Dropping Everything

“Reading while supposed to be doing dishes. Got to stop b/c the book [apparently on Male Headship and Female Submission via Christian Head-coverings from 1 Corinthians 11] reminded me to honor my husband, and doing my work is part of that.” The caption read below a picture of a closed book inside of a dish drainer that was put alongside some pots and other dishes. Apparently, I’m supposed to find this as a worthy example to emulate; either being a husband who orders about his wife as if she were his daughter who was skipping out on her chores: “You’re supposed to be doing the dishes right now, why are you reading instead?” or a wife who drops whatever she’s doing to snap-to the orders of her husband in first-time obedience because he comes first and she comes second, always.
I’m not surprise that the premise of the book is more conducive to marriage than singleness; after all, it could have very easily been a daughter who wrote of her father: “Reading while supposed to be doing dishes. Got to stop b/c the book reminded me to honor my father, and doing my work is part of that.” But I guess they let the rules of the roles get a little fuzzy in the case of widows, who are supposed to be in submission to some guy somewhere somehow; just not in the same way a wife is supposed to honor her husband or a child his or her parents (but daughters honoring their fathers more than sons honoring their mothers, obviously) – after all, it’s called male headship, not husband headship or father headship or church leader headship – so it would imply that all females are to submit to certain males in particular roles who have some degree of God-given authority over them simply on the basis that they are women who are supposed to submit to men because they were told the Bible says so by the men in charge.
Of course, in Complementarian circles, there’s no such thing as female headship or male submission; it would be a contraversion of God’s creation order of male being made first and female being made last and the supposed authority that comes with it. So authority is synonymous with maleness and submission is synonymous with femaleness; and just as female is the complement of male, so is submission the complement of authority. Whether they realize it or not, they are in fact teaching that it is the lot of women to be “the help”, the one who takes orders without question and fulfills them immediately. They call it “being respectful” and “showing honor” – cloaking it in acceptable terms to hide the terrible truth inside: women are being taught to be obedient and that they are far less important than the men in their lives.
After all, the caption doesn’t say: “I saw my wife was reading, so I decided to do the dishes for her so that she didn’t have to stop if she didn’t want to.” That would be a man lowering himself to do woman’s work, which, by the way, never ends. Consider the Proverbs 31 woman’s schedule, the first to wake up and the last to go to sleep, her whole day is spent on caring for her family and their needs that her own needs are never met – she doesn’t have the time even with a full staff of servants. The passage is the picture of ‘dying to self’ or ‘being a living sacrifice’ – of someone who never gives a thought to what they need because their existence is built upon giving everything they have to everyone else. The problem is that people can’t run on empty for very long and anyone who doesn’t take of himself or herself can’t take care of anyone else very well at all. All the more though, women are told to die to themselves in order to help out. “Don’t focus on what you want, do something about what everyone else wants.” I also don’t understand why it’s common for husbands to buy clothes washing and drying machines, but a dishwasher is often out of the question – it would be a win/win scenario – the dishes wash themselves while the wife reads her book that makes her happy.
I see that even in this woman’s story. After reading a book about how her husband’s authority is complemented by her wifely submission, then what he wants done comes first, even at the expense of what she’s doing because it’s not as important to him, once she properly understands dying to self, then her only duty is to obey her husband and help him in everything before she even thinks about what she wants for herself. While it’s true, the husband is supposed to love his wife, he is under no obligation to submit, he isn’t supposed to be doing a woman’s work or free her from her obligation to him. She might be his equal in some ethereal sense, just as a genie is equal to her master as an intelligent being, but for all her power – she can only say “yes, master.” It’s a rare master who wishes that his genie be set free to choose for herself what she wants. And that’s what Sarah said of her husband – calling him “lord”. This too, is said to be a worthy example to follow.
And the church wonders why there’s unprecedented singleness in this day and age.

Advertisement