But you probably shouldn’t be dating this friend if she does not share your basic desire to be married to someone in the next five years or so and if it seems her beliefs are vastly different from yours. I’m not saying you shouldn’t spend any time talking with her, but not in a dating relationship. I realize you like her very much and she seems everything right now, but you’re looking for a woman to marry, and you’re not sure she’ll be ready for that any time soon. You also need to be wary and establish some distance because of what she’ll learn at school. Truthfully, I’m not sure you can counter the pervasive cultural messages against early marriage, domesticity and self-sacrifice. You’re one person against an entire institutional edifice.
[The Thinking Housewife – Hoping for Early Marriage]
So goes Laura’s response to Aidan, who is having trouble reconciling his feelings about a particular girl and the girl’s ambitions and upbringing.
Society tells women that they can have it all—a job, a home, and a hot relationship with their husband. It tells them that they can trust society to raise their children, and that if they do not follow this path that they are somehow less than a woman or that they are doing a disservice to their sex. This is part of the reason that more women cohabitate now than ever before.
And yet, I believe what we’re seeing here is a little bit of a resurgence of the desire for patriarchal gender roles. One in which the wife does the housework and the men do the leading. There is comfort in these roles, and I believe that part of the reason is that they are Biblical.
The other thing that I see happening in society, even in Christian education circles, is the constant emphasis on marriage without children. Our culture is infatuated with itself and its pleasure, and seeks to elevate self in a “Have it your own way mentality” such that it encourages the newly married to forego having children while they are young, to wait at least five years.
The problem with this is that it views children as a burden rather than a blessing. It takes a short view of history, and plays a gamble with society—a gamble we are losing as our culture is getting erased and overtaken by foreign cultures.
How do we stop this attack? By standing for the Divine Order of the family, by refusing to compromise on these points, and by praying and valuing the future generations.
Image from Stock Exchange used under the Standard Restrictions explained at the link.
I think that we all are manipulated on some ways, the image of the perfect women seems to be fake because it is impossible to realize all those resolutions, but we all want to show that we can do it, but the power isn’t constant and we often get tired and weary. And these things are the enemies of the family life.