gengwall

Wow – am I late to the party. This discussion is great and I don’t want to get too far into gender wars. On the other hand, being the token male here (right now), I suspect and hope my perspective will lend some clarity (or, more likely, fuel).

Please keep in mind this is what is generally true…..

I am sure you have all heard of the “Love and Respect” books and ministry of Emerson Eggerichs. He makes a simple observation and backs it up not only with science but more importantly with Paul’s and Peter’s specific, but separate instructions to husbands and wives. Here is the observation:

Men have a felt need for respect like women have a felt need for love.

He illustrates this in a very simple way. Let us say that a husband or a wife acts harshly toward the other during an argument….

If you ask 10 men, at least 9 and maybe all 10 would say they felt disrespected by that harsh treatment. More importantly, none of them would be suspect of their wife’s love for them.

Ask the wives the same question and the same ratio will say they felt unloved.

It has a lot to do with how we receive and interpret stimuli and how we perceive our own self worth. Men tend to relate to their performance while women tend to relate to their relationships.

OK – enough for the generalities. In my personal circumstance, what Cheryl relates for her marriage and what Dr. Eggerichs illustrates in his materials is very similar to my experience. Things like “living in an understanding way” with, agapeo loving, and honoring (cherishing) my wife are the things she responds positively to. When I treat her badly, it is in those areas that she feels she has been harmed or betrayed. I on the other hand respond to reverence, submission (and I mean that in the positive way described here), and phileo love. When she treats me badly, while I never doubt her agapeo love for me, I do feel she doesn’t respect or “like” me.

Although all of us need all of these things, we react differently when those things are withheld. And although Paul and Peter no doubt understand the universal need for honor, love (of all kinds), respect, submission, etc., and the universal obligation we all carry to show those things to others, it is no coincidence that, when speaking to married couples, their instructions in these areas get very gender specific. Husbands are never, in the marital context, directly instructed to hupotasso (submit), phobeo (reverence, i.e. respect), or phileo (friendship love) their wives. But wives are specifically instructed to do so to their husbands. Yet we all need and are obligated to do these things. Conversely, wives are never instructed to abide in gnosis (knowledge, understanding), time (honor, cherish), or agapeo (selflessly love) their husbands. But husbands are specifically instructed to do so to their wives. Yet again, we all need and are obligated to do these things.

Now, either Peter and Paul had a serious gender bias, were off their rockers, or were on to something. More on that later (right Cheryl 🙂 ), but these specific gender based instructions can’t simply be brushed aside because we all need and are to show love, respect, submission, etc.