Trust me, baby!

Mature content warning: The content of the journal entries on “the way of a man and a maid” may be sexually explicit at times. Marriage is a covenantal sexual relationship between a man and a woman and there is no use in trying to politely explain that away. If you are squeamish over frank discussion of sex in a Christian context you might want to go to this website today instead. Seriously, I need to discuss content for mature men so please steer children away.

It is apparent Solomon did not understand the love-respect cycle when he admitted that the way of a man with a maid was too wonderful for him to understand (Prov. 30:19). Given the state of marriage in our culture (even within Christianity) it is also painfully apparent we still don’ get it.

When the Bible instructs women to submit to their husbands (Eph. 5:22-24; Col. 3:18; 1 Pe. 3:1) I don’t believe God has in mind blind submission to brute forces. I think God has in mind something that can happen naturally and joyfully when a man observes faithfully his patriarchal responsibilities.

Let’s get one thing established before we go further. We have observed that marriage is a sexual relationship between man and woman. One of its main objectives is the procreation of children. God joined Adam and Eve together and told them to be fruitful and multiply. In the relationship between man and woman the woman is the vulnerable person, because she bears children. If she submits sexually to the union she is subject to having a child. That brings about all kinds of maternal concerns for her ability to care for the child. It is always in the back of the mind of a healthy, moral, mature woman that she could become pregnant and literally bear the consequences of her union with a man.

Vitally important to her ability to submit fully is her ability to trust. She must be able to trust that the man she submits to in this most intimate way will be faithful to his promise. She must be fully convinced that he will remain with her to love her, protect her, and provide for her and her children. She must be satisfied that his heart is pure toward her and that he will not pursue others. She must be convinced that she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. A woman who cannot fully trust her man cannot fully love (respect) him. Without complete trust she is sexually inhibited and cannot fully submit.

This is why the promise of fidelity is so vital to the marriage covenant. Affairs with other women, either in the flesh or vicariously through pornography, are devastating to women. Unfaithfulness of any kind destroys trust and the woman’s ability to love.

Consequently, the woman’s need to trust helps a man live into his patriarchal responsibility by meeting his need for self-control and accountability. Left to his own desires most men would have wandering eyes and wandering hearts. A man is visually oriented. His testosterone-induced sex drive attracts him to beautiful women. By nature he is drawn to look on and admire a nude or scantily clothed woman, and to subconsciously wonder what it would be like . . .

Unfortunately the culture provides more than enough stimulus and opportunity for men to be unfaithful, even in small unnoticed ways. I have discovered that if I do not through the grace of God control my natural male impulses I cannot be faithful to my wife, to fully love her and be enraptured by her beauty.

God’s grace empowers us with self-control to channel energies into patriarchal roles of providing, protecting, and standing for respectable values, goals, and dreams.

When a woman is fully convinced she can trust her man she can willingly and freely submit, with all her heart. She will want to do that. It is how God made her.

Closely related to the need for trust is the need for security, which I will address in my next journal entry.