Cheryl Schatz

There are lots of problems with the view that only men lead. First of all we need to realize that none of us can “make” another be more Christ-like. Only Jesus can do that working with the person’s will.

One of the main problems is a husband’s inability to lead. Perhaps it is by his natural tendency to shy back from leadership or his inability to care as much about spiritual things as his wife. But if only a man is to lead in spiritual things, then is it a sin for a wife to take the initiative? I was misled for many years by thinking that it was wrong for me to lead. If I just stepped back, then he would lead because there was a vacuum, right? But it didn’t work. If I didn’t lead way back then, it didn’t happen. And when I permanently stopped leading it was a detriment to my family. I feel bad about that.

So the patriarchal way that only a man can lead spiritually, often leads a family into a wilderness of dryness. It silences the woman’s voice in spiritual matters that would be considered “leading” and either causes her to become a nag (that he resents) or she remains in silence when she could do something in a way that honors him as her husband and enables him to benefit from her gifts. The whole issue of male only leadership in the home is wrong. It sets men up to be failures by giving them a sole duty that is not theirs alone to bear. Women are to bring the strength of leadership as a godly ezer (helper with strength) and if we tie their hands behind their back, how can women be anything but a child-like one who waits to be led?