and what it isn't. I think she did a really good job defending the traditional marriage:
UPDATE
For my American readers: The video is apparently property of a British TV company and unfortunately, they chose to restrict it. I couldn't find a transcript of it anywhere on the lady's site, but here is the link to an article where she basically explains her position, with a bit more detail:
If you don't care reading the whole of it (it's long) here is a highlight:
Our laundry is always done, the fridge is always full, dinner is
always on the table - and each of us know where we stand. He ‘submits’
the decisions concerning the finer details to me, and trusts that I will
complete them to the best of my ability.
Equally, I submit to him the larger details which concern the
decisions which impact our family on a larger scale. We always discuss
things together of course, and my voice is heard - I’m not a dimwit.
Sometimes the decision we reach is one ‘decided’ by me, but I submit to
the fact that my husband is always in the immediate firing line for
anything that happens to our family. The buck stops with him at the end
of the day, and I’m happy for the “rescue” from some of life’s tougher
things (if you want to put it into Disney speak).
I'm proud to be a traditional housewife
I'll just add a couple of my own thoughts: there are some strange new submission theories floating around which make the wife a slave of her husband. That's not how the things used to work when most marriages were "traditional". Wifely submission and obedience was always tied to the husband's responsibility as a breadwinner. For instance, he could have to move for his job and the law compelled the wife to follow him, she had to submit in this case because otherwise he could lose his income and not be able to feed his family, etc etc.
This model simply won't work in the situation when the wife is a primary breadwinner or works full time or very close to it and earns a similar amount of money. Sorry, but the husband can't just choose one day to stay home for no reason at all, send his wife into the workforce full time and then expect her to be a sweet obedient little Suzy Homemaker when she comes home.
Marital obedience also doesn't mean that the wife has no right to express her opinion or that the husband has to micromanage her daily life or that she can't take any decisions on her own. When you run the household and take care of the kids, you'll have to take decisions every day and you can't always bother your husband about every little thing.
Yet, exactly as she explains it in her video, you won't take any major financial decision without your husband's permission since he is the one responsible for the well-being of his family. Yet, since he delegates the finer details of keeping the house to his wife, he will have, for instance, to "submit" to her choices what to eat for dinner tonight, though, of course, a good wife will listen to his preferences. Etc etc. That's how it supposed to work in a normal family.
Apparently, U.S. readers don't have permission to watch the uploaded video.
ReplyDeleteThe error message says the uploader has not made the video available in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteWeird, I'll look into it.
ReplyDeleteIt all comes back to finances in the end. Practically ALL big decisions of a family are tied on finances: the town they live on, housing, how many cars and what sort, which school you put your children etc.
ReplyDeleteSo it makes perfect sense that the one making the money gets to decide those things. On the other hand, after days hard work, most men are quite happy their wife saves them from all small decisions. Because they can be such a bother.
Another aspect is that if people marry wisely, it does not really matter who makes decisions. If people share values, as married people should, and have common sense, as grown up people should, they would usually choose similar ways anyway. I have absolutely no problem submitting to my husband because he makes such a good decisions. Couldn't make better myself. :)
I actually think that if woman does not feel she can leave her whole life in the safe hands of his husband, she should not marry him. If one does not think her husband is that wise, that trustworthy, why marry him at all?
ReplyDeleteExactly, what's the point? Unfortunately too many women have this strange idea that they somehow will "change" their husbands for the better. I blame romantic novels where a bad boy gets reformed under her civilising influence. Plus, most modern people don't seem to think at all, they start sleeping with someone because everybody does it, then they move together and then they kinda drift into marriage, if you know what I mean. Once this oxitocine is released, common sense goes out of the window.
ReplyDeleteMarital obedience also doesn't mean that the wife has no right to express her opinion or that the husband has to micromanage her daily life or that she can't take any decisions on her own. When you run the household and take care of the kids, you'll have to take decisions every day and you can't always bother your husband about every little thing.
ReplyDeleteYet, exactly as she explains it in her video, you won't take any major financial decision without your husband's permission since he is the one responsible for the well-being of his family. Yet, since he delegates the finer details of keeping the house to his wife, he will have, for instance, to "submit" to her choices what to eat for dinner tonight, though, of course, a good wife will listen to his preferences. Etc etc. That's how it supposed to work in a normal family.
That is how it works, and sometimes (gasp!) a husband might defer to his wife's suggestion on a major matter after hearing her perspective.
I have come to realize that so many people are excellent at noting and diagnosing what it wrong with the world, but their prescriptions for healing are often toxic. That's often as true on the so-called right as it is on the left.
Elspeth, it's even like this in Muslim families. I have been researching this topic and while Westerners generally have a very negative idea about the life of married women in those countries, it really comes down to the fact that while women submit to men in some ways (modesty, family honour etc) their submission is tied to the men providing and protecting for their family. They have their rights within this structure and they guard them jealously.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, we don't have to reinvent the wheel but can just look to our own culture not so long ago. Books like Miss Silver series generally portray rather balanced male-female relationships where both sides have rights and duties and extended family has some say, too.