I would never make it as a submissive wife. I bristle at the terms "let" and "allow." As an autonomous, independent person I make my own decisions. I may discuss those decisions with my spouse but it would never cross my mind, or his, that I should have to ask his permission on any subject.
Last week, conservative columnist Byron York sparked a chorus of boos in Iowa last week by asking Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, As president, "would you be submissive to your husband?" Despite widespread media outrage over this supposedly "sexist" question it seems a fair one to ask given Congresswoman Bachmann's own public statements on this issue.
In a 2006 speech before the Living Word Christian Center in Brooklyn Park, MN, Bachmann stated that the only reason she decided to was in order to submit to her husband's will.
"My husband said, now you need to go and get a post-doctorate degree in tax law," Michele Bachmann explained, "Tax law, I hate taxes. Why should I go do something like that? But the Lord says, "Be submissive." Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands. Never had a tax course in my background, never had a desire for it. But by faith, I was going to be faithful to what God was calling me to do through my husband, and I finished that course of that study."
It seems that submitting to her husband's will never sparked any real desire in Michele Bachmann to devote her life to tax law litigation. According to a story published in The New Yorker, Bachmann gave birth to two of her five children in her four years as an employee of the Internal Revenue Service, taking full advantage of the generous parental leave policies offered by the IRS to its employees. During Mrs. Bachmann's tenure only one case with her name attached ever made it to trial. After the birth of her fourth child, Mrs. Bachmann left the paid workforce to be a stay-at-home mom and, later, to inflict herself upon the nation as an elected official.
Bachmann defended her remarks by stating that "submission" is synonymous with respect and perhaps in the Party that believes, "We create our own reality," that is so; but in the Reality Based Community where most of us reside the two words mean totally different things. In the Reality Based version of the Merriam Webster Dictionary, respect is defined as, "high or special regard," while submit is defined as, "yielding to governance or authority."
That wives must submit to their husbands is a basic tenet of fundamental, evangelical Christianity. Proponents of this world view argue that it is not an abusive stance because husband and wives are to consider each other as Christians first and spouses second and if they just keep this in mind all will be well.
In the fundamentalist, evangelical worldview women and men, husbands and wives, have two very separate roles. A man's role is to be a provider and a leader. A woman's role is to bear and raise children while helping the man in every way become everything he can be, to, in the words of Bob Deffinbaugh of Bible.org, "assist her husband in the task of godly dominion." The wife is to be, "the manager of the home," but the husband is, "manager of the wife." For a woman to submit to her husband, in this worldview, demonstrates, "obedience to Christ."
Although husbands are instructed to "use their authority with love," with the same love Christ showed the Church," wives, by their unique natures, are seen as saviors of bad husbands. Proponents of submissive marriage cite the Apostle Paul that, "If her husband is disobedient to God and even if he misuses his authority, even then the wife is not justified in refusing to submit. In fact, this just gives more reason why she should submit, so she can set him a good example."
Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission told ABC News compared a possible Michele Bachmann arrangement to Queen Elizabeth who reportedly defers to Prince Philip on matter of the royal home, to rather mixed success. Of course the example of Queen Elizabeth, who is no more than an expensive figurehead, akin to a Lalique hood ornament on a vintage Rolls Royce, might not be the most apt of analogies.
Land also referenced John F. Kennedy and his Roman Catholicism when people were raising the possibility that Kennedy would be submissive to the Pope and that, if elected President, the Vatican would be allowed to steer United States' policy.
John F. Kennedy addressed this concern on September 12, 1960 in a speech given before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.
"So it is apparently necessary to state once again not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me, but what kind of America I believe in." Kennedy told the assembled Ministers, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state or absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell a president, should he be Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister would never tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."
In contrast, Michele Bachmann has referred to separation of church and state as, "a myth," and has championed public funds being funneled to religious schools and "faith based" programs administered by churches.
Despite later insinuating that he was responsible for an epidemic of Swine Flu, Michelle Bachmann supported Jimmy Carter when he ran for President in 1976. So much so that she and her husband, Marcus, attended President Carter's 1977 Inauguration. In 2000, Jimmy Carter resigned his membership in the Southern Baptist Convention after being a member of that denomination for 60 years citing Southern Baptist's unequal treatment of women increasingly rigid beliefs in the role of women in the church as motivating factors in his decision.
Carter revisited his decision to separate from the Southern Baptist Convention in a 2009 op-ed for the London Observer "The words of God do not justify cruelty to women," Cater reiterated, The view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or an excuse for the deprivation of women's rights across the world for centuries."
Can such compartmentalization even be possible? Not according to Minister Bob Deffinbaugh who writes, "When Paul speaks of the wife being in submission to her own husband, in everything, he means that she need never cease to be submissive in spirit, even if she must disobey him in a specific area. He also means that wives should not attempt to compartmentalize their lives, setting certain areas "off limits" to submission. One can quickly see how we as members of the church would be tempted to do so in relation to our Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. The wife's submission to her own husband is to be complete, across the board, without exception."
"What submission means to us," Michele Bachmann answered Mr. York, "if that's what your question is, it means respect. I respect my husband. He is a wonderful, Godly man and a great father, and he respects me as his wife. That's how we operate our marriage We respect each other, we love each other, and I've been so grateful that we've been able to build a home together."
Respect and Submission are two different things and what Michele Bachmann and her submissive sisters can't say is that they are truly equal partners in an egalitarian marriage instead of "separate but equal" partners in a submissive marriage. Respect born of submission is the same sort of respect that a dog learns for it's master and shares the same theological underpinnings that produced Warren Jeffs and an army of female "J-slaves" for Michelle and former Republican Arkansas State Rep, and public submissive marriage proponent, Jim Bob Duggar.
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
As to Bachmann, she is a great example to "her kind". Sadly, she mistakes all of us as foster children needing a good Christian home to be raised in.
I would actually be more worried if the Republicans came up with someone with roughly the credentials and skills of Carter.
it's also one that should be put to that other fundy loon female candidate if she e-er stops fooling around and declares her candidacy. These ladies are scary enough but jeezus think of them as puppets for marcus and diriderot-guy...