Curate outrages congregation by telling women to 'be silent and submit to your husban

Catari Jaguar

With Valentine's Day approaching, the parishioners might have expected a more heartwarming message.

Instead, they got a sermon at St Nicholas Church in Sevenoaks, Kent, urging women to 'submit' to their husbands. The apparent lack of obedience of 'modern women' was also blamed for Britain's high divorce rate.

In a sermon entitled 'Marriage and women' last Sunday, the curate Mark Oden, a married father of three, told the congregation: 'We know marriage is not working. We only need to look at figures - one in four children have divorced parents. 'Wives, submit to your own husbands.'

Pretty shocking stuff! Really backwards thinking. Does any man really believe this? What do you ladies think of it all?

Article

princess-lala

That fella obviously thinks the world is going backwards instead of forwards :eek:

time42play

I chose whatever reading had the "wives obey your husband" line for my wedding. I think you can tell by that how seriously I took having to get married in the church, LOL! I was surprised OH let me away with it, really.

Jules

In all fairness it's typical of the way most churches/religons view a womans role. Its all backwards.

Giselle

The church's vicar is Angus MacLeay, 50, a married father of two who is a leading member of the evangelical group Reform, which is opposed to the appointment of women clergy.

The group has produced a leaflet, called 'The role of women in the local church', which uses Biblical quotes urging them to 'remain silent' and informing them 'wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.'

The key is right there.

He's an 'evangelical' Christian - read 'fundamentalist'.

Rubbish uttered to garner publicity, and it worked.

Catari Jaguar

Scary to think that there are nutjobs out there that follow the bible verbatim, no matter how offensive and outdated it is... Wonder what his wife thinks.

Giselle

Lil Kitten wrote: »

Scary to think that there are nutjobs out there that follow the bible verbatim, no matter how offensive and outdated it is... Wonder what his wife thinks.

She doesn't, thats why she married him.

Or if she did she's given up now. All that silence and submission does stuff to you.:)

dammitjanet

Giselle wrote: »

She doesn't, thats why she married him.

Or if she did she's given up now. All that silence and submission does stuff to you.:)

legend

Alessandra

Hardly surprising. The Church has generally always held women in a more subservient role to men.

panda100

Lil Kitten wrote: »

Pretty shocking stuff! Really backwards thinking. Does any man really believe this? What do you ladies think of it all?

Article

Its my understanding that evangelicals place a large emphasis on bible authority, thus it is not suprising that an evangelical preacher would urge women to be submissive to men as this is explicitly stated repeatedly in the Old Testament.
At least this man is sticking to what the Bible teaches instead of picking and choosing what he likes from it to suit his own lifestyle.

Wibbs

The joke is it wasnt always thus. Jesus was actually surprisingly equal for the time and far more than most other Abrahamic sects. If you built a time machine and brought Jesus to the present time there would be some arse kicking going on in various churches, not least about the role of women in his notion of spirituality. That curate I suspect would get his ear bent. In the early church it was as much women spreading the faith as men.

Ditto for the early church in Ireland. Many monastic settlements had women as heads, never mind equals. That equality found to a lesser extent in the coptic churches when added to indigenous Irish Celtic traditions would have been regarded as daft if thought otherwise. Brigid being a classic example. Annals of the time outside Ireland note this with some incredulity.

Imperial Rome came along and that was the end of that sadly and women like Mary Magdalene and his other women followers were either noted as reformed whores(which she isnt described as in the texts) or sidelined.

Giselle wrote:

She doesn't, thats why she married him.

Or if she did she's given up now. All that silence and submission does stuff to you.

globemaster1986

Oh no he didn't!:D

Sounds like a radical type and obviously the clown has no dealings with women! He'll learn the hard way

Jules

He is married and is the head of his congragation, i would say he has plenty of dealings with woman.

panda100

Wibbs wrote: »

The joke is it wasnt always thus. Jesus was actually surprisingly equal for the time and far more than most other Abrahamic sects. If you built a time machine and brought Jesus to the present time there would be some arse kicking going on in various churches, not least about the role of women in his notion of spirituality. That curate I suspect would get his ear bent. In the early church it was as much women spreading the faith as men.

Oh Yes, Jesus whole attitude to women was pretty revoloutinary of its time and is one of the main reasons so many women flocked to the new religion at the time.
Unfortunately St.Paul et al decided to discard Jesus, aka Son of God's, views on women and stick to Socrates sexist ideals instead,hence shaping Christianity into a pretty mysoginistic religion.

OMG!

Church in treating women like shít SHOCKER!

globemaster1986

Jules wrote: »

He is married and is the head of his congragation, i would say he has plenty of dealings with woman.

Ya i probably should have read that properly!:D His wife must be spineless then

Cicero

....... the newspaper equivalent of a discussion board troll?....similar thread in TGC but currently under review....a lot of quotations out of context or unsubstantiated to give it any substance or credibility as a serious discusion topic....MHO..:)

panda100

globemaster1986 wrote: »

Ya i probably should have read that properly!:D His wife must be spineless then

Its not really fair to call his wife spineless.His views have absolutely nothing to do with his wife's charcter but from what the bible and church authority have been spouting for thousands of years.They've warped Jesus teaching to suit their own agenda which is to keep women oppressed and men in powerful positions.

philologos

Ephesians 5:22-32 wrote:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Make of this what you will.

Giselle

I'm no biblical scholar but what I take from ^ that is that women should trust their husbands judgement because someone must have the last say. I get this, given the times it was written in and the generaly patriarchal lean of the times.

From the second paragraph what I see is that husbands should take care of their wives not only because its the right and kind thing to do, but because it also reflects well on them to the rest of society if they behave in a kind and fair way and are considerate husbands.

Worse things have been written about male/female relationships, and in the context of the times it refers to, its all appropriate.

Whats inappropriate is the curate trying to apply it to a society thats moved on by a couple of thousand years, where we see husbands and wives as partners to one another.

PopUp

I don't think you can quote Eph 5:22-32 without including Eph 5:21:

21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Giselle wrote:

someone must have the last say

I'm a pretty committed atheist so bear that in mind. But I actually think that the idea of this chapter and tbh most of Jesus' teachings in the New Testament (as others in the thread have pointed out) is actually not that 'someone has to have the last say'. The idea is that everybody ought to go out of their way to put others first. So in a marriage if you disagree it's not that the husband should get the 'deciding vote' but rather true Christians should put each other first.

And actually while I have a lot of problems with plenty of the Church's teaching I do think 'submit to one another' is a pretty decent recipe for a happy marriage. Well most of the time anyway.

Stella777

I have an acquaintance who is into all of that. She calls it being a surrendered wife. She's not religious, though. From what she's told me, she believes that as "Man of the House," her husband is more qualified to make the decisions.

So she submits to him and allows him to make ALL, and I mean all, of the decisions for her, and for the family as a whole down to the clothes she wears and what she eats. I don't know her well enough to really probe deeply into her motives for living this way, but from what I can tell, she seems happy. That said, my personal take on it is that she's found a way to keep herslef in a permanent state of childhood.

Think about it. If someone else is making all of the decisions for you, then you never have to really grow up and take ownership of your life. Anything goes wrong and there's always someone else to blame.

I can see how a certain kind of man might enjoy such power, but I can also imagine that it would be a lot of pressure and responsibility! They have two small daughters...I wonder what they will think when they're old enough to see that most other famlies do not live like this.

goose2005

Stella777 wrote: »

So she submits to him and allows him to make ALL, and I mean all, of the decisions for her, and for the family as a whole down to the clothes she wears and what she eats. I don't know her well enough to really probe deeply into her motives for living this way, but from what I can tell, she seems happy. That said, my personal take on it is that she's found a way to keep herslef in a permanent state of childhood.

Think about it. If someone else is making all of the decisions for you, then you never have to really grow up and take ownership of your life. Anything goes wrong and there's always someone else to blame.

tbh there are a lot of husbands who end up in that state too, although in more of an unconscious way...

philologos

Slightly more useful than the previous, make of the sermon what you will.

panda100

On a similar vein, did anyone just watch the programme on Channel 4 on Women in the bible, as part of the 'The History of the bible' series?

I found it very interesting particularly the exploration of the story behind Jezebel. She actually seems like a strong willed women who really stuck up for what she believed in, a much better role model than boring,virginal Mary whom we know little about.
Its amazing considering the dreadful overtones the name Jezebel has.The assumption it suggests an evil, promiscous women are completely unfounded.

Catari Jaguar

Yea I caught the end of that Panda! Crazy stuff.

goose2005

panda100 wrote: »

On a similar vein, did anyone just watch the programme on Channel 4 on Women in the bible, as part of the 'The History of the bible' series?

I found it very interesting particularly the exploration of the story behind Jezebel. She actually seems like a strong willed women who really stuck up for what she believed in, a much better role model than boring,virginal Mary whom we know little about.
Its amazing considering the dreadful overtones the name Jezebel has.The assumption it suggests an evil, promiscous women are completely unfounded.

But the reason she's seen as evil is that she promoted an evil pagan god (Ba'al) in place of the Israelite God.

Coriolanus

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Well, it is in the Bible after all!

"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."

:pac:
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica] [/FONT]

panda100

goose2005 wrote: »

But the reason she's seen as evil is that she promoted an evil pagan god (Ba'al) in place of the Israelite God.

Yes ,I didnt realise that. I always presumed she was some sort of evil seductress or promiscous queen as thats what the name Jezebel conjures up. Yet all she did was protect her heritage and her religon by promoting who she thought to be her God, Ba'al.

Nevyn

You should look into the stories of Lilth

Emme

Stella777 wrote: »

I have an acquaintance who is into all of that. She calls it being a surrendered wife. She's not religious, though. From what she's told me, she believes that as "Man of the House," her husband is more qualified to make the decisions.

So she submits to him and allows him to make ALL, and I mean all, of the decisions for her, and for the family as a whole down to the clothes she wears and what she eats. I don't know her well enough to really probe deeply into her motives for living this way, but from what I can tell, she seems happy. That said, my personal take on it is that she's found a way to keep herslef in a permanent state of childhood.

Think about it. If someone else is making all of the decisions for you, then you never have to really grow up and take ownership of your life. Anything goes wrong and there's always someone else to blame.

I can see how a certain kind of man might enjoy such power, but I can also imagine that it would be a lot of pressure and responsibility! They have two small daughters...I wonder what they will think when they're old enough to see that most other famlies do not live like this.

:eek::eek::eek:

I'd imagine that the daughters will grow up to be submissive like their mother or full of anger and outrage with a strong sense of feminist justice. Eitherways it won't be healthy. I'd prefer the angry option myself. :mad:

seamus

Emme wrote: »

:eek::eek::eek:

I'd imagine that the daughters will grow up to be submissive like their mother or full of anger and outrage with a strong sense of feminist justice. Eitherways it won't be healthy. I'd prefer the angry option myself. :mad:

It's a common enough thing to see women choosing men who take the "lead role" in a marriage and are in charge. There are plenty of cases of women who will, for example, choose to marry a Muslim man and convert to Islam because they are drawn to the strongly mysogynistic message of the Koran and believe that men are superior to women.

This all largely comes down to upbringing. By and large we all emulate exactly the kind of relationship we saw with our parents. Children from abusive parents become abusive parents, one-parent children become single parents and so on. That's in a general sense - many people break the mould, but most don't. So daughters of patriarchal families are drawn to domineering men. Likewise sons of matriarchal families are usually drawn to domineering women.

That's not to say that genetics doesn't play a part either. Many women and men, while recognising human equality are also more comfortable and happier with the traditional roles of breadwinner male and homemaker female. That doesn't preclude that either partner must be in charge of the relationship though.

This curate in his fundamentalist beliefs obviously is of the opinion that men are superior to women when it comes to directing the family.

Emme

seamus wrote: »

It's a common enough thing to see women choosing men who take the "lead role" in a marriage and are in charge. There are plenty of cases of women who will, for example, choose to marry a Muslim man and convert to Islam because they are drawn to the strongly mysogynistic message of the Koran and believe that men are superior to women.

This all largely comes down to upbringing. By and large we all emulate exactly the kind of relationship we saw with our parents. Children from abusive parents become abusive parents, one-parent children become single parents and so on. That's in a general sense - many people break the mould, but most don't. So daughters of patriarchal families are drawn to domineering men. Likewise sons of matriarchal families are usually drawn to domineering women.

I don't agree. I grew up in a house where Mum was very submissive, still is, and gave in to my Dad on everything. When he was out of the house she'd cry to me about it, saying that he didn't value her and only wanted her for the work she did. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't stand up to him at the time but would give out about it afterwards. Naturally he expected me to do the same :mad: but I rebelled. He wanted me to stay in the family home after I left school and not go to college or have a career/life of my own. I was extremely angry in my teens and 20s, very strident and outspoken but got into an abusive relationship where the guy hit me - I walked out. I'm in my 30s now and single and don't know if I'll ever settle down with a guy because the red mist descends whenever a guy tries to boss me around!

Things were very bad for my Mum a few years ago and she'd complain to me about it, I and some other family members tried to help her and get her to leave but she wouldn't so we collectively had to let her do what she has been doing for years, putting up and shutting up. It wasn't easy, but she has learnt to live with the situation and her way of coping is to complain to us but to stay. She's afraid of change.

As regards Muslims, I don't think that women have as bad a deal as the media would have us believe. Just like Christianity, there are different branches of Islam and maybe women are treated differently depending on which branch of Islam they follow. In Catholic countries like Italy and Ireland you often have very strong women at the head of the household. You're less likely find that in fundamentalist Christian families. I have also noticed that Protestant families are more likely to be patriarchial than Catholic families.

seamus

Emme wrote: »

I don't agree. I grew up in a house where Mum was very submissive, still is, and gave in to my Dad on everything. When he was out of the house she'd cry to me about it, saying that he didn't value her and only wanted her for the work she did. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't stand up to him at the time but would give out about it afterwards. Naturally he expected me to do the same :mad: but I rebelled. He wanted me to stay in the family home after I left school and not go to college or have a career/life of my own. I was extremely angry in my teens and 20s, very strident and outspoken but got into an abusive relationship where the guy hit me - I walked out. I'm in my 30s now and single and don't know if I'll ever settle down with a guy because the red mist descends whenever a guy tries to boss me around!

Without going into you specifically, I did say that some people break the mould. Certainly with the massive leaps in education and social enlightenment over the last 40 years, it's much more common now for the cycle to be broken than it would have been back in good old catholic Ireland, but it's still by far the majority who continue on the same routines that their parents did. To a limit anyway - there's much more social stigma now around physical spousal abuse, but that doesn't stop one partner from asserting dominance in other ways.

Catari Jaguar

My mam has her head screwed on and is definitely a tag team force with my Dad. She knows her mind and does not cave in. I'm a lot like that in my relationship...

My aunt (her sister in law), she got pregnant at 20 and there was a shot gun wedding. My mam was horrified by this, and pretty judgemental as she was a virgin until she got married apparently.

My aunt has EIGHT children. Most are only a year apart. She told my Mam "Oh, I would never refuse my husband". Unbelievable! :eek: Her husband X jokes about keeping them barefoot and pregnant. My Mam joked "X coming home drunk and randy, wife in bed just rolls over and opens the legs. I'd tell your Dad to feck off, I'm trying to sleep!"

Lockstep

Alessandra wrote: »

Hardly surprising. The Church has generally always held women in a more subservient role to men.

This case has nothing to do with the Church. St Nicholas is Anglican Evangelical.

Lockstep

panda100 wrote: »

Oh Yes, Jesus whole attitude to women was pretty revoloutinary of its time and is one of the main reasons so many women flocked to the new religion at the time.
Unfortunately St.Paul et al decided to discard Jesus, aka Son of God's, views on women and stick to Socrates sexist ideals instead,hence shaping Christianity into a pretty mysoginistic religion.

St Paul had a pretty mixed record on women.

Corinthains 1:7, 4: For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does.

Edit; Jakass beat me to it.

Emme

seamus wrote: »

Without going into you specifically, I did say that some people break the mould. Certainly with the massive leaps in education and social enlightenment over the last 40 years, it's much more common now for the cycle to be broken than it would have been back in good old catholic Ireland, but it's still by far the majority who continue on the same routines that their parents did. To a limit anyway - there's much more social stigma now around physical spousal abuse, but that doesn't stop one partner from asserting dominance in other ways.

It's true that we Irish women have grasped education and the opportunity to earn our own money with both hands. We aren't as willing to be submissive and blindly placate every male whim like our predecessors. Unfortunately not all Irish men appreciate this and some actively seek out women from poorer cultures where women are submissive to men and don't answer back. When Irish women question this we're accused of being harsh and unfeminine.

Ireland may be a predominantly Catholic country, but the minister in question is Anglican Evangelical. It's a bit more extreme than Church of Ireland (which I am) but there are similarities.

It isn't just the church who encouraged women to be submissive, well not in the past anyway. An elderly Dublin woman told me a story about a neighbour of hers who would get regular beatings from her drunken husband in the 1960s. The neighbours called the gardai one night because the woman and her children were screaming blue murder and when the gardai arrived one of them apparently took a look at the bruised woman and said to her "you go and make love to your husband now and that will stop him from beating you!"

panda100

kickoutthejams wrote: »

St Paul had a pretty mixed record on women.

Corinthains 1:7, 4: For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does.

Edit; Jakass beat me to it.

Yep he definatly did try and recognise the mutual interdependence of both men and women. However, what he did change was how the world views the body and particualry the female body.

Corinthians 7:1-9: 'It is good for a man not to touch a women'
He seemed to be rather disgusted by the temptation and desire that women bodies envoke,something that really was his own issue's and not Jesus's. His bleak view of human sexuality provided justification for the what was to become an increasingly mysoginistic church.

Also Im not 100% sure but don't Anglican evangelicals still believe in the Old and New Testament?

miec

Think about it. If someone else is making all of the decisions for you, then you never have to really grow up and take ownership of your life. Anything goes wrong and there's always someone else to blame.

I think that is why some women choose to be surrendered / submissive wives, they don't have to grow up or make any decisions.

I have often wondered how women lost their authority and autonomy when the early christian church was formed.

He seemed to be rather disgusted by the temptation and desire that women bodies envoke,something that really was his own issue's and not Jesus's. His bleak view of human sexuality provided justification for the what was to become an increasingly mysoginistic church.

I think a lot of the church founders had issues with female sexuality, or more importantly their own response to it and tried to contain it through their writings. I have one theory as to how we lost our power and that was maybe the early church female founders relied on the oral tradition and the writers of the bible and other religious texts were male. Was it because men wrote stuff down that it became inculculated into our culture, religions and ways of being? I cannot think of any female religious writers apart from Ruth in the bible and I had read somewhere that Mary Magdalene had written a gospel but was lost, so if anyone else knows more let me know but if we think of the early greek, roman and christian writers, they were all men and it is their teachings that we took in throughout our history until women became educated and writing for themselves.

miec

ps: I had to laugh at the sermon by that evangelist but since he reads the bible as a literal text then he can't help being a blinkered old dinasour.

Also I wonder how patriarchy has effected men over the ages, you know those men that felt overwhelmed with being responsbile for a wife and family. I have often felt that patriarchy has subjugated both sexes.

Lockstep

panda100 wrote: »

Yep he definatly did try and recognise the mutual interdependence of both men and women. However, what he did change was how the world views the body and particualry the female body.

I'm not really sure he did that to be honest.

panda100 wrote: »

Corinthians 7:1-9: 'It is good for a man not to touch a women'
He seemed to be rather disgusted by the temptation and desire that women bodies envoke,something that really was his own issue's and not Jesus's. His bleak view of human sexuality provided justification for the what was to become an increasingly mysoginistic church.

You're quoting out of context a bit;

Corinthians 7 wrote: »

Now in regard to the matters about which you wrote: "It is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman,"
but because of cases of immorality every man should have his own wife, and every woman her own husband.
The husband should fulfill his duty toward his wife, and likewise the wife toward her husband.
A wife does not have authority over her own body, but rather her husband, and similarly a husband does not have authority over his own body, but rather his wife.
Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another, so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control.
This I say by way of concession, however, not as a command.
Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am, but each has a particular gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
Now to the unmarried and to widows, I say: it is a good thing for them to remain as they are, as I do,
but if they cannot exercise self-control they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be on fire.

He was basically saying that it's a great thing to be chaste and move away from physical needs but recognises that it's not practical for most people. Therefore husband and wife can and should have sex.
Hell, I can't think of a more beautiful way of describing marriage than

Ephesians 5 wrote: »

"That is why a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh."

panda100 wrote: »

Also Im not 100% sure but don't Anglican evangelicals still believe in the Old and New Testament?

Most Christians believe in the Old and New Testament. The question is what exactly they believe and what needs to be looked at in a modern context. Catholics for example draw a distinction between a moral teaching in the Old Testament (do not kill) and a practical one (do not get tattood/eat pork).
As far as I know, Anglicans are not fundamentalists and therefore do not take the Old Testament verbatim.

Catari Jaguar

Emme wrote: »

I

It isn't just the church who encouraged women to be submissive, well not in the past anyway. An elderly Dublin woman told me a story about a neighbour of hers who would get regular beatings from her drunken husband in the 1960s. The neighbours called the gardai one night because the woman and her children were screaming blue murder and when the gardai arrived one of them apparently took a look at the bruised woman and said to her "you go and make love to your husband now and that will stop him from beating you!"

Words cannot describe how wrong that is.

ItisintheSTARS

Wibbs wrote: »

The joke is it wasnt always thus. Jesus was actually surprisingly equal for the time and far more than most other Abrahamic sects. If you built a time machine and brought Jesus to the present time there would be some arse kicking going on in various churches, not least about the role of women in his notion of spirituality. That curate I suspect would get his ear bent. In the early church it was as much women spreading the faith as men.

Ditto for the early church in Ireland. Many monastic settlements had women as heads, never mind equals. That equality found to a lesser extent in the coptic churches when added to indigenous Irish Celtic traditions would have been regarded as daft if thought otherwise. Brigid being a classic example. Annals of the time outside Ireland note this with some incredulity.

Imperial Rome came along and that was the end of that sadly and women like Mary Magdalene and his other women followers were either noted as reformed whores(which she isnt described as in the texts) or sidelined.

Yes until recently I did not realise how much Ireland's Christianity was our OWN .
I found a book written by a French Jesuit of the 1820's in French on Ireland ,and her history,saying just what you are saying ,and more.
From what he says, I would think that many of his kind were critical of Rome's interference in the Irish Church.
Not all priests were ,are 'sheep'.
May be time to reintroduce these ideas for the New Christianity.

ItisintheSTARS

Emme wrote: »

I don't agree. I grew up in a house where Mum was very submissive, still is, and gave in to my Dad on everything. When he was out of the house she'd cry to me about it, saying that he didn't value her and only wanted her for the work she did. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't stand up to him at the time but would give out about it afterwards. Naturally he expected me to do the same :mad: but I rebelled. He wanted me to stay in the family home after I left school and not go to college or have a career/life of my own. I was extremely angry in my teens and 20s, very strident and outspoken but got into an abusive relationship where the guy hit me - I walked out. I'm in my 30s now and single and don't know if I'll ever settle down with a guy because the red mist descends whenever a guy tries to boss me around!

Things were very bad for my Mum a few years ago and she'd complain to me about it, I and some other family members tried to help her and get her to leave but she wouldn't so we collectively had to let her do what she has been doing for years, putting up and shutting up. It wasn't easy, but she has learnt to live with the situation and her way of coping is to complain to us but to stay. She's afraid of change.

As regards Muslims, I don't think that women have as bad a deal as the media would have us believe. Just like Christianity, there are different branches of Islam and maybe women are treated differently depending on which branch of Islam they follow. In Catholic countries like Italy and Ireland you often have very strong women at the head of the household. You're less likely find that in fundamentalist Christian families. I have also noticed that Protestant families are more likely to be patriarchial than Catholic families.

Agree with you .
My good Catholic aunts ruled the 'hearth'.
I think many of the problems of men stem from women not giving their place.
The best relationship I have seen in my own family is where a brothers wife gives him his place,and she has hers ,as a strong but not domineering woman.
He was a bit bad tempered,but instead of belittling him,she praised him when neccessary ,but would never let him bully her,and often she wrote him letters to 'teach' him,and explain what she felt.
As the years have gone on their relationship is sustaining and creative still.
Women should not belittle men,who often are more fragile psycically ,because of their fear of womens 'power 'of reproduction[a woman knows it is 'her 'child, a man has to have a faithful wife.]
As a very liberated woman myself ,I hate to see women who act like men,or vice versa.
Each has strengths and weaknesses to be enjoyed.

rainbow kirby

ItisintheSTARS wrote: »

As a very liberated woman myself ,I hate to see women who act like men,or vice versa.
Each has strengths and weaknesses to be enjoyed.

What exactly do you mean by "women who act like men"?

ItisintheSTARS

Lil Kitten wrote: »

Words cannot describe how wrong that is.

Yes for a long time it was common,but not always.
when times are very hard ,people ,both men and women become afraid ,and ?
However the position taken by the churches in general made things
worse. It would have been better to explain logically why women must be
loyal to their husbands,and why men were afraid.
There are good and bad on both sides.
Hopefully this nonsense can become a thing of the past,but women
of today can be very bad.
In France the 'crime passionelle' was exonerated as murder ?
If we see the whole picture ,it helps.

ItisintheSTARS

rainbow kirby wrote: »

What exactly do you mean by "women who act like men"?

We are a balance of male and female genes.
Men have more testesterone than most women.
As we interact in the world ,and in relationships,we can decide to act on the feminine strengths of understanding of the inner process of being human,the 'yin' rather than the 'yang',venus instead of mars.
It is a mistake to think that true power lies in being 'masculine'.
That is a function of action extroverted [mars],but a lot of action is introverted too like mine [venus ,moon] and this leads to longer term
'power'.
Many lesbians have taken on the external power as being the most important,and in becoming more masculine,they look more masculine,and viceversa for men,who have suffered from the 'mother 'who emasculated them,or saw them as a girl / or lover. etc
The best compliment I ever had was from a 'gay' man who said that although I was intelligent ,I was also feminine.
And one could see that he himself ,had not had that experience.
A domineering ,mother etc

Emme

Lil Kitten wrote: »

Words cannot describe how wrong that is.

How wrong is what? Explain please. Were you a Garda in the 1960s? Maybe it wasn't in line with Garda policies of the time but an elderly woman told me about that incident and she wasn't a woman who told lies. I am only going on what she told me, I wasn't present to witness the incident myself but Ireland was very different "back in the day".

Maybe not so different. About 10 years ago there was a rumour going around our small rural neighbourhood that a local (politically well connected) man was beating his pregnant wife. Gardai went around the neighbourhood and asked everyone had they heard rumours that this man was beating his wife! Most people said no and the Gardai said that was ok because the rumours were untrue. Why would Gardai go around door to door asking questions like that and saying that the rumours were untrue? Would they not enquire about the welfare of the woman instead?

sophielc

Good thing I never got married, in the church or otherwise.

I guess when you get married it's for life but in some situations, for example if one of the people in the relationship is unfaithful, treats the other without respect or in cases of domestic abuse, all of which can happen both ways (the man or woman can be at fault), the marriage cannot last.

The comment :"wifes, submit to your husbands" is ridiculous. No person in their right mind would choose to submit to another person, man or woman; last time I checked, slavery was abolished so that guy is really talking rubbish. It would have been more acceptable to say something like: " husbands and wives, treat your partners with respect and work at preserving you relationships".

Emme

ItisintheSTARS wrote: »

Women should not belittle men,who often are more fragile psycically ,because of their fear of womens 'power 'of reproduction[a woman knows it is 'her 'child, a man has to have a faithful wife.]

And once a woman's power of reproduction is gone what is left? Post-menopausal women are often treated worse than women of childbearing age so what has fear of women's power of reproduction got to do with it? Maybe all these men want is a pretty little dolly they can pick up, play with and put down again at whim.