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Welcome to the 12th day of #LoveBlog! Today’s prompt is Marital Wisdom. You can find the rest of this month’s prompts at the original post. This post contains Amazon affiliate links. It’s not too late to link up for yesterday’s prompt, Distance.
For some of the prompts this month, I knew exactly what I would write. But I just spent 15 minutes looking at old blog posts and googling “Marital Wisdom” to figure out what to write today.
For last year’s #LoveBlog challenge, one prompt was “Advice.” That prompt inspired today’s prompt, but I consider advice and wisdom to be two separate things. So I don’t just want to share advice.
My marital wisdom stems from a mere 29ish years of life and almost 3 years of marriage. So not that long! Instead of attempting to offer my own marital wisdom, I would rather share wisdom from others.
I believe in egalitarian marriage. Dan and I are equals in our relationship, and not in a falsely equal “separate spheres” and “cult of true womanhood” sort of way.
Yes, those are references to middle-class, white women’s history. I’m so glad my history major and WGS minor assist my writing.
Anyway…
Here are some of the books and websites that help with an egalitarian marriage.
Egalitarian Marriage Websites and Books
I haven’t read every single one of these books. I also haven’t read every single article on every single website. But I do frequent these websites, and I want to read the books I haven’t yet read.
1) The Junia Project
I have read so many articles from The Junia Project, and yet I feel like I can’t possibly get enough from them. According to their website, the team at The Junia Project is a “volunteer community of women and men advocating for the inclusion of women in leadership in the Christian church and for mutuality in marriage.” While not all of their articles relate to marriage, I linked directly to their marriage category in their blog.
2) Christians for Biblical Equality International
Full disclosure: I guest-blogged on CBE International two years ago.
Like The Junia Project, CBE International doesn’t limit its writings to egalitarian marriage. According to their website, “CBE affirms and promotes the biblical truth that all believers—without regard to gender, ethnicity or class—must exercise their God-given gifts with equal authority and equal responsibility in church, home and world.”
3) Rachel Held Evans
In 2012, Rachel Held Evans blogged about mutuality multiple times. While she has written many insightful posts on Christian feminism since then, her Mutuality blog tag only pulls up posts from 2012. She also hosted a synchroblog on mutuality, which is basically a blog link-up.
Both of these links provide a list of blog posts on both egalitarian leadership in the Church and in marriage.
Book: A Year of Biblical Womanhood
4) New Life by Marg Mowczko
Marg Mowczko has a theology degree and has also completed an MA in early Christian and Jewish studies with Macquarie University. Her blog posts are a bit academic in nature, which makes me love them even more.
5) Sarah Bessey
On both Sarah Bessey’s blog and in her book, she writes beautiful prose that captures my heart like poetry on egalitarian marriage and mutual submission. I wish I could captivate the hearts of my readers the way her writing captivates me.
6) Together: Reclaiming Co-Leadership in Marriage by Anne and Tim Evans
I haven’t read this book, but I would like to. From what I’ve read, the one place where I would disagree is that marriage is only between one man and one woman. However, setting that aside, Anne and Time Evans make a biblical case for co-leadership in marriage.
7) The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert by John Gottman, PhD. and Nan Silver
I haven’t read this book, but I have read much from the author’s website. From Amazon, “Gottman offers strategies and resources to help couples collaborate more effectively to resolve any problem, whether dealing with issues related to sex, money, religion, work, family, or anything else.”
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Loading InLinkz ...Enter the #LoveBlog2017 Giveaway!
I am so excited to include a giveaway for this year’s #LoveBlog! It started 02/01/2017 and runs through the end of the month. US residents only. I love my international readers, but international giveaways are more difficult to manage legally.
I will verify the winning entry myself before emailing the winner during the first week of March. If the winner doesn’t respond, I’ll start the process over again.
Do you believe in egalitarianism? What resources help you?
Oh I definitely err heavily on the side of egalitarian marriage, and the CBE site looks cool! To me, it’s mostly about what comes naturally rather than trying to go out of my way to categorically ensure my marriage is 100% egalitarian. That just seems like it would add stress, for me.
We decide schedules and dreams and plans together and support each other in the great stuff and the terrible stuff. But I am on the casual side…I’m almost sure our wedding vows didn’t have “obey” in them, but if they did, I doubt I would have cared. We just used whatever vows the pastor read to us. I was just happy to be marrying my favorite person and didn’t put a ton of planning into the ceremony. And my grandpa walked me down the aisle. I would have had both my parents if my parents had attended my wedding–family is really important to me and for me, I really wanted to show that Angel was marrying INTO a family. I wouldn’t walk down the aisle by myself because I’m not alone in life, I have an extremely close family standing behind me and Angel’s choosing to become part of my family. His family network isn’t quite as strong, although we love and get along with his family well, there just isn’t as much of the naturally tight network on his side. So it’s not ‘equal’ in that sense.
In another example of inequality in our relationship that I’m okay with,when Angel first came on the scene, my uncle called me and said, “If you are ever in trouble, if you are ever scared, if you are ever hurt, call me. No matter where you are, I will drop everything, I will come get you immediately. You have a family and you never ever have to feel like you have to face a bad or scary situation all by yourself. Angel seems like a perfectly fine young man but I’m just letting you know–I’m there for you. I always will be, no matter what.” To me, that meant SO much. He knows that women can get themselves into unhealthy or abusive relationships and end up staying because of shame or because they think they aren’t worth help–and he was saying he will be there in a second if I ever feel a need to ask for help. Much as I trust Angel, I love that I have a family who would never expect me to deal with a bad or dangerous relationship situation all on my own–that is not very equal, as I am certain that no one in his family made a similar offer to rescue Angel from an abusive relationship.
But even if it’s not equal, that offer from my uncle meant the world to me–and no, that’s not very independent and modern of me. I know some would be very offended by such an offer. But knowing the sweetheart my uncle is, and with my own slightly old-fashioned values, I appreciated it very much.
Allowing each spouse to fall into a role naturally IS egalitarian! It’s not about forcing both spouses to work a 9-5 and do exactly 50% of everything. That’s a myth from complementarians trying to make egalitarian marriage scary. 😉
I do most of the dishes and most of the laundry. Dan and I split the cooking and the grocery shopping. I dust and clean the bathrooms. He takes care of all the floors. He also deep-cleans periodically. using the knowledge he picked up working as a janitor in high school! Dan is the breadwinner, and I’ve moved for him and his career three times now. What’s important is that we make all big decisions together, from where he applied to jobs to when I quit my job, from where we go on vacation to any non-essential purchases over $100.
I love your focus on combining two families. That was important to us too, although we upset a few extended family members by only having parents and siblings at our wedding. It was just 12 of us, Dan and me included! So all of our siblings sat in the pews to start. Then Dan’s dad and my mom walked in together, down the aisle. Then Dan’s mom escorted him down the aisle before my dad escorted me. I hugged both my parents and handed off by bouquet to my mom to hold.
It was easy to plan our ceremony since it was so small. I picked out a bunch of Bible verses and secular passages on love. We talked to the minister for about 30 minutes 2 days before the wedding about what he would say and what my brother Jeremy (who got ordained and has done a few weddings) would say.
I think it’s really sweet that your uncle said that to you and to your sister. You’re right. A lot of women do end up in abusive relationships, and the abuser is often completely charming on the outside. It’s hard for women to leave abusive relationships–they are most likely to be killed by an abusive partner when they are leaving. It’s important to have someone who loves you and wants to protect you if necessary.
I’m definitely going to have to check these out!
I honestly wish I had more time to delve into these resources. I have to give myself time limits on the websites, or I would read them all day!
I found this topic a challenge, too, but I definitely liked it! I can’t wait to explore these resources.
I have LOVED reading any book by Rachel Held Evans but for some reason I haven’t visited her blog before. I think I know what I’ll be doing this weekend!
In retrospect, I wish I could have majored or minored in SWAG (what we called women’s studies at Smith). But I ended up taking a lot of classes that were cross-listed anyway!