Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Part 1, Who or What is responsible for the destruction of the family? Mis-assigning responsibility

Many church leaders declare that the break down of families began with the rise of feminism, specifically when women started going to work outside the home. Is this claim valid? How would women in the workplace have anything to do with the breakdown of the family?

One way is that their presence and close work association tempts men to commit adultery. In essence, the church leaders are blaming working women for the sin and weakness of men. This is one of those Adam claims, “The woman you put in the office with me did tempt me and I did sin.” However, Christian men know it is foolish to blame God, so they focus all the blame on women. Instead of saying “I must keep my pants up, I must keep my pants up, I love my wife, I wouldn’t do this to her, I love my wife, I wouldn’t put her through such pain and humiliation, this woman probably has habits I can’t stand, so I won’t go there,” men choose to pursue the pleasure of the moment and deal with the consequences later.

If we were to follow this logic through to its obvious conclusion, if women are to blame simply because they are in the presence of men who they are not married to or related to, we would have to agree that the Muslim men are correct when they make laws prohibiting women from going out of the house unless they have a male relative to escort them. Furthermore, if men are actually that weak and frail, the women would have to be covered from head to toe when they do go out to protect the men from lusting after them.

Some groups are close to making such requirements, but seem to realize the ridiculousness of going as far as the Muslim men do. Interestingly, these restrictive laws do not prevent Muslim men from attacking and raping women. True to form, the men cannot hold the weak rapist accountable, so they hold the woman accountable and kill her even though she was always covered from head to toe and always had the proper male escort when she left the house.

The companion reason for blaming the women-to-work movement, is that too many women stray from their husbands to commit adultery with a man in the work place. Tellingly, the “blame the women’s movement” crowd blames the wife when her husband strays, because according to them it is her responsibility to keep his pants up. But when the wife commits adultery, or has an affair of the heart, her husband does not get blamed for failing to meet his wife’s needs. Instead the wife gets blamed again.

Could it be that the real problem is that the wrong person is held accountable for sin? If the wife is held accountable for her husband’s sin as well as for her own, doesn’t that encourage husbands to sin, since there is no punishment nor accountability for men? If husbands become used to freedom to sin without being held accountable, isn’t it likely that just like with leaven, the sin will grow until it overtakes the man and his whole life is ruled by the evil one, until he destroys his family?

So then who or what is responsible for the destruction of the family? Isn’t it those who claim wives are responsible for the sins of their husbands? Isn’t it those who claim a husband is to control his family, but when he sins, his wife is to blame? If a wife is to be accountable for her husband’s sin, she would have to control him. But this is not allowed to wives. They are to SUBMIT, not control.

This leads us to the next cause of the break down of the family.


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

3 comments:

  1. Does it ever occur to any one that past of the problem might well stem from a fallen nature, from the humanway of looking at things, and even from our so-called scientific method which suffers from being too analytical? We need a more synthetical method of study and examination, a better understanding of how biblical teachings present two-sided ideas that enable one to be balanced and flexible, etc. To illustrate, while the bible speaks of the wife obeying her husband, it also speaks of exceptions which tell us such obedience is not absolute but is relevant to the situation. For instance, Abraham, we are told, was instructed to do what Sarah said about Hagar. Imagine being told to do what your wife says! And since there women prophetesses in the Old and New Testament, and since such offices are God's spokespersons, we are in deep trouble when we fail to heed his representatives, regardless of their gender.

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  2. Dear Ms. Dawn: You hit the nail on the head as far as the nature of the argument is concerned about men blaming women like Adam blamed Eve (really God as in "The woman YOU gave me."). But there is still a little problem that neither you nor the men are recognizing, namely, the tremendous amount of subliminal seduction advertising both males and females immersed in from "can see" till "can't see." You all might want to read Dr. Donald Key's The Clam Plate Orgy. For over 80 years our society has been subjected to all sorts of subliminal seduction techniques to get them to buy things. While sex is very much a part of the scenario, there is also appeals to all sots of pathologies such as the death wish, control issues (yes, even under complementary ideas control can masquerade), etc. You might want to rad some of the literature in the fields of pscyhiatry and advertising. O yes, history is useful as in Germany which was a male dominated society and where one male led a whole nation into the pit of disaster, because ther was no thinking outside the box, no balance, no snese of compassion. All was objective and scientific and as deadly as a silent poisonous viper, except the end result was the big noise of war. You might want to consider conspiracy history, too. The boys with the real control issues want to reduce the population and wars are one way to get it done. Cf. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope and his The Anglo American Establsihment, Taylor Caldwell's Captains and the Kings, C.S. Lewis' sci/fi trilogy, esp. his That Hideous Strength, ad his The Great Divorce and Letters to An American Lady/ Also the writngs of R. Buckminster Fuller. plus there are many others.

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  3. Dr. James Willingham, welcome to my blog!
    You bring up some interesting points that will take me some time to mull over. I have been aware that the advertising industry has been guilty of quite a lot in the disrespect of women, and something you said made a light bulb go off that the advertising industry also encourages a "get more stuff" and "I must have whatever I want now" mentality, which feeds into the male demeaning--including rape--of women as well. In fact the abortion industry is tied in here, too. By teaching women to dispise their own offspring--which is the crown jewel of what they are capable of producing--the advertising and abortion industries teach women to despise themselves. But that despising is hidden from them by the repetition of self-satisfaction rhetoric.

    Concerning biblical stories, I think of Abigail who did the OPPOSITE of what her husband wanted, and received the approval of the Lord. But Jezebel, who DID what her husband wanted, received damnation.

    The subliminal messages you mention are intriging. I think of buying the right tooth paste to control the other sex's reaction to you. The death wish is a new idea for me.

    I find it interesting that the "boys with the control issues want to reduce the population with war," yet try to stir up fear of swine flu. Could it be that as with other immunizations, this one will cause disease and early death, too? My daughter tells me the swine flu vaccine has already caused Gulf War syndrome. My sister tells me a previous immunization frenzy caused an auto immune disease and was abruptly stopped.

    Your comments about Hitler's Germany reminds me of a movie we have watched repeatedly. In "The Freedom Writers" a teacher helps her gang affiliated students by likening Hitler's behavior to gang activity, saying he didn't just take over neighborhoods, he took over countries. Because of a characature someone in the class drew, exaggerating the lips of a black male, she pointed out how in Hitler's day, they used characatures of Jews to indoctrinate people to hate the Jews. The also used "science" to prove that blacks and Jews were lesser humans and didn't deserve to live.

    Your comments do resonate with me. I've jotted down the books you mentioned. Thanks!
    Waneta

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