News for the Modern Couple: Why Being Equals isn't Trending Anymore
A few years ago, I conversed with a woman who couldn't relate to the concept of submitting to a man. I was newly married then and had no understanding of it, myself. I obeyed it as a rule and nothing else.
"It's 2014! We are equals", the woman exclaimed, "who submits in 2014?!"
Well, it's 2016, and I am very proud to say I submit, consciously and intentionally to Ed. I don't crawl on my knees to bring him dinner or lie down at the doorstep, so he can walk all over me, neither do I cower when he walks into a room. There's another name for those situations but it sure isn't submission.
The word, submit, comes from the Greek military term, huppotasso which means to "fall into rank under" or "to arrange in a military fashion under a leader." It's a military term. Sexy, I know. Submission is not oppression. It's a call to responsibility that shouldn't be taken lightly. It's definitely not passive and it doesn't mean you should be silent and servile.
A husband is the General. His wife is his Lieutenant General. He has a role. She has a role. Her role is just as important and the significance of her femininity is very profound. If you are a woman, be honest, sometimes you scare yourself, all that complexity in your head, your ability to sense and perceive things from a unique perspective and all that insight, when that intuition is working in over-drive...fascinating. Women are great at many things, I can't write them all here but there's one special skill women possess- the ability to acquire information. No one else comes close to info-acquisition and knowledge management like women, which maybe why we are prone to gossiping a lot. Haha. So how is this skill useful?
Men make decisions, that's their job. It's innate, it's instinct, it's divine. As a wife, it usually helps not to struggle with this fact. It's what he does. Where do you come in as a woman in this decision-making? Information provision. Nothing can stand against the power of an informed decision. She provides the information, he makes the sound, informed decisions. Everyone knows where they fit. If both people struggle for the same role, things usually spiral out of control, everyone gets cranky and no one has sex that night, which means this post published a while back would be useless.
Men are assertive decision-makers (even when they have no clue what they are doing lol!) They are always assertive, it's a gift that I admire, and I praise them for it. Now, for some reason, women seem to know the answers or the best mode of action before men do. Our intuition is killer, we listen, we feel, we ponder, we know, we share (solicited or not). The issue, sometimes, is the way we share the information, a little forceful, naggy, a little condescending-just a teeny bit. No one likes a wise-guy or an I-T-K*. The goal isn't to prove we were right, the goal is to make sure our plans and endeavors as a couple materialize. Many men ask their wives for prayers, it's not because we are super-prayer beings. It's because he knows your role in his life. If this was a chess board, you'd be both queen and bishop. Most older women in their array of experiences and prudence tell me, "He makes decisions, pray for wisdom for him because he will make the decision anyway, and if it's an unwise decision, then you have to reconfigure it in prayers and damage-control takes a while." Being Lt. General is not a joke. At all.
I love being Lt. General, I'm not trying to be equal with Ed. He already treats me like royalty anyway, which is way more than an equal. So why in the world would I struggle to be an equal and aim for less?
Everything starts with an understanding: For men- an understanding to honor and not suppress the voice of a woman. We always have a lot to say, we know, and it may seem overwhelming but if you listen...if you really listen...you would never have to fake assertion and the quality of those decisions you'd be making...wawu!
For women- the understanding that being Lt. General is a role that should never be despised, that submitting is honorable and worth many, many medallions. Most importantly, realizing that the standards are a little higher than being equals- having a man who treats you far more than an equal, while preserving your role as Lt. Gen- those are the new acceptable trends and standards.
What are your thoughts?
*ITK(I too know)- Nigerian slang which describes a person who speaks and behaves as if they know more than others.
