Every problem on the planet comes down to men vs. women.
The Battle of the Sexes.
Did God improve the original design in man or need someone to clean the Garden?
Hold everything, put down your clubs and manipulative devices because I am here to solve every problem between men and women that has ever existed. Inspired by C. S. Lewis, I am here to offer insight that is going to disturb you and give you peace.
I was talking to my brother-in-law yesterday when something hit me smack in the face. He referred to a man he knew as being “whipped.”
Now I have always thought that it was good for a man to lead through loving service and if a man decided that he was going to treat the woman in his life like a queen and do her bidding, would that be such a bad thing?
“What do you mean by ‘whipped?’”
“When she says ‘jump’ he says ‘how high?’”
I turned to my loving bride as I rubbed her feet.
“Is that something that women want in a man? A constant ‘yes’ to every order and command with no will power, whatsoever?”
“No. I think that is pathetic. Go get me a glass of water.”
“OK.”
This is something that men and women both find offensive in the men they encounter in their lives. The bowed head, the defeated “yes, dear”. The lack of assertion of any type of male testicular fortitude, so to speak.
As I went to get the water for my wife, it hit me.
It isn’t that women want a man to be dominated, they just want to trust that the man in their life isn’t going to take advantage of the fact that he rules.
Men SHOULD be the head of the household. And why not? If a guy knows what is going on, provides for his family, loves his family, spends time with them, leads them to heaven, why would the family not want to be headed up by such a man?
And here comes the disagreement rooted in fear.
I mentioned this to my new sister-in-law in the kitchen, that men should rule the house, the world, and basically the known universe. Her response?
“As long as the woman agrees to the rules.”
Did you catch that? The fear in the statement? The fear that somehow the man is going to let the power go to his head and take advantage of the trust of the woman in his life and use the power to disgrace her, use her, and perhaps even leave her?
This is the way I figure it:
- Marriage is set up to protect women. This is due to the fact that society at large judges women by their looks and this is a bad system. Marriage is set up so that a woman can be protected when she is most vulnerable, that is being a mother. When a woman is guiding, feeding, and giving birth, she is most vulnerable to the outside world. Marriage (ideally) provides a certain amount of protection there. A promise that the man in her life isn’t going to run off. A promise that he is going to stand up for the family and what is right, protecting the family from the onslaught of outsiders who wish to do the family harm.
- Our society screwed this up. See, with the rise in adultery and divorce rates, women no longer feel secure in marriage. It is still possible that the man might leave if they don’t remain dominant in some way, either in physical looks, or through a mental and verbal domination of the spouse. Hence the desire to “whip” the male. There is a problem here.
- Women hate the “whipped” male more than the male hates the “whipped” male. What attracted the woman to the male in the first place was his ability to be strong. To stand up against the world for what was right and good. She saw in him her future sons and daughters being led by a warrior king, rescuing the family from all that is evil. Now that the male has been dominated by her, she no longer sees him as the warrior king, but as a servant, a slave. She still feels insecure, but not because the warrior king might leave her, but because the warrior king has lost his ability to lead! Enter a world filled with “metro-sexuals” and men that have no ability to lead, except if it is walking the dog.
So what do we do?
Men, love your women. Be the warrior king they fell in love with. Chivalry isn’t dead, it is needed more than ever. Without it, the women will resort to trying to “whip” you into shape. If that happens, you are useless. Resist the whipping! Resist it with chivalry so that your woman will be confident in the fact that her man will stand up for her!
Women, stop trying to “whip” your man. If you feel that your man does not have your best interests in mind, find out why. Maybe he needs you to remind him what he is fighting for in the first place.
Or perhaps men and women need to put God at the center of our relationships so that we understand that we are all created in His image. In that image, we can only love and protect each other, and dump this whole image that society puts on us where it belongs...
