I originally left this as a comment in response to Larry Kummer’s recent post: Marriage: soon the Surgeon General will warn about it. Larry wrote:
Summary: The Left has worked for two generations to destroy marriage as an institution by making it a bad bet for men. See these examples showing how they no longer even hide their intent. What happens if young men see this?
This is where conservatives come in. The conservative anvil is every bit the willing tool of the feminist blacksmith as her man-smashing hammer. Conservatives have responded to the sexual revolution and the destruction of marriage by adopting a highly selective sense of moral outrage. When women delayed marriage to focus on sexual freedom and career, conservatives cheered them on (while ignoring/denying the whoring). Thus the 700 Club touts a book by a 50 something never married career woman advising young Christian women to follow her lead and never settle. Likewise pastors regularly lecture young Christian men that they have a duty to marry single mothers, because:
Single Christian moms are as pure as the sinless Son of God, which is more than you deserve in a wife.
But make no mistake, if a man is foolish enough to follow conservative Christian moralizing, he will find the modern Christian taste for moralizing ends the instant the rube has taken the bait and said “I do”. If the man naively expects his pastor to continue to exert strong moral pressure after the wedding he is in for a massive shock. Suddenly the Christian taste for moralizing evaporates, and the man being obedient to conservative instruction is proof that he deserves a rebellious wife. After all, he is the one who was foolish enough to marry her in the first place! (emphasis mine):
Sadly, the sort of husband who demands his pastor or elders reduce his wife to submission to him is the sort of man who is generally pathetic. Often he can’t face his own failures in leadership, so he drops his wife on the pastors and elders demanding they do what he couldn’t or wouldn’t.
Don’t let him manipulate you into feeling responsible for his dilemma. You can pity him. You can sympathize with him. You can help him. But don’t let him place the responsibility for his wife’s conduct in his home on you. He married her. His sins have added to the problem. He bought the farm and now he is responsible to run it.
…
Don’t go to the elders and tell them it’s their responsibility to discipline your wife into submission.
It isn’t.
Related:
- Will Wilcox and the men of National Review respect you in the morning?
- Is Christian marriage only for elite women?
- The unbearable cuteness of complementarianism.
