No bipartisan relationship can be had with a person who is always superior. This is the chief claim against complementarianism and patriarchal society — that one gender is leader over the other, for the simple reason that it’s believed that that gender has biblical ascent as ‘head’. Whether it’s what God meant or not, that construct for church and marriage enables narcissistic abuse, for only the narcissist puts themselves above those they love, especially when the only reason is gender.
God created all humankind in the image of God,
so all humanity is equal in the sight of God.
I don’t decry complementarianism’s theology, for it is potentially a very noble one — that the husband would serve the wife and children by being kind of a godly (or godlier) figure in the home. It just about never fits the reality, though! As a person who’s counselled about 50 couples over nearly ten years, who has also observed many marriages, I don’t know a single one that fits the complementarian sculpt, though I would say there are many very capable husbands — as there are very capable wives, also.
To put the complementarian theology pressure on a husband — any husband — is too heavy a burden to bear. It is enough for him to endeavour to love his wife as Christ loved the church!
What complementarian theology does, however, is it enables narcissistic husbands to lord it over their wives. They get to spout Bible verses doing it. I know there will be many complementarian husbands and wives who are happy, but that doesn’t account for a power differential that is designed into the complementarian marriage, that is wide open for abuse — and is abused.
Marriage is hard enough without giving one partner more power,
let alone more (so-called, in many cases) responsibility.
The reality is there are far too many Christian wives out there married to husbands who go to church and seem diligent disciples but who also are closet narcissists — who are impossible to live with and who are in many cases dangerous. They calmly go about creating rules within their marriages that ‘are for the family’s best’, all the while these rules work in his favour, not hers and the kids’. The fact of the matter is, whether you’re complementarian or egalitarian, we’re all sinners, and the sin problem shows up most — and most secretly most often — in our most intimate relationships, i.e. marriage.
Simply put, complementarianism, whilst it’s wonderful and noble in theory, doesn’t account for the sinful nature in human beings who are not designed to be given power just because they’re a particular gender. In practice, complementarianism excuses too many cases of abuse because it enables narcissistic husbands.
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