Last night on Q & A the debate was about how to manage asylum seekers and then the subject matter turned to 'submission in marriage'. This isn't something that you see every night on Australian television and I listened with amazement as Peter Jensen, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney laid out his argument for women submitting to their husbands.
This was more about the men than the woman, he suggested. If a man makes a commitment to a woman to lay down his life for her, so to speak, then perhaps it is appropriate, if she so wishes, for her to submit to his authority. That's not a direct quote but I don't think the Archdeacon would disagree with the sentiment.
Of course, the sentiment on the panel, in the television studio amongst the audience and at home via Twitter updates demonstrated loud and clear that his proposition was overwhelmingly rejected. One of the major reasons why people were so aghast was because he suggested that perhaps gay people had a shorter life span. They also took umbrage that 'submission' should be along gender lines and people in loving relationships who chose not to marry were offended that their commitment was seen to be less serious than those who chose to say their marriage vows in public.
It became quite ugly really because Catherine Deveny was quite rude and intolerant and Chris Evans, Minister for Tertiary Education suggested that he had an ulterior motive for raising the debate and thought it entirely "inappropriate". It was a public lynching of sorts.
As someone who has a submissive nature and who takes great pleasure in a sense of submission I must admit that I wasn't at all comfortable with the discussion or with the notions raised by the Archdeacon. This is an incredibly private and individual matter and I'd no sooner say that someone should think and act like me than fly to the moon.
I happen to get great joy out of doing what I do and thinking as I do, but I don't think it is for everybody, or even a great many people. I certainly don't think that submission should be seen as something across gender lines and I don't think there should be public debate about it. I do what I do because it makes me very happy but it's a free country and it is up to individuals to sort out what is best for them. This is a matter of free will (and the desire, or not, to give it up) and not at all a matter for the Church, in my opinion.
This was more about the men than the woman, he suggested. If a man makes a commitment to a woman to lay down his life for her, so to speak, then perhaps it is appropriate, if she so wishes, for her to submit to his authority. That's not a direct quote but I don't think the Archdeacon would disagree with the sentiment.
Of course, the sentiment on the panel, in the television studio amongst the audience and at home via Twitter updates demonstrated loud and clear that his proposition was overwhelmingly rejected. One of the major reasons why people were so aghast was because he suggested that perhaps gay people had a shorter life span. They also took umbrage that 'submission' should be along gender lines and people in loving relationships who chose not to marry were offended that their commitment was seen to be less serious than those who chose to say their marriage vows in public.
It became quite ugly really because Catherine Deveny was quite rude and intolerant and Chris Evans, Minister for Tertiary Education suggested that he had an ulterior motive for raising the debate and thought it entirely "inappropriate". It was a public lynching of sorts.
As someone who has a submissive nature and who takes great pleasure in a sense of submission I must admit that I wasn't at all comfortable with the discussion or with the notions raised by the Archdeacon. This is an incredibly private and individual matter and I'd no sooner say that someone should think and act like me than fly to the moon.
I happen to get great joy out of doing what I do and thinking as I do, but I don't think it is for everybody, or even a great many people. I certainly don't think that submission should be seen as something across gender lines and I don't think there should be public debate about it. I do what I do because it makes me very happy but it's a free country and it is up to individuals to sort out what is best for them. This is a matter of free will (and the desire, or not, to give it up) and not at all a matter for the Church, in my opinion.
I think that there are many social problems in the world, and religion in general would be better off to address those issues than to interfere in what happens in our most intimate relationships. Feed the hungry and so on.
ReplyDeleteIf a couple chooses to have a particular dynamic in their relationship, that is a private matter and up to the two of them. I think where female submission in a marriage or other intimate relationship gets a bad reputation is when it is confused with all women submitting to all men, and women not having equal rights, and this either mandated or approved of by the church or state.
Susan
Susan makes an excellent point, to which I entirely agree. All women and men have equal rights, including the right to submit to the control of a loved one for their mutual enjoyment, and this is a matter of personal choice (as indeed is religion).
ReplyDeleteWith regard to the idea of submission along gender lines, I'm not sure what the statistics are though I sense instinctively that it is easier for a man to assume the role of Dominant and a woman the role of Submissive in a loving relationship due to predisposed genetics and social conditioning. I will attest that I am predisposed to be a provider and instigator/aggressor while my wife is predisposed to the role of nurturer and reflector/mediator. Those components are probably handed down through genetics since prehistory but also compounded by the expectation that the man is the breadwinner and the woman the home-maker that has been ingrained in society for generations since. Taking that a stage further into formal D/s is not such a stretch.
Churchmen have a pastoral role that can involve them in dealing with all sorts of family discord and strife, so they can unwittingly slide into the role of unqualified social worker and counselor in their daily duties. This puts them in the difficult position of being a trusted adviser without the toolkit to really deliver against that expectation. Therefore we can expect them to show all the human frailties in the delivery of care that they see in those to whom they minister. The Church as an institution cannot be held responsible for the formulation of the personal opinions of their clergy any more than the police force can be held responsible for the personal opinions of its officers. But when speaking for or representing the institution we have to be very careful to separate the two, because there are standards of conduct that an institution can reasonably expect from its representatives.
In a debate such as this the clergyman should begin with a disclaimer that the views and opinions expressed are personal and not those of the Church, which as an institution has no role to shape the rules by which we construct the balance of our personal relationships.
I agree with Vesta that the whole program was probably ill conceived and there is no place for public debate or setting of policy in this area by any institution, whether religious or secular.
Susan: I think that is entirely it - that when you start to talk generalizations about submitting it starts to sound sordid. And, it was a rather Labor Party-centric panel, so putting the Archdeacon into that mix made it seem like he was asking that we go back to the day ole days.
ReplyDeleteRollymo: I could see what he was getting at. For example, I heard a report about black men in the US and how families were often in peril because the men wouldn't accept responsibility for a family. So many young men had ended up in jail and it had eroded stability for family members. I think he was wanting to try to put some foundations under family life again and he thought that maybe if women were more submissive to husbands, husbands would be more responsible to them. I just don't think it was the right venue or said in the right way or with the right emphasis. I don't think he meant any harm but he's from another generation and so they just dismissed him.