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Societal Contributions to Dysfunctional Marriages

by Greg Baker  
11/30/2010 / Marriage

No longer can society's contributions to ruined marriages be ignored. Certain supposed progressive philosophies that have dominated societal thinking over the last 100 years has not improved marriages but has rather added to marriage degradation in our society.

This article is the result of over a decade of marital counseling. It will fly in the face of mainstream philosophy regarding marriage, and it will be decidedly incorrect politically. But when political correctness becomes a tool for marital degradation, someone ought to say something. So, I am saying it.

Most people have been raised to believe that marriages need to work a certain way. These philosophies, although sounding good, and sounding fair, have ruined and destroyed marriages. If you say something often enough and long enough, it becomes accepted as good and right despite evidence to the contrary. Some of the great dictators of history wielded this physiological weapon to enslave his people or perpetuate a war.

Here are some of the prevailing philosophies that have contributed to the ruination of marriage:

THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

The woman's liberation movement began full of good intentions. But it has imparted a prevailing societal belief that men and women are no different. This lie has had a profound effect on men's attitudes towards women and women's attitudes towards men.

To say that the typical woman's emotions, thought processes, desires, sources of security, and outlook on life are no different than the typical man's is absurd. Being different is not bad! A marriage is supposed to be a union of two completely different people whose strengths, weaknesses, and differences complement each other and where the whole is greater than the sums of its parts!

We put girls on the same football teams as the boys and tell our boys to go off and tackle her. We teach him that he is to treat girls no differently than he treats his buddies. This belief and training stick with him through adolescence and into adulthood when he is bigger, stronger, and much more physical than the pretty wife he married. We have only encouraged him to be physically abusive when confronted with problems.

Our girls are put on the same mat as a boy and then encouraged to wrestle. They grapple (grope) one another in displays of physical dominance that would have been obscene a hundred years ago and is now cheered by peers and parents alike. At young ages, she may even have the physical prowess to defeat her male opponent. But one day, she will marry a man that outweighs here significantly and whose body has developed muscles in ways that girls do not and the only way she knows to control bad situations is to react physically. You can see where this will lead.

We dress our girls like boys (and often with less clothing) and we encourage them to compete in the same arenas, with the same aggression, and the same no holds barred rules that boys and men have traditionally always competed with.

The result? The average boy has no respect for the body of a girl. He will treat her body as an object, but not with respect. He will not uphold the ideas of feminism as something to protect and preservejust something to exploit and compete against.

I was raised to uplift women. I was raised that a woman was something very special, something to protect and provide for. I was never to lay a hand on a girl. Take that out of a male's thinking and he will treat a woman differently. He will compete and try to dominate physically. That will make for a bad marriage.

MEN AND WOMEN ARE EQUAL

Equal in importance? Absolutely! But to say that a man and a woman are equal in all aspects is ridiculous. Men cannot have babies, where is the equality in that? Take the average man and the average woman and the man will always be stronger and more physical than the woman.

Saying that men and women are equal in everything is like saying that the mind and heart are equal. They are not. They are both vital to the survival of the body, but they perform two completely different roles.

This strikes at the heart of the problem this philosophy has created. When you tell the man and the woman that they are completely equal, you blur the lines of the roles that need to be maintained for a functioning marriage. Imagine a company of 100 people where everyone was the boss. What would get done? What would be accomplished? Nothing, except fighting and arguing. Sound like the typical marriage?

This equal philosophy only works if both parties think exactly the same way in everything. If they do not, then they will merely butt heads!

A successful marriage is dependent on the husband and the wife playing certain roles within the marriage. Blur those roles and you have dysfunction. Growing up, I was taught that the man is the head of the home, and just like the most valuable asset of an employer is his employees, the most valuable asset of a husband is his wife! I was taught that as the head of the home, my role, I was to protect and provide for the most valuable part of the marriagemy wife!

My role does not make me a dictator, but as head of the home, I take the greater share of the problems to deal with. I make the hard decisions so she will not have too. Could she? Yes, but taking this role allows her to perform her role better. It allows here to be what I need. Together, we accomplish great things. We have a great marriage!

Think about it. Ever had a boss that treated you right? Knowing that you were being taken care of at the top made you much more generous and tolerant of the decisions he has to make for the company. You are much more supportive of a boss that believes his greatest asset is you. You will work hard to prove his faith in you correct. You will get along with him. You will be a team. You do your part, he does his! This is how a marriage ought to be.

This in no way implies that one role is more important than any other. You need both, husband and wife, to make it work. It cannot be done when both try to play the same roles.

CONCLUSION

There is so much more on this subject that ought to be said. I already know people will disagree with me, but by in large they will be people who have not had to deal with or counsel over a decade of dysfunctional marriages.

Our society has raised us to believe in certain things that have, and statistically proven, only made things worse as pertaining to marriages. Now, people do not even bother getting married, they just shack up together until it no longer works. Now the importance of marriage has been diluted in our societal conscious. It is a shame.

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