Some Truths Are Self Evident

Yes, there was a dinner, six couples, all middle aged. The table was spit men and women. One of the men made the statement that good marriages only exist when the woman submits to the man. The chorus of anger on the women's side of the table was instantaneous. Until one by one every woman had to admit to herself that she did submit to her husband. We all did.

There were no whips and chains, or denigrating husbands. The men worked and provided, all of us benefited from that. We all had children, and all the children had grown up in nice homes and nice neighborhoods. Went to college. All of us had spent a good amount of time tending to children and not working. Everyone at the table was in marriages that went back 35 or 40 years. With comments about not confusing the wife's roles and that they did not submit, we all submitted to our husbands. What was more we were proud of it. After all, our husbands were the man of the house.

What woman wants a man that they can't respect? Someone has to make the hard decisions, and more than one admitting that they liked to cook and not one of the women let their husbands do the laundry or clean the house. It was our generation we said, but we recognized huge breaks in our own daughter's relationship. The conversation ended after the men had gone back to talk about things that didn't matter to us and we were again talking about grandchildren. At the end of the evening we each gathered up our husbands and followed them out to the car, we each took our place in the right hand seat, we each looked at our husbands, I know I did. So, a woman submits to her husband? I asked him.

I knew the answer, the answer was in my face, and in the face of the other women at the dinner party. We just don't like saying it, a woman that doesn't submit to her husband doesn't stay married.