I offer here for your edification my perceptions as a prophet of God. I cannot pretend my word binds you. Revelation does not work that way. Rather, I seek to stimulate a discussion between you and God. In the end, you'll have to carry on your own negotiations. It's not a question of what applies, but how it applies. You are not bound to me, but to God. To the degree what I offer calls out to you, so much are you obliged to discuss it with Him.
I am a prophet of God's Laws. While the core message of the gospel has gone out over all the earth, almost everyone seems to forget the original path to the gospel was always God's Laws. They want to forget the gate of eternal life is repentance. As a corollary to this problem is the horrific confusion between the Two Realms, and what belongs to each. Some things are a matter of Laws, and some a matter of grace. The two are inextricably linked, but our minds cannot implement grace fully and properly unless we understand how it relates to Laws. I am not a preacher, not a pastor, but an elder and prophet. My calling is an emphasis on administrative matters of the Body of Christ, and that means an emphasis on God's Laws.
In passing I'll note "Laws" as a technical term is not merely Moses, but the underlying Covenant of Noah and all the other Law Covenants implied or stated. Moses is a particular instance, a highly specific example, of the broader Laws of God for mankind. We abstract principles from the narrative of Scripture because that is why God gave the intellect. Laws are revealed, are the imperatives God lays upon humanity on this fallen plane, binding on all life. The whole of Creation responds to moral virtue, and God Himself personally supports lawful thinking and lawful conduct. It serves to symbolize what grace intends for mankind, and is the one proper path to implementing grace. Each living and breathing human has a duty before God to seek an understanding of His Laws as they apply in the context of that individual life. It also applies to all human organization, to all human governments, starting from the nuclear family and stretching across the whole of humanity. There are no excuses or exemptions, but each must strive to discern for themselves what it requires.
Marriage and family is primarily a matter of Laws. Grace and spiritual awareness are not excluded, but are frankly not required to make it work right. A good marriage is God's promised blessing based on the Laws, offered to all fallen humanity. It is not fundamental to human life, but is fundamental to human society. Society stands on marriage, and falls apart when marriage is not done lawfully in God's eyes. Aside from the microcosm of normal human friendships, there is no society without a good marriage base.
Our society is currently in decline, and Western Civilization is dying, chiefly because we have perverted marriage and the family unit. We are on the threshold of a horrific period of tribulation. God's blessings are not dead; the basic promises of reasonable prosperity, safety and security, and social stability are still available. The depth of these blessings will be highly limited by the lack of a lawful social structure around us. To the degree those promises can be appropriated, it must begin with just and lawful marriage and family household structure. We are obliged by God's Laws to rebuild and reclaim what marriage was supposed to be.
In the process of reclaiming this ground of blessing, we will correct a great many other injustices. Getting a lawful marriage and household means being what men and women should be. That requires understanding what men and women are, and what they cannot be. The Garden of Eden is gone. We are under the curse of the Fall. On this plane of existence we cannot return there. To return means leaving this world; that's a part of what the symbol of the flaming sword tells us. On the level of grace and spirit, it means something else, but on the level of the Laws it means we can't pretend to go back there. We have to make the most of what we have where we are outside the Garden.
Right now, our understanding of manhood, womanhood and the family household is very badly broken. We are far, far from what God intended for fallen human society.
What are we stuck with? Let's start with the man, since he was created first.
"Because you obeyed your wife
and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,
'You must not eat from it,'
cursed is the ground thanks to you;
in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
but you will eat the grain of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat food
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you will return."
(Genesis 3:17-19)
Men need to work. They need to do things, and not just anything. Each man is born with a complex collection of character traits which give rise to some sort of drive, a sense of mission. Not so deeply buried is a powerful need to accomplish something, to gain recognition for achievement, to be remembered. This is not quite the same as the basic human need for validation, but a more highly developed male character trait.
Most men can, within the context of their lives, identify something they do well enough to keep doing it. This is not necessarily the same as what interests them, or gives them a sense of adventure and bold manhood. It's simply what pays the bills. Truly blessed is the fellow who finds both in the same occupation. Because it is so rare for such a combination in these modern times, most men have jobs plus hobbies. Without hobbies, most men are dead inside, and the death spreads like gangrene to their whole existence.
This all arises from the quintessential need to provide for material needs. At it's more primitive level, this is the hunter gatherer. For more civilized people, it means domesticating your crops and prey and keeping other predators away. Some are better at the long term viewpoint than others, but men get hungry and will act to feed themselves. They'll feed others when they find it in their interest to do so. A certain amount of generosity comes instinctively with the need to achieve some greatness. The instinct includes making babies to carry their memory. Unless severely damaged, the man will always provide for his own, because that's part of what makes him great in society.
Circumstances can pervert this in all kinds of ways. The difference between a reformer and a crook might be no more than social opportunity. An overly structured and strictured social context will make life unbearable for most men, forcing them to live in two worlds inside themselves. The artificial compartmentalization gives rise to some of the worst miseries, and some of the most dangerous and criminal-producing societies in history. An overly loose structure leads to more overt chaos.
Most men can be decent most of the time if it's encouraged. The vast variation in manhood itself should not be a threat simply because it's inconvenient for those in charge. Most governments and societies fail because decent men don't really want to be in charge without a sufficient time to grow mature and feel competent before taking up the harness. Those who are eager are either fools or psychopaths. The latter will always appear in some small measure, and too many societies make no plans to deal with them. Instead, they drive some into that sort of lifestyle. They tend to limit opportunities for those who really need to find themselves outside the mainstream in order to do good. Society will produce good men when it never forgets what they need and how they are encouraged.
"I will greatly increase your labor pains;
with pain you will give birth to children.
You will want to control your husband,
but he will dominate you."
(Genesis 3:16)
Women are nest builders.
Unless somehow very damaged, a woman will always operate from an instinct to capture a man, have his children and build a household to raise them. She will always seek the best provider, the most admirable and high status she can catch. They know it depends on being as feminine as possible, and will seek to shape their appearance to whatever seems to appeal most to the men they seek.
Sadly, she is also wired to trade up if possible, at least until children are born. If she already has them, she knows few men will raise the children of another.
Women are more inclined to be self-deceived. It's not as simple as saying they are more emotional; that much is obvious. Rather, they are less likely to consider all the long term implications of choices until they are older. Their sense of purpose in any given context is more variable and they can be rather opportunistic about how to achieve long term nest stability. They tend to fear disturbances over which they have no control and are easily driven from one thing to another as the perception of social stability and safety declines.
Normal women are mothers, either in the making or in the act. She is ambitious for her children and her household, and left unchecked or unguided, will smother her children with excessive care. Her instincts guide her to seize control of anything she believes will affect the safety and stability of the home environment. But like men, she also has her own entertainment needs. There is a nearly constant need for emotional stimulation from others. Isolation is deadly to a woman much more quickly than to a man. She needs at the very least the company of other women, with whom she can compare notes about all the matters of the nest.
In a decent society, she will work to make her man more prominent. Her ambition for him will grow outsized where she perceives he lacks it. This is an extension of the nest defense, as higher status means greater safety, more prosperity. She will in turn be ambitious for her children, particularly her sons. Granting women too much authority over the decisions they feel affects their nesting mission will pervert a society. Their men will be fake, seldom as bold and manly as they seem, but very busy. Government will become as invasive and smothering as a mother, and men will be powerless to decide much of anything.
We cannot forget it was at the moment Eve chose to take the initiative, Adam failed to guard against the real dangers she could not at that moment see.
For all this, women cannot resist the appeal of a man who is powerful and confident.
In the nature of things, we see historically few civilizations and societies have created a majority of men who were manly. Thus, while men will find almost every woman has something desirable enough to mate with her, women will hardly be as interested. That is, women are frankly more finicky. Few men will turn her head, and most will swoon for the same select few men. The average woman will not accept the average man.
If we leave it all a matter of chance and free choice on both sides, we will end up with a short lived civilization. The longest lived societies of the past were those with arranged marriages. Women were kept from men socially, not so much because men would debauch the women and leave them; most would men would not. Rather, most women would make themselves too easily available to the same few men. Women are fully capable of falling in love with whomever they eventually marry, but leaving too much to their discretion would be very messy.
It's not that women so very much like sex. They can learn to if their mate is man enough to care about her and provoke her sense of romance. Rather, a female starts off knowing seduction is the one big bargaining chip she has for her instinctive goals. If she comes of age in a world where she has no expectation of choosing and using such a stratagem, she is less likely to stray from the man who eventually marries her. By the same token, a sane society encourages a man to be as romantic as he can, as this is the price for a stable and predictable home life.
But we are stuck with something far different from God's ideal society. To the degree we can engineer something closer to it, we should, but let's assume the worst: You are on your own. The first major hurdle is the social expectation of age parity. Love can ignore age differences in both directions and be completely legitimate before God. Most of the time, the very nature of what makes men and women tick calls for the man to be older by at least five years, and ten is better. Naturally, this would indicate guys don't get too involved before they are in their mid-twenties, and pushing thirty is better. The Bible indicates females should be ready at puberty, but modern society frowns on that. Particularly so when girls reach puberty far earlier than is actually natural due to several artificial environmental influences. Two centuries ago it seldom came before age 16. Besides which, our modern civilization encourages eternal immaturity by painting it as maturity for both sexes.
We will have to do the best we can with a bad situation. We recognize our fallen nature, but don't revel in it. We realize society is badly broken, but can't afford to simply follow the herd.
So we presume to start where we are as adults in a very sick society.
Guys, know your mission first. You simply have no business messing with women until you know who you are and what you must do with your life. That means delaying your start when gals your age are raring to go. Don't be ashamed to come back when you're ready and "rob the cradle," but realize it is highly risky most of all because ten years is forever when it comes to cultural trends in the West. She'll be quite foreign to you unless she's partly retro.
The biggest mistake you'll make is allowing your hormones to run you off a cliff. So she's hot; close your eyes and get a hold of yourself. Her beauty doesn't mean a thing, except she'll probably be very hard to get, in one sense or another. The last thing you want to do is advertise your willingness to be a slave by staring like every other drooling loser. Her looks have no relation whatsoever to her worthiness, but if you feel yourself captivated, you have already lost. Even if she takes you on, at that point she rules and you are on the way to Hell. Whatever it takes, break free of this weakness; make yourself not care.
That's because what you really need is not hot sex, but persistent support and loyalty. If you have any sense at all and read up on how to enhance your woman's sexual experience physically, things will be about as good as it gets. Her youthful beauty will fade but it's a silly basis for investing your energy in the first place. When you come across a woman with enough sense to realize basic submission is what matters the most, you have found a real woman.
If necessary, brand this into the palm of your hand: There is no such thing as the one best woman. Calvinism doesn't apply to marriage, because marriage itself is a matter of Laws. A good match will seem like a miraculous act of God, and a bad one is Satan's own daughter. Don't be so arrogant as to think either God or Satan has singled you out for special attention in this department. This is one issue where you have some freedom to choose, so you can either be wise or roll the dice. When the time is right, the context conducive, whomever is the best choice among the pool of the willing is the one you take. Know beyond all doubt, unless you are one of the few whom women actively pursue, the pool of the willing is likely to be small at any given time, perhaps no more than one or two. If none of them are right, consider waiting until you find better prospects, and your pool of willing is improved. Be patient, because there will always be another one or two somewhere else, and soon.
Unless your mission places you in isolation, the best gals will always be the ones you discover doing what you really must do. It's not likely at this point in human history your job at any time is really consistent with your mission, just a way to pay the bills. Thus, workplace romances are usually a bad idea. Rather, it's the females you find doing what you really like that you should consider first. Take advantage of your masculine flexibility and learn to see the beauty in all the candidates you encounter.
At the same time, never forget she has to at least accept your mission as critical to you, if not directly critical to her. When you are fully engaged in what you really love is the one time you are most attractive to her. This is particularly true if your passion puts you in a position to lead others in any sense. You have to manifest what she needs in a man; it won't hurt if you also look like a man. You may not have much to work with, but "handsome" matters far less than manly. Be what she's seeking, not by trying to adhere to some fantasy of yourself, but according to your best self-honesty. She'll come to you and try to get your attention.
She'll try to keep it. Learn the signals. Spend time and read up on how to play the Alpha Male as much as you can; learn what they call "Game." This is not about manipulation, because it's not likely you can fake it very well for very long. Rather, you are striving to discern in all the man chatter you read what you can do to make your real self apparent to her in terms she'll understand. What you might tend to do naturally is highly unlikely to work; it will tend to deceive her. Learn to speak her language.
Most of the time, that means not at all talking about yourself. Of all the hints you'll learn from research into Game, the one thing essential to manhood itself is keeping your mouth shut at the very moment you most want to spill your guts. Know the truth about yourself, but never volunteer such information until someone asks pointedly. Answer as tersely as possible. On any other subject but yourself, feel free to blab as much as you are inclined, but people will get to know you best by what they see you do. Civilization itself depends on you not providing any more information on yourself than is necessary.
Talk to the girl about herself or whatever seems to interest her. Consciously avoid yourself as a topic. Answer briefly, even evasively, because a critical need for her psyche is mystery about you. Never give it all away too soon, or she'll gag emotionally on the flood. Make it a trickle. As a part of this, never correct her unless it's necessary, a function of procedure. Again, it's critical to civilization itself you remember you are not the truth police. Humor her, because frankly it won't make much difference until much later in the courtship. Rather, encourage her to do what she needs to do, which is express herself, flaws and all. The sooner you know what you are dealing with, the better.
Don't play up to her at all. Don't try to win her over, because whatever you gain that way is not worth having. Though you consciously seek marriage, you never say so early in the game. She doesn't need to know what you went through in avoiding it up to now. Lick your wounds and get over your heartaches on your own first, or you aren't worth having. Nor do you try to win her affections through chivalry. Never believe what women say about this; save it until after the wedding, and then only in small measure, when it becomes meaningful. This early, simply show her you are open to her interest. If it's not worth her effort, neither is she worth yours. Start off on the right foot and stay on it. Her role is to initiate the nest building, and yours is the veto power; thus be it ever.
If the relationship is wrong, don't play silly games. Man up and tell her it won't work. There is nothing you can do about her feelings, but it's inhumane to string her along falsely. Be decisive, because that's what a man is. By the same token, be equally decisive, without rushing things, when you know it's right.
The rest you can learn by researching it from numerous sources, knowing plenty of it will simply not apply to you because most of the writers are lawless in one sense or another.
Ladies, make up your mind you cannot trust your impulses. The world has lied to you about your nature, and you really need to break the social programming before you destroy yourself.
You've been taught a lot of lies about what you really want and need in a man. If you find one like that, your instincts will betray your conscious purpose and you'll despise him for reasons you'll never understand. You can't reprogram fallen nature, and can only pretend to ignore it. Sexual attraction for a woman is entirely instinctive, and only incidentally conscious. When your hormones start pounding, you'll tell yourself anything, rationalizing against your entire consciousness. Your greatest desire is a man strong enough to handle your natural insecurities. The fellow who surrenders to your false impulses is the fellow who can't and won't protect you from very real threats to the nest.
Society also teaches you hyper-competition in physical appearance. If you have a strong urge at any time to spend money for a fancy glamor photo, you are already far down the wrong path. It teaches you to objectify physical beauty so that you compete with other women by the whimsical and shifting fashion of the marketplace. It teaches you to cut your hair and call it "sexy" when it's the last thing any real man wants to see. Whatever else is going on, cutting hair symbolizes female dominance, an abomination to God. The same symbol extends to a general lack of modesty. The symbolism is burned into human nature itself; the veil of long hair and decent covering is your glory, because it means you haven't given yourself away cheaply. "Demure" means precious, something which must be won.
Hunting a man is not a skill. When you remove all the lies of modern society, instinctive behavior needs only a little tuning. Your natural urge to select a mate early is not wrong, but will probably not fit social expectations in the Western world. You'll be pressured to play with the men while you seek empowerment and a career. This is not compatible with instinct and need, but simply feeds the curse of broken human nature. You are hard wired to enjoy the security and peace of submitting to a strong husband.
Your urge to always seek the strongest man in the room is what will get you in trouble. In our Western society, it typically means a rebellious troublemaker who rejects the metro-sexual neutering so loved by feminists. Your instincts won't differentiate between the strong man who ignores false social conventions, and the strong predator who will take what he can get. Let your righteous nest building instinct overpower your fallen urge to shop around.
So you'll have to learn how to discern consciously decent fellows who are probably under a lot of social pressure. Most men don't want a mere fling; flings are more typical of the men most attractive to your broken instincts. Most men want a supportive wife with whom they can settle down, because the world is hard and they need one great refuge from the insanity. If you are prepared to be that refuge, thinking consciously of that as your purpose in mating, you are less likely to fall for mere seduction or use it yourself.
It's not as if you can't be an individual human being. Herein is the key to finding a suitable mate: He needs to have some of the same basic interests. Not simply the passing interests of popular hobbies sold in advertising, but the opportunity to express your gifts and talents. The atmosphere in which you feel most free to be yourself is the best place to find a man, though we recognize this world has tried hard to ruin that, too. Think in terms not of your conscious interests, but what might be behind them. If you like cooking and house decorating, God bless you, it's a great way to keep a man, but it's the wrong activity for finding a man. Instead, you'll have to match that drive for domestic excellence with the knowledge most men are dying to find you. So explore the array of manly pursuits and find one or more you can tolerate, where you can participate with enough interest to enjoy and support your future man's involvement.
Be prepared to pursue him. Yes, this means surrender and submission, and all your training may be against that. You can still be a lady and proper while paying homage to your new hero. That's what your man should be to you. He doesn't catch you; it's the other way around. You join his team, as it were, and get to know him. If it seems right, hang around until he responds either way.
Learn Game; learn about Alpha Male behavior and hypergamy. A major element in developing a relationship with your future mate is setting him free to find his inner Alpha, the blend of traits which makes a man better. See him at his worst, and remember no one is perfect. Can you live with that? You cannot possibly change any man; you cannot add what is missing, but you can be there to open the door to whatever good lies in him. This is the one place you cannot afford to lie to yourself. A lack of restraint is a serious threat, regardless of all other endearing qualities. What awful things he does to others, he'll eventually do to you, even against his own wishes. A man worth having will break a lot of rules, but will always have some internal check which holds him back from destruction and self-destruction. You will wisely plan in advance to forgive human frailty, because you'll need forgiveness for yourself. Decide also what you cannot forgive, and never be trapped into compromising on it.
Naturally, you'll need to know yourself. A singular advantage women have is the natural capacity for self-honesty about weaknesses. Society trains you to ignore your weaknesses, or even flaunt them. But even as you have a great capacity for self-deception and rationalization, it is matched with a powerful sense of self-knowledge when you choose to use it. If you don't set out to learn where you must draw the line to maintain your own integrity, you won't draw any lines at all. The worst nightmare is developing utter dependence on someone utterly untrustworthy. But it's so very common simply because women aren't encouraged to recognize the patterns in what makes them hurt. You will expect to miscalculate to some degree, but if you make no effort to throw aside the false conditioning of our broken society, damaged instincts and random chance at finding a good mate is all you have.
Even as you strive to recognize your better instincts, recognize where they will fail you.
The most powerful man is not the one who wins all his battles, but is the one who can hardly be goaded into pointless fighting. The best woman in the world is the one who stands behind you at your worst, not necessarily the one most intoxicating to your hormones. Sex is not recreation, but celebration. When cathexis wears off, you may live to long regret what you have bought.
Dating is evil. If all you learn from Game is how to obtain more and better sex, you have learned nothing. This is the major flaw in our social conditioning. Not simply creating a fantasy of what better sex is, but the real mistake is elevating its importance over other things God says matters more. While we struggle against the lies about what men and woman are, and what they ought to be, the bigger lie is why we bother. We have a mandate from God to make the world a better place. There is a God in Heaven who directs the affairs of humans, and ignoring His stated intentions for us is the best way to stumble into the worst implications of our fallen nature.
Game tells us about procedure, not goals. Very few men have the talent to charm and swoon the ladies; if you aren't born with it, forget it. What most of us can muster in that department actually has the opposite effect. If you act the suave gentlemen when you aren't, you'll call to her dominatrix side. If you sense she's a good candidate for any reason, remain politely aloof and let her figure out for herself whether she wants you. Restrain yourself to subtle non-verbal communication. Ladies, you need to train yourself to be more aloof in the first place, because lots of smiling and social engagement tells him he's a prospect. Make it plain for him. The only guys turned on by a frosty reception are almost invariably the wrong type, seeking yet another conquest. In our modern Western context, God places the burden of choice with the woman; she is the only one who should pursue. These concepts get you past the broken social conditioning.
Presume courtship or stay out of it. Fundamental to our existence on this plane is the need to breed, and all that God intends should go with it. Game corrects our view of human nature regarding human sexual response, nothing more. God wants social stability, not merely your personal gratification. You can have all you need, and most of what you want in terms of human appetites, but there are limits. You must pursue it all according to His Laws. Your need to breed must proceed according to His revelation for the maximum benefit, and that means planning ahead of time to build the proper setting for dealing with the opposite sex.
If you fail to include a basic assumption of life-long covenant marriage in any romantic encounter, nothing you do will work out as God intended. You can't afford any entertaining delusions about this. If you don't have a sense of purpose, you can't achieve anything that matters. You can't build a real marriage, nor help build a strong social order, if you don't remove the debris of the civilization which has already failed.
Learn to communicate; learn the language so you may transmit honestly your intentions.
Men, take charge. She needs that.
Early in the relationship, her instincts will demand testing of the limits. She had better know them already, at least as a rough draft. She will demand something which is unreasonable. At a minimum, the test will be what she can get away with in terms of dominance behaviors. It may be little more than simply bitchiness. It will always be unprovoked, even if she uses the excuse of something you say or do to pretend she has reason to get upset.
Guys, your first level of response is none at all. Let it pass; she must see she has no power to push your buttons. Don't have any buttons. Tantrums don't fit in the relationship, so pretend she's not there (unless it gets overtly physical). At most, simply look at her blankly, utterly without emotion, perhaps cocking one eyebrow. The second level of response is to turn it into a joke. This requires more thought and skill, so work on it before it happens. Employ all your talents to turn it into a comical scene. If she presents a genuine physical threat, decide the lowest level of response which ends it. Then consider ending the relationship itself, because you have made a major miscalculation.
If the confrontation stems from a demand for something, you must decide if it is reasonable. Make her present it logically, as this establishes the basis on which you will evaluate things. Don't play head games. You'll need as much internal clarity as possible on both logic and on your mission and capabilities. Don't be moved by lesser appeals. Give what you can, then dismiss all other requests. Do so with clear logic and firmness, though it's rare you'll need anything more than, "Can't do it, Babe." Do not ever let her doubt your constancy to your mission. God has placed you in charge.
At the same time, never let her doubt your commitment to her genuine welfare. You can take her advice, but you can't act merely on her fears. At the most, you'll show her there is nothing to fear, or that there is nothing anyone can do about it. Rather, make it clear you'll sacrifice anything except the mission for her real needs. If she doesn't see how helping the neighbor is in her long-term interest, get ready to explain it clearly and repeatedly, because that sort of thing is fundamentally part of whatever mission you have. You can't starve your kids to feed someone else's, but you'll always have something you can offer, and she needs to learn some generosity as critical to human existence on this planet. It helps a lot if you try to discern her attitude very early on this, even as you realize she may be fooling herself.
Tell her often she's the greatest treasure in your life. Be creative with it. Take the time to discern what means of expression speak the most to her, and target that: physical touching, verbal affirmations, material tokens or symbols, serving actions, or simply a time of focused attention. Ask her; she'll probably know and tell you.
Ladies, his welfare is your welfare, too. Know your own instincts and try to fight the urge to fight for dominance. Your own personal sanity, and his, are worth more than all the nesting materials you can imagine. It's better to suffer peacefully than gain from conflict. Focus more on removing from him the burdens you carry better for whatever reason. You can't make him do his part, but you can make it possible.
Most men and women need to rant about things which don't affect the home at all. Let them. Pay attention and make a few intelligent noises, for example seeking clarity on some point. Do not offer any solutions unless specifically requested, just a sympathetic ear should be enough. This is your chance to understand something critical in your spouse's character.
However, fix those things in the household you can at the earliest opportunity and don't be a lazy bum. Your fun and games can wait. Gentle teasing is one thing; resist the temptation to cruelty for your personal entertainment. Even small head games can create pointless resentment, because most likely your spouse will read it as deception, regardless of motive. Make sure you render any head games he/she may play as harmless. Don't react or under-react if you consider it frankly inappropriate.
Read some material on Christian manhood and marriage. Keep in mind most of it will be tainted with bogus chivalry and feminism, not to mention cheesy advertising hype, but there is usually some good advice regarding human psychology in an organized format. So far, one of the best I've seen is Men's Fraternity for the fellows. Spend a few bucks for the manuals and participate in some church group offering it. You can probably do it online, but you miss a lot by not participating in a live group session. There are several good marriage manuals, and some decent ones designed to be used by husband and wife together.
The same goes for Christian womanhood, but it's a little harder. There's an awful lot of feminist crap out there, and some putrid Neo-Victorian stuff, as well. Don't devote any time to a study which presumes at least middle-class income or is obviously tailored to a very narrow slice of society. The folks who bring us Men's Fraternity (Robert Lewis, et al) produced a book for women, The New Eve, but I haven't seen it yet. On the other hand, women don't learn the same as men, and effective training programs and conferences for them look rather different. That means the whole approach is different, and a single franchise like Men's Fraternity would not work for them. They do better with something more flexible and personalized.
Your mission may not be at your home, but your home is at least your base camp. Neglect it and you'll never get anywhere. Whatever you imagine your mission to be, it includes building a real home life.
Marriage is politics on the smallest scale.
The best way to cover the biggest problem with keeping a marriage working is to show how fallen nature in its various manifestations affects politics. The difficulty is our Post-Enlightenment Western society is inherently anti-God. You cannot embrace any part of Western democratic thought without presuming there is no God. It runs down the to very foundation of rejecting revelation. You cannot be lawful without yielding to the Lawgiver.
The first thing we notice is the left-right paradigm. On the right, the fundamental issue is physical domain -- property. This is the primary concern of children. Thus, what passes for various flavors of American conservatism is boyish thinking at its root. The modern progressive is simply his mother and sister fighting back, and too often, each other.
Boys don't like to be told what to do, and have fantasies of heroic individualism. Their whole concern is their personal stuff and maintaining control over it. The main means of that is legalistic literalism. Clear and precise laws with clear and precise penalties is their heaven, provided it all means protecting their absolute control over their stuff. Watch how boys play, particularly in the years near puberty. It's all about rules, and few disputes are personal in nature.
Women don't like to be told what to do, either, but are much more tribal about it. For them, it's all about the nest. Only in competition with each other will you see them fighting in any sense. Since this threatens the stability of the nest, they typically do it through the most subtle means possible. It requires a feminine mind to think in terms of subtext, so when you see men trying to read subtle cues from overt expressions, they are trying too hard to understand women. They get it wrong, of course, unless they are feminine in some substantial way. Most women easily understand each others' subtextual communications, and most will try their hand at various forms of manipulation.
Women, communicate with all the drama and subtext you like among yourselves, but don't burden your man with such nonsense. Subtext is not the same as artistic sarcasm, nor Hebrew symbolism. The difference is subtext is meant to hide the truth, or at least provide plausible deniability; the others are valid means of conveying truth.
You will notice nothing in the Enlightenment, and thus nothing in modern Western politics, makes room for the biblical father image. For the Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) master of the household, it's not really about stuff, nor control. It's always about people, the community, the prosperity and safety of life for all. The ANE man is contemplative; he's already had many years of action under the leadership of his elders. The sooner he shows an understanding of what it's all about, and how to make it happen, the sooner he is trusted to lead.
The ANE man would not dream of micromanagement; that's what women do when guiding children. He talks about results and lays the responsibility for them on the talents and energy of his retainers. He's only as strict as God's revelation requires, and is reluctant to get directly involved in the details. When ignorance or malfeasance forces his hand, he is patient when possible, but is entirely resolute about excluding someone who is untrustworthy. Exclusion follows a sliding scale, enforcing to the degree he can best estimate is necessary to protect the household. This scales well to larger units of clan and tribe, and church, of course.
It is an abomination to God to confuse roles, but not duties. In a marriage, few individual tasks are inherently masculine or feminine. The issue is who gets to decide what. Internal matters of life support are hers, external matters his. She can do fine going into business if it makes the nest better, which typically means nesting related business. He typically stays out of such matters unless the results conflict with his mission. It's the difference between tent and house: She puts up the tent, but he builds the permanent house. A tent moves with the family, as conditions warrant, but the house is something to defend. Much depends on the context of their household operations, lifestyle, local conditions, etc.
So long as Western thinking mistakes "equal" for "interchangeable," we cannot trap ourselves in discussions of human equality. No two humans are equal; the different sexes and roles within the family household are not interchangeable. It was God who created the fundamental differences between man and woman, and built into the human development process the necessity of childhood and maturation. Politics is rightfully the business of negotiating who shall have what under the resources and responsibilities of keeping human life within the demands of God.
There's nothing wrong with marital politics, but it has to be done right.
Teach these things to your children, and to other couples.
The burden of social stability rests on those who have the truth. Though the burden for accepting the truth lies with each person who hears, they won't hear if those who know don't speak. If you aren't a great communicator, save copies of the stuff which most impacted your understanding of marriage. You can't always barge into their lives and start laying this on them, but when the opportunity comes, a wise word here and there can make all the difference in the world.
God is watching. When you stand up for His truth, He backs you.
By Ed Hurst
09 October 2011
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