gengwall

Ah Nicole – I will take up the challenge.

-Men: ultimately responsible for family…
This is generally derived from a very narrow and context ignorant reading of 1 TImothy 5:8. The passage is about families taking care of their widowed relatives so the church is not burdened, but patriarchalists (and even many well meaning speakers I have heard) turn it into a man’s duty to provide. The correct passage when dealing with providing is, of course, Proverbs 31. Both the husband and wife are involved in provision and protection of the family.

…SOME teach they are even responsible for their sins
This comes straight from a misunderstanding of Genesis 3 where God confronts Adam first. There has been much discussion here around that presumptuous and quite erroneous interpretation.

-Men: glorified ATM. Veiled as “providing”, even if it means an 80 hr. work week and no time w/ the family
I agree from a sociological perspective that men seem to have a drive to provide. I think testosterone plays into that. But nowhere in the bible are men commanded to be the provider, and making work your “wife” is adulterous and idolitrous.

-Men: Lust-driven beasts who cannot control themselves. Men become animals that must be tolerated by wives “doing their duty”
Husbands and wives have a mutual “duty” to each other when it comes to sex (1 Corinthians 7). As far as the lust filled part, well, I don’t think desire for one’s wife can be correctly be called “lust”. Mark Gungor has just recently posted a two part series on his blog titled “Attention = Desire Disorder”. You may want to read it. Mark makes a strong case that desire for one’s wife is a very, very positive thing, and the more there is, the better it is for the marriage. Read also Proverbs 5:15-23 for another view on desire and why it is important (and should not be shuned) for the marriage.

-Men: solely responsible for outcome of the kids, even though he gets less time with them than the mother
I hear this a little less in comp circles. Actually, I hear more often how the mother should be almost entirely responsible for their upbringing until probably their teen years. Of course – the observation is correct – men spend less time with their children than they should. Robert Lewis, in the Men’s Fraternity program, correctly points out the negative impact that both the industrial revolution and World War II had on father’s and their children in terms of quality time. The bible’s teaching allows for no such disparity in time spent with the kids – men and women are equally responsible to “bring up a child in the way he/she should go”.

-Men: Expendable. God forbid a woman/mother joins the military and deploy, but a man is encouraged to. At the risk of his life and being away from his family for 6-15 months. A mother should never work because the children need her so much, but a father MUST.
Interestingly, in ancient Israel a newlywed man was forbidden to go off to war in the first year of marriage. But from a “design” perspective, it does seem undeniable to me that men are better designed physically to bear the brunt of war. Now, my wish would be that there were no wars and so it would be a moot point. But never the less, if we do have to have wars and a parent has to leave to fight them, in most cases I agree that it should be the father. As with anything, circumstances will dictate for the individual family and there is certainly no absense of female warriors and other “deployed” women in the bible.

-Men: spiritual leader of the wife and children….
We have been discussing this one extensively too in recent weeks. The simple response is that the bible decalres no such thing. As I mentioned in another post, my response to this is “I thought the Holy Spirit was supposed to be our spiritual leader.” To an extent, men look again to Genesis 3 and somehow pull this idea out of thin air from that passage. But it has no actual support. Quite frankly, in the majority of the marriages I know, the women are better spiritual “leaders” than the men. The most succesful marriages acknowledge and embrace that reality.

Men: Sperm donors. If a woman’s HIGHEST calling is to be a wife/mother, then (forgive the crudeness) a man becomes a trophy p*nis. A mere thing she convinced to give her a ring and climb in her bed so she can extract his sperm. And he can “provide” for her and her children. Mission Accomplished; she has fulfilled her calling.
Interestingly, that sounds more like an argument from radical feminism than from patriarchy. I agree with your distain for the concept. But I am not sure you wuold catch a complementarian making the argument.