Remnants of My Past Life

My husband (Comate) and I have been married for over 20 years, and until about two years ago, we were involved in a Christian denomination that believed very strongly in a patriarchal view of marriage.  We learned after about 10 years that certain aspects of that did not jive with our personalities, but there were aspects of the view that we still tried to implement.  We wanted to be Biblical and obedient to God's word!  And we certainly did not want to be living a bad example of the gospel in front of the impressionable minds of our young offspring!

In a ideal world of patriarchy, Comate would have been the head of our household, lovingly leading me, and I would have been the submissive wife.  The practical outworking of that was that Comate held down a job while I stayed at home with the children.  For years, Comate managed our finances (even though he is NOT a math person, and I am), because if he didn't, he would not be in control of where the money was going and therefore not the head of our family.  We went through a period where I wore the frumpy jumpers and attempted to homeschool my children.  So much of this went very poorly.  It did not fit within our gifts and abilities, which one might argue were given to us by God, so why would he require us to do things that did not work within the framework of who he had designed us to be?

Our "epiphany" came about 10 years into our marriage when it hit us that much of this was not working for us, and that actually,  we almost always agreed on things, so why turn this into a power struggle?  Yet in order to be biblical, we would still have said that we were mostly equal, but if we ever were at an impasse, Comate, as my head, would get the final vote.  He still held the trump card.

It has been almost two years since we really walked away from this patriarchal view of marriage and life, but it was not a sudden change of our views.  It has been slow and gradual.  One domino fell, and rather than all of them toppling over suddenly, it is like watching the domino line in slow motion.  One slowly falls and tips the next one...and so it goes.  Questioning our church's treatment of women in general slowly lead to questioning the view of women within marriage, which lead to wondering about our church's view of homosexuality, which lead to....Well, you get the picture.

So imagine my surprise this morning when the following conversation ensued.  The scene was Comate looking in the fridge to decide what to have for dinner (because, throwing out traditional roles, he is doing much of our cooking while I am back in school.  LOVE IT!).  He found some chicken he had asked me to purchase, and although I am a vegetarian I bought it, because the rest of my family does not share my food preferences.  The chicken had a "purchase by" date of 5 days ago, so Comate pitched it into the garbage. I was annoyed because I had spent $10 on it, at his request, and it had been wasted. 

I angrily remarked, "I'm not buying chicken for you any more! That was a total waste!"

Comate, equally angrily commented back, "You'll buy chicken if I tell you to!"

I was livid, but also almost wanted to laugh.  Ah, old ways die hard.  YES my statement was rash, and it is highly unlikely that I will never again purchase meat at his request.  And Comate's anger back at me was not totally unjustified.  But when the going got tough and he felt like he was losing control, he pulled the old trump card.  A card we tore up and threw away several years ago, but that still exists, crumpled up somewhere in our back pockets.  It is the pattern we were taught was right and good and biblical, and it was the reactive "go-to" in an emotionally charged moment of anger.  And it struck me that in the middle of this mindset, the only thing in the above scenario that would seem out of place would be my statement that I would not buy chicken.  It would be unbiblical and ungodly of me to exert my will in that way.  The proper, loving, wifely response should have been to sweetly say, "Honey, I am bothered that the chicken went to waste."

No, what am I thinking....In a truly godly marriage, the chicken would never have gone to waste, because I would have cooked it, because after all, I am the woman, and it is my job (Proverbs 31 and all) to stay at home and cook and clean and change diapers!