Introduction, Who or What is responsible for the destruction of the family?

Many pastors and powerful men declare that the break down of families began with the rise of feminism, specifically when women started going to work outside the home. A number of groups have arisen to push women to stay home and submit to their husbands. Educated Christian women are pushing this viewpoint, getting up in front of crowds to tell women how detrimental the women’s movement is, when they themselves are profiting from the movement and are unlikely to stop their careers and limit themselves to the sphere(s) they are insisting are the only biblical choices for women. The anger and blame toward career women and toward women who point out how scripture is being twisted so that all the responsibility for submitting is placed on wives and none on husbands is becoming ever more loud, insistent, and belittling. For example, Take the following comment from Anonymous, who replied to my “Hijacked Christianity” post:

you take away and add to scripture, you are aligned with satan and must seek forgivenness, for women are to be submissive to man and man treat women like Christ treats the church, this is why your evil feminist perspective is part of the destruction of the family and you are in great delusion or are a planted wolf, i shake the dust from my feet and rebuke you. May Jesus forgive you.

The writer apparently assumes that husbands are already “treating their wives as Christ treats the church,” and that it is the “evil feminist perspective” that is causing wives to be nonsubmissive and that results in the destruction of families.

It is time to examine this claim.

What makes a marriage? What breaks it down? How would women in the workplace have anything to do with the breakdown of the family?

I will examine these more closely in the next posts.


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel,"a story about a woman who grapples with her husband's demands that she submit--no matter what. Please visit www.wanetadawn.com