Elastigirl

NN,

Concerning your question: “Rank clearly exists in relationships such as within the coastguard, parent to child, governor to citizen. If both people involved are christians, does this then negate the “rank” and authority intrinsic in the relationship?”

My view coincides with what seems to be the obvious answer. Legitimate authority is to be respected, and when at an impasse of disagreement authority is to be deferred to. Where legitimate authority exists, that is.

Perhaps it’s different with you, but with me and everyone I know, rank is simply not intrinsic to any of our personal relationships (except with our children, for their own good, of course) — our world of “hierarchy” is very limited [employer, government, court of law, police / fire fighters in an emergency, someone with expertise in saving lives,…(my piano teacher)…] I may be overlooking something, but truly this is about it.

If legitimate authority existed in a husband’s relationship to his wife, then yes she should defer to him. But its legitimacy is unconvincing. But beyond being intellectually convinced, if I turn off the compulsion to study, analyze, dissect so as to articulate a water-tight defense of my views of this subject, and simply step back and allow myself to untwist and feel what it is to be a human being who is lucky enough to find love with another human being, and to celebrate by loving each other freely…. the addition of this authority notion just seems so unnatural and non-intuitive for a love relationship. A relational stranglehold.

Besides, my husband and I are having too much fun being a onesome. Why complicate it with an org chart and suspect rules and more rules leading to questions answered by yet even more rules, and so on.