GENDER ROLES
by Norman Bales
Publicly sharing one's thoughts on gender roles carries about the same
degree of risk as spending the night in a den of deadly Cobras.
Even so, I have decided to throw caution to the wind because the
attempt to obliterate gender differences does not bode well for the
American family.
A few years ago, I performed a wedding ceremony for some friends who
met each other in a singles support group. These two people shared
strong Christian convictions about marriage and the Biblical concept
of gender roles in the family. Most of their friends thought the idea
of the husband being the head of the wife went the way of the
passenger pigeon, the dodo bird and the chastity girdle. At their
request, I read Ephesians 5:22-33 during the ceremony. Paul began
that section by saying, "Wives, submit to your husbands." I thought
we might need to perform CPR on some of the folks whose hearts stopped
beating when I read those words. To them, the words of the Bible on
gender roles didn't seem to fit into our contemporary world.
The women's movement ardently champions the cause of gender
neutrality and some of their rules complicate the lives of writers.
If you took their rules to an extreme, I suppose editors would expect
us to coin the word "huperson" to replace the sexist word, "human."
Despite some of the questionable rules that govern gender neutrality,
I'm in favor of maintaining a level playing field for men and women in
business, in government and in our social institutions. Anything that
demeans the personhood of women needs to be resisted by responsible
people. I have little use for the man who uses the submission
passages in the Bible as an excuse to make himself a tyrant and demand
that his wife cater to all his self centered whims.
But there is wisdom in the Biblical model. Homes do not function as
they were intended to operate without male leadership. The late
anthropologist Margaret Mead was neither a male chauvinist nor even
conservative, but she correctly observed, "The central problem of
every society is to define appropriate roles for men." A home
requires leadership and God identified the husband as the home's
leader.
Many of today's men are confused about the role they play in the
family. As a result they show less affection and consideration to
their wives; they fail as role models for their children and they
ignore their family responsibilities, devoting themselves instead to
leisure pursuits. American families need men; it needs men who are
strong, compassionate, assertive, affectionate and involved with their
families. Without male leadership, the family cannot survive.
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
ABOUT PREMARITAL SEX. "What I am recommending to my unmarried
readers is that you stay out of bed unless you are there alone! Not
only is virginity the only way to avoid disease, it is also the best
foundation for a healthy marriage. That the way the system was
designed by the Creator and no one has yet devised a way to improve on
his plan." - James Dobson.
ABOUT AIDS
"Teenagers now make up one quarter of new AIDS cases, and at least on
American teenager becomes infected with HIV every hour of every day."
- USA Today (3-6-96)
ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION
"Fathers and fatherhood have virtually dropped out of the literature
and the discussion of reproductive matters. In an age of antagonism
between the sexes, its a short step here to the view of fathers as
troublesome, marginal and essentially irrelevant inseminators." -
John Leo US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT May, 15, 1995
ABOUT CHURCHES AND FATHERLESS MEN
"The church needs to be praying and planning how it will minister to
these fatherless men (He laments the fact that American boys are
either without father or with fathers who spend little time with them)
- with Big Brother programs, mentoring relationships, and classes to
teach fathering skills." - Charles Coleson in "A Dance With
Deception."
NEXT WEEK'S FEATURE OUTLINE: HOW TO BECOME SOMEBODY WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE A NOBODY
