I received a PM from a user who I'll keep anonymous. The issue seemed to be a common enough one to warrant sharing this with the rest of the community. For context, although is wife isn't a lawyer, she often acts like one (and irrationally so) during arguments, which prompted the following.

Parts in brackets are things I've added that weren't in my original comment reply.


What advice would you have for dealing with a female "lawyer" without a judge to dish out a final ruling?

You must have missed this post I made on MRP a couple months ago ;)

Long story short, you're positioning yourself as her peer when you argue with her. You're the Plaintiff and she's the Defendant and vice versa, and the judge is some mythical ideology that never actually steps in. [You create your own frame. If you think of yourself as the opposing counsel, that's a weak frame; if you think of yourself as the judge, that's a stronger frame. If you think of yourself as God to her, that's the ideal frame. Let me explain ...]

Of course, we know that God and his standard are ultimately the true judge, but God isn't going to step in any more than he was willing to communicate with Aaron in Exodus 4. God allowed Moses to work alongside Aaron, but specifically declined to talk to him. Instead, God appointed Moses to be the one to communicate with Aaron, saying, "you shall be as God to him" (4:16). [You should be as God to your wife.]

This is how it works in marriages too. 1 Cor. 11:3 says, "But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." In other words, just as it was God > Moses > Aaron > Israelites, so also in your marriage is it God > Jesus > Husband > Wife.

A few chapters later Paul affirms this in 14:35: "If [wives] want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home." Where in there do you see a suggestion that your wife should debate you? Or more to your situation: she's going to debate you and you can't stop her, so where in there do you see an implication that you should let her debate you and act like she's the final judge? That's on you to set straight. [Again, you decide your frame.]

The point is clear that even though God is the judge who can settle disputes between you and your wife, he's not going to step in and do that because he appointed you for that role. He won't tell your wife the answer because he put you in charge to do that instead. Discipleship could not work as Christ modeled if God just stepped in and did everything himself.

To that end, ask yourself: Why did Paul write the books of Philippians, Romans, Ephesians, Galtians, etc.? Why did God say all of those things through Paul? Why not communicate directly to the heads of the churches at Philippi, Rome, Ephesus, etc.? Or one step further: why even use those church pastors and not communicate to the people in the church directly?

The answer is, of course, that God wants us making disciples. This is what Jesus modeled and established with his church, his bride. This is what he ordered in Scripture [to] be the established structure between husbands and wives. This is also the way that all of the church was commissioned in Matthew 28:19-20 to bring the Gospel to the nations.

Summary: don't debate with your wife as an opposing equal; hear out what she has to say as the judge.

Remember that God's actual design for authoritative leadership was not one of Kingship, which he specifically rejected in 1 Samuel 9 - it was the establishment of judges and prophets, which Israel followed in before Saul entered the picture. I'd rather be a judge or prophet under God's headship than a king of my own authority. Of course, I couldn't put most of that in the post to MRP because the secular world simply can't understand this biblical premise. The "return of kings" concept is cool, but God never intended kingship in the first place. That was only a concession he made. As the prophet, your role is to discern God's will and lead your family in it. As the judge, your role is to hear arguments in a dispute and decide what must be done.


It's the getting to a point of consensus that's a royal pain in the [butt].

Ah, but that's the easiest part, and the way you frame this comes from some lingering blue pill mentality. You see "consensus" as an ideal that must be reached in all arguments with your wife. But who instilled that idea in you? Who is making you think you must reach a "consensus" with your wife on anything?

  • It might be her. So, are you going to let her be the one to decide how arguments are resolved in the household? That it must be by "consensus"? No, that's your decision to make.

  • It might be society. But that wasn't society's imperative for centuries. This is only a recent phenomenon. Until feminism crept up, most men did what they would do and their wives accepted it and helped them along the way. The societal imperative to give your wife an equal voice - that a "consensus" must be reached for the marriage to work - is inconsistent with the incredible divorce rates.

    • Simply put, most people will never reach a true consensus on anything, and constant compromise damages the integrity of the mission of the family (be it discipleship or anything else). It's like there are two paths to reach the same destination, you're each pulling toward opposite paths, so you end up walking not on either path, but on the weedy, overgrown, thorn-laden marsh between the two paths. It's highly inefficient. Don't let society tell you what to do, especially when society is dominated by feminism.

Of course, if you personally decide that "consensus" is an ideal that you want to maintain in your household, that's fine. You're the leader. It's your prerogative to decide what you value and what works and not. But don't make that decision because society seems to idolize it. Make it of your own evaluation and assessment of what you believe is best for your family.

And if you do decide that "consensus" is something you want to maintain as an ideal in your home and it's causing your marriage great difficulty ... well, there's nothing I can do for you. At that point you will have chosen to value an unnecessary ideal that has proven to be unmanageable, and you accept those consequences when you decide what conflict-resolution ideals you want to establish in your marriage. You may experience some advantages in doing this, but you must also accept the disadvantages where they come, and the inability to reach a consensus on all points of argument is one of the major pitfalls of incorporating consensus into your conflict-resolution model.