CONFUSED
In Boy Meets Girl, a great book on courtship, Joshua Harris writes, ""Men don't know what it means to be a man, so we lazily do what is easiest. Women don't know what it means to be a woman, so they end up acting like men. Relating to the opposite sex can be confusing when you don't know what you're opposite of."
"For many people, the idea that a creator assigns roles in offensive. They don't want any person, any religion, or any God telling them how to express their manhood or womanhood. They reject the idea of God-given roles and do whatever they can to blur gender distinctions.
CHAOS
"The state of human sexuality today is like a play in which the cast is in rebellion against the playwright and his story. Imagine the chaos. The actors hate him. They reject their roles and mock the script. To show their contempt, some refuse even to read their lines. Other actors switch their roles and costumes to confuse the plot. Still others read their parts out of place, slur their lines, and lace them with obscenities.
"This is a picture of the wicked and perverse generation in which Christians are called to shine like stars (Philippians 2:15). It's the generation of the 'transgendered,' in which men act like women and women act like men. And it's amidst this chaos that God wants his children to be faithful to the roles He has assigned us, even though the majority of humanity has abandoned them.
"Just as a play is written by a playwright, the story of human history is written by God. The Bible teaches that our roles as male and female are part of the beautiful story God is telling."
"God has made us male and female to tell a story too marvelous for us to fully comprehend. He has made the sexes different from each other to reflect a reality that existed before we did. Following God's script for our sexuality in every scene of our lives means that we are depicting the truth and faithfully telling His story. And when we do that, we experience the fullness of life that God wants for us as men and women. His plan leads to our joy and fulfillment."
"Within the context of their equality, God assigned men and women different roles. He made Adam first, signifying his unique role as leader and initiator. He created Eve from Adam and brought her to Adam to be his helper in the tasks God had assigned him. She was made to complement, nourish, and help her husband. God's greatest gift to man was 'a helper suitable for him' (Genesis 2:18). This doesn't minimize a woman's role, but it does define it.
CREATED EQUAL
"Men and women were created equal, yet different. And the fact that we're different is wonderful. What a boring world it would be if the opposite sex weren't so mysterious, so puzzling, and at times so infuriatingly unlike us!
"God didn't make us to duplicate each other, but to complement each other. ... in a marriage husband and wife are equal, even though Scripture tells the wife to joyfully submit to her husband's leadership.
ADAM'S RIB
"In his commentary on Genesis, Matthew Henry explained it beautifully: 'Eve was not taken out of Adam's head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near to his heart to be loved by him.
"In Ephesians 5:21-33, Paul says that the husband's leadership isn't to be tyrannical or cruel, but kind and loving. Men are called to love their wives sacrificially and selflessly just like Jesus loves the church. Wives are instructed to follow their husbands just as the church obeys Christ. This is not mindless, joyless submission, but active participation and response to loving leadership."
GENTLEMEN
Harris says men are to "be a gentleman to the women in your life. Your goal is to show through your actions that their status as a woman is a noble one." "If a man's biggest temptation is to be passive, a woman's biggest temptation is to take control. The man isn't setting a course, so the woman grabs the steering wheel. It might fix things in the short term, but in the long run it only discourages men from playing their God-given role as initiators." "A college counselor once told me that the majority of the female students she worked with secretly longed to get married and have kids, but they were too ashamed to admit it. What a tragedy!"
Mary Wollstonecraft may be the first best-selling author to present the feminist case against traditional femininity. In a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, a feminist says that a popular book at that time on the role of women was criticized by Wollstonecraft in her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman . The biographer writes: "... a standard work of the time, John Gregory's A Father's Legacy to His Daughters, a lugubrious dissertation on the 'peculiar propriety of female manners,' which assumed, as did all contemporary texts, that a girl's reason for being is to win men's approval by softness, ignorance and innocence (contrived if necessary), and absolute unthinking submission. 'Your whole life is often a life of suffering ... you must bear your sorrows in silence, unknown and unpitied.' ... Having made it clear that the only possible role for a woman was marriage ... went on to describe the terrible fate of the spinster, 'sinking into obscurity and insignificance.'"
The biographer says, "She subjected several typical eminent commentators on women to ruthless dissection: Lord Chesterfield, Dr. Gregory; Fordyce ...." Fordyce wrote a book that Abigail Adams read and discussed with her sister. Abigail and her husband, John Adam, read Wollstonecraft carefully as did many others. The influence of this evil feminist is incalculable.
She wrote in her diabolical book that writers like Gregory and Fordyce taught men to be tyrants: "I do not mean to allude to all the writers who have written on the subject of female manners -- it would, in fact, be only beating over the old ground, for they have, in general, written in the same strain; but attacking the boasted prerogative of man -- the prerogative that may emphatically be called the iron sceptre of tyranny, the original sin of tyrants ...."
"She quotes Gregory who wrote: "Be even cautious in displaying your good sense. It will be thought you assume a superiority over the rest of the company -- But if you happen to have any learning, keep it profoundly secret, especially from the men, who generally look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of great parts and a cultivated understanding."
FINAL DECISION MAKER
Helen Andelin writes in the same vein that women must be careful to not emasculate men by stepping out of their boundaries. She is excellent in writing in detail how women are to relate to men. She writes: "A family is not a democracy, where everyone casts his vote. The family is a theocracy, where the father's word is law." He makes all final decisions.
HOW TO BE THE PERFECT FOLLOWER
"Honor his position as the head of the family and teach your children to do so. Have faith in the principle that God placed him at the head and commanded you to obey him, as stated in the Bible. If this doesn't seem fair, remember that God's ways are better than our ways.
"Let go of the reigns in the family. Turn the control over to your husband. Let him lead and you follow. You'll be surprised how well he can get along without you. This will build your confidence in him and his confidence in himself. After you let go he should delegate control of certain affairs of the household to you. Work this out together.
"Don't be overly concerned about the outcome of things. Let him worry about it. ... Allow for his mistakes and trust his motives, and his overall judgment. In this way you help him to grow, for nothing makes a man feel so responsible as when someone places a childlike trust in him.
MYSTERIOUS WAYS
"Sometimes your husband's decisions may defy logic. His plans may not make sense to you, nor his judgment appear the least bit sound. Perhaps it isn't, but there's a possibility it is. He may be led by inspiration. The ways of God don't always follow logic. Don't expect every inspired decision your husband makes will be pleasant, or turn out the way you think it should. God may lead him into problems for a wise, unknown purpose. We must all be tried in the refiner's fire, and God has mysterious ways of bringing this about." She goes on to explain that this may be frightening but if the wife follows then "things will turn out right in a surprising way." What is missing in our secular humanist culture is the lack of spirituality. Students mainly go to atheist schools and by the tens of millions are never taught the universal, timeless truths that Mrs. Andelin teaches. Textbooks often do not even mention God's way of life and if they do, they often denigrate it as repressive and out of date.
COUNSELOR
"In being the perfect follower, the points I have listed thus far are all submissive qualities -- honor his position, let go, trust, be adjustable, obedient, and supportive, even when you don't agree. There are times, however, when you should speak out."
Let's look at an example of how she advises a wife to counsel her husband: "As a woman, you have special gifts in counseling, gifts of insight and intuition, unique with your sex. You have perspective of your husband's life that no one else has. ... Here are requirements for being a good counselor: First, drop the habit of giving daily advice or suggestions. This can weary him. ... Next, eliminate negative thinking. Overcome your doubts, fears, and anxieties, or your advice could do him harm. Good counselors are positive thinkers. They are cautious but not negative. If you are inclined to be negative, read a good book on the subject such as The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Peale."
She then goes on to give techniques such as "Ask leading questions," "Listen," "Don't appear to Know More Than He Does," "Don't Be Motherly," "Don't Talk Man to Man," "Don't Act Braver Than He," etc.
Parents and teachers should be teaching books like the Andelins but sadly many mainline churches are becoming feminist and being rebellious to God's word. Christianity is mainly emasculated. There is a book titled The Church Impotent : The Feminization of Christianity by Leon J. Podles. Churches are not attracting men. Why would they? When President Bush led America in the Gulf War many churches were against him.
In Intimate Strangers: Men and Women Together Lillian Rubin, a prominent sociologist, says that the feminist sexual revolution is against the traditional family but does not have a clear plan to take its place. We all want, she says, to be loved and "live happily ever after" and it is tempting to think that an "earlier time seemed a simpler one. Women and men each had a place -- a clearly defined, highly specific set of roles and responsibilities that each would fulfill. She'd take care of home and hearth; he'd provide it. She'd raise the children; he'd support them. She'd subordinate her life to his, and wouldn't even notice it; her needs for achievement and mastery would be met vicariously through his accomplishments or those of her children.
"It seemed fair then -- a tidy division of labor not often questioned. It was, after all, in the nature of things, in the nature of women and men -- what they expected of themselves, what they expected of each other. Now, we're not so sure."
Well, she speaks for herself and her feminist friends. Millions of women are sure of themselves and do live happily ever after because they live by this "tidy division of labor." Oftentimes life is simple because truth is simple. Rubin's world is complicated and therefore loaded with stress. Denying human nature and God's plan brings unhappiness. Rubin thinks she is happy in her feminist marriage but she would be much happier in a traditional marriage. Feminists just can't understand that the role of housewife is as important as any job a man has outside the home. They think that traditional men look down on housewives as inferior. Feminists love the word "inferior." They incorrectly think that traditional women are not in tune with their humanity and are bored to death with cleaning and cooking. Rubin says that the biblical wife, the stay-at-home mom cannot have her personal "needs for achievement and mastery" in the home. A woman who makes her home her career is demeaning herself like a slave to a master and pathetically can only live "vicariously through" her husband. Rubin, like the Clintons and so many other feminists, are educated but have no wisdom. Proverbs in Bible says that if we do not know God we are ignorant. God's way is the wise way. Nowhere does Rubin mention God.