Would you vow to submit to your husband?

Prior to my wedding I said I would not agree to 'obey' . The vicar had other ideas and slipped it in without warning . I was too young and overawed by the day to make a fuss so did nothing . Fortunately I am married to the dearest man and I have not had to honour that vow !!

Our vicar was the same, but I wanted to anyway. I'm very meek and conventional you see!,

Never submit, never obey!

I don't really understand the thinking behind this attitude. Are men supposed to be superior in intelligence,judgement,kindness, etc.? If so, they have not done a very good job of proving it. Every marriage will be different, but in none should one partner be obliged to submit to the other. That is slavery. I suppose it is ingrained in the thinking of many churches, which is why they have fought tooth and nail against women vicars and, of course, in the catholic church, have completely refused to accept them. What century are these people living in?

When I helped out at a playgroup run by the local happy clappy church they tried to persuade me to join them. I was given a book to read which said that marriage was a partnership but that the man was the senior partner and always had the casting vote. They gave examples such as if you want to go on holiday to one place and he wants to go somewhere else then you should go where your husband wants to go. Or if you want a new settee and he wants a different one then you should get the one he wants. For a man is the master of the family.

I let my ex choose paint for our bedroom once. We ended up with a bright orange bedroom. It was so bright the window cleaner used to wear sunglasses to do the windows

It should be a partnership of two equals, but all religions are patriarchal so it's in their interests to keep women in their place.

But why do women go long with it? O.K. In many countries they are physically oppressed and threatened, but why do British and American women put up with it? Anne Widdecombe converted to Catholicism rather than belong to a church which allowed women vicars. She didn't seem to think that women MPs were any less competent than men. I don't accept the explanation that Jesus did not call women to his ministry - we know he did and in fact it was probably his women apostles who nurtured the young church. They became invisible for centuries, but even now women form the majority at most church services.
Even if I believed in a god, I wouldn't want to be part of any organisation that treated half the human race as inferior. Oh, I forgot, not 'inferior', just 'different but equal'. Poppycock.

No!

But, whatever the sins of the RCC, if you married in that church you couldn't agree to obey or submit. It isn't part of the liturgy of the marriage service.

For which may the Lord be praised.

I'm told that there are not too many weddings in the Sydney diocese ATM.

Hi greatnan. Which women apostles are you talking about?

Bookdreamer I would guess that Greatnan is talking about Martha, Mary, and Mary Magdalene.

Not just those - I believe Jesus had many women followers.

Oh yes, of course, but lots of important females in the New Testament, such as Jesus' sisters, are not actually named.

QV Luke 8:1-3 Which names Joanna, Susannah and many others.

It is a shame that the Abrahamic religions took over from nature worship, where women were revered figures. After all, it was women who were able to bring forth new life.

The premise behind that awful book the De Vinci Code, was that Mary Magdelene was not only Jesus' wife but also his right hand man (or woman in her case) and the one he appointed to be head of his church. It seems history was rewritten in the 3rd century when the Emperor Constantine became the first Roman Emperor to become a Christian and Mary Magdelene's name was at that time besmirched when she was re-cast as a prostitute, because of course in the Catholic religion, women as we well know can only ever be Madonnas or whores. One of the theories put forward in other books written about the same subject, was that it was a possibility some men were or are jealous of women because they are able to give birth and keep the whole cycle of life going and far from being inferior they are rather afraid that women could be deemed superior. Religions are run by men and it seems to suit their patriarchs to peddle the notion that women are weak minded inferior beings that need to be subjugated. My mother, who was a devout Catholic, wasn't however blind to the fact that women were treated as second class citizens by the church,she told me St Paul was a misogamist, I don't know whether he was because I'm not that well up on his writing. She also told me that one of the Popes a few decades ago asked for some women journalists to be removed from the Vatican when a group of journalists were there by invitation and the only role women had in the church was that of arranging flowers and tidying up. The people I know that go to church on a regular basis seem well aware of it's flaws and just take the bits that suit them and I believe that most priests don't bother to peddle the ridiculous notions the Catholic church has on birth control here because they know in Western countries their congregation wont go along with it. Clearly the traditional Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain don't either as they have extremely low birth rates. The church doesn't appear to have the stranglehold they did when I was growing up and of course their dreadful handling of the child sex abuse scandals has undermined their position, particularly I believe in Ireland, who were back in the Dark Ages a couple of decades ago.

Oops should have typed misogynist, a misogamist I believe relates to heavy fog!

Misogamist is a hater of marriage, too baNANA. it might be the right word, after all!

Thanks whenim64, I didn't know that, it's nice to learn something new, albeit by accident.

A priest told me that up until the 1980s a priest's housekeeper had to be over forty and plain so that SHE couldn't tempt the priest to break his vows. Hence there were so many Mrs Doyles.

I think Paul (nasty man) was the one who told wives to submit to their husband. In fact he never knew Jesus and imposed his own doctrine on the church which then split into two sections, the Jewish one and the Pauline gentile church from which modern Christianity descends!

Hard to know where to start with fury at what the priest told vampirequeen. So the woman's feelings, inclinations, sex drive etc doesn't come into it? Plain women and women over forty have no sex appeal. Men are helpless to resist an attractive woman under forty, even celibate priests. Only physical appearance matters. Grrrr

Yes indeed but it was the way the Church thought.

I am reading The 19th Wife, a story about the Mormons, and in particular the sect known as The Church of the Latter Day Saints. The women had to submit to their husbands having multiple marriages because they were brainwashed from birth. They were told that 'celestial marriage' was the command of God, via his prophet, Brigham Young. The reason for some polygamy in certain cultures was the imbalance of the sexes because men were lost in wars, so the only way a woman could gain a 'protector' was if she was prepared to share him with up to three other women. This was not the case in the LDS church - the reason was to allow the men to indulge their taste for the girls and young women who had to submit to them.
It is hard to understand how there could still be women who are willing to declare themselves something less than a full, mature, human being unless they have no option.

VQ that is nearly correct. The actual wording is 'over forty and of mature understanding'. The priest who told us that said that is was to ensure that the housekeeper kept the houseful of priests, including the immature curates, in good order!

That's better!