they are so young and not yet jaded.”

Mark Johnson works with B2G (better2gether), a ministry of the Navigators for twentysomethings. He believes the younger generation is reacting to something.

“At least half of them that we see have come out of some kind of dysfunctional or broken home," he said. "They are wanting something more or better than what they have come from.”

Steve Watters, director of young adults at Focus on the Family, said he was encouraged by the numbers and is looking for ways to tap into that potential through Focus' Boundless ministry to twentysomethings.

“It’s something we want to encourage as much as possible," he said, "realizing that they are not going to find that kind of support from Hollywood or Madison Avenue."

Now, this article doesn't mention anything about the poll's size, or how it was conducted. For that matter, if you've read here very long you know I don't usually put much stock in polls, even large ones that are well conducted.

On the other hand, for what it's worth, I've noticed young adults putting a premium on marriage, on family, on community, on service, and, in many cases, on military service. There are a surprising number of really wonderful young people these days. You might not know it to look at them (have you had something of a tattoo epidemic in your area?!), but when you stop to talk to them, or look at what they're doing, it can be both impressive and reassuring. A lot of them seem to have thought long and hard about what's important, and are willing to make commitments.

(P.S. Speaking of 'Hollywood,' did you see this over in the annex?)

Men's brains compared to women's brains

I'm not entirely sure it ought to be funny, and I'm not even sure all of it is entirely true, but all the same this reduced me to helpless laughter: Mommy Life: Men's brains, women's brains - very funny.

I would like you to notice that the audience in the video is composed primarily of couples, and that they seem to be happily married couples. You will notice how comfortable most of them are with each other, and how they share their laughter, won't you? Thank you. I wouldn't want this to be a source of animosity between the sexes. After all, our ability to take different approaches to any given situation is one of those things that makes a devoted husband-wife team such a force to be reckoned with. And the ability to laugh at our differences is one of those things that makes a good marriage so fun.

The video is just over five minutes long.

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien on marriage

In this article about what tithing is about, Jordan Ballor has this:

The focus on the good brought to ourselves in the act of tithing is one that corrupts the purpose of the giving itself. C. S. Lewis provides an analogy to the proper view of marriage that fits here. Lewis said that you don’t get married to become happy, but rather to make the other person happy. Your own happiness is a by-product, a consequence, of maintaining the proper end. If, by contrast, you get married simply in order to make yourself happy, your true happiness is made that much more unlikely.

In the same way, whatever benefits we claim to receive from tithing, whether spiritual, emotional, or financial, these are not to be the reason that we give...

Meanwhile, over at Wittingshire, there's Tolkien on Soul Mates, from a letter J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to his son Michael.

Let's see, if you count 15-year-olds as women, and exclude husbands in the military, and... (Updated)

*Scroll down for a closer look at the numbers by Michael Novak.*

From Journalistic Malpractice in "Marriage is Dead" Report by Michael Medved:

On Tuesday, January 16th, 2007, the American people awoke to startling and disturbing news: for the first time ever, the majority of women in the country were living without a husband.

All the TV networks, radio news broadcasts, pundits, talk show hosts and leading newspapers reported on the devastating milestone, and saw it as yet another indication of the ongoing collapse of the traditional family. Some commentators hailed this development as an encouraging sign of newfound freedom, while others decried it as a reflection of decadence and dysfunction.

With all the debate and pontification about the new minority status of married women, it’s just too bad that no significant media outlet (beyond this writer, on my nationally syndicated radio show) made the single most important and salient observation about the big news--

That is, it’s not true.

According to Medved, you have to include "some 10,154,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 19" in the pool of "women" before you can approach the figure used by reporter Sam Roberts in the article run in the New York Times.

(Personally, I hope most "women" in the middle of adolescence are still single. Silly me.)

It gets worse:

Yet even the ridiculous inclusion of his ten million unmarried teenagers couldn’t give Sam Roberts the story he wanted to report – that most American “women” are now unmarried. As a matter of fact, the Census Bureau shows that among all females above 15 the majority (51%!) are still classified as “married.”

So the New York Times required yet another sneaky distortion to shave off that last 2% from the married majority, though this bit of statistical sleight-of-hand Sam Roberts had the decency to acknowledge. “In a relatively small number of cases, the living arrangement is temporary, because the husbands are working out of town, are in the military, or are institutionalized,” he writes. In other words, in his brave new majority of “women” without spouses, he includes all those thousands upon thousands of wives and mothers who are waiting and praying at home for the return of their husbands from Iraq or Afghanistan. By arbitrarily removing this 2% of all females (2,400,000 individuals) who are classified as “married/spouse absent” from the ranks of the married, and then designating as “unmarried” his millions of middle school and high school girls who are living with their parents, together with some 9 million elderly widows who have devoted much of their lives to marriage and husbands (42% of all women over 65 are widows), Roberts can finally arrive at his desired but meaningless conclusion that “most women” now “are living without a husbands.” Eureka!

Full Medved article

hat tip: The Alliance Alert

Update: Michael Novak also runs the numbers (Married Women and the New York Times, First Things, Feb. 7, 2008):

...An impressive 58 percent of white non-Hispanic women were married with husbands present.

Looking at these numbers another way, add to the 58 percent of white non-Hispanic women with husbands present, the 12 percent that had been divorced as of 2005, and the fewer than 2 percent separated, plus the 1 percent married but with husbands absent. Also add another 11 percent who were, not by choice, living as widows. Therefore, the total of white non-Hispanic women over twenty who were or had been married was 85 percent. It is obvious that, in that year, marriage was the overwhelmingly preferred choice of American white women over the age of twenty. In addition, a significant proportion of the not-yet-married women over twenty will also enter into marriage in the future. The proportion choosing marriage, then, easily exceeds 90 percent.

Because these numbers do not include black, Hispanic, and Asian women, they do not give an accurate picture of the whole U.S. female population. But they do give a clear picture of the largest culture, as a point of comparison...