A good woman should stay in an abusive relationship. This is true...or is it?
I bet some of you are thinking this is crazy neh?............. Well i think i am, this craziness started with five words from a women’s bible study group, which created a lot of misunderstanding , confusion, questioning yourself as a woman….basically all of the unpleasant feelings that any women shouldn't feel, for some it really put things into perspective. For me it left me feeling like a failure in what I’m pursuing... as if i will not get there..
Eph 5v. 22-24 “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”
As a woman who has just started learning about the bible and finding my feet as a Christian woman, it left me with a lot of questions. In the discussion, we started wondering exactly what it meant to “submit to your husband” does this involve being looked down upon, mistreated or disgraced? Does it mean woman should obey their husbands blindly? Does it only apply to our grandmothers and our parents? According to tradition, a man’s word is final, even if you don’t agree with your spouse but what is says is it, the woman must just obey and keep quite. Well keeping quite and not stating your opinion is considered to be one of the attributes of a “good woman”."Mother" said nowadays we young woman talk too much, we will never have a good marriage like in their days. The thing is good people, I wanted to tell "mother" that ,we are not like our grandmothers who sat at home without jobs, and depended on their husbands to make ends meet, nowadays women haba qeke banna period! (They don’t beg men) more especially if you can afford yourself, we just don’t put up with nonsense, somehow the cat caught my tounge and i couldn't object to "mother's" statement, afraid of being labeled a disrespectful child, as I am the youngest in the group. So I had to pretend as if I understand, so did everyone, i was nodding my head like crazy..LOL
The woman I call “mother” is older, she is a pensioner, she is the one giving us bible studies and basically guiding us, although I had a problem this past Monday, I find her to be a very wise woman, a mother, and all things a Christian woman should be. She told us that if your man didn’t come home the previous night and happened to pitch up in the morning, you should make him a plate of warm food, run him a bath and not ask questions or yell at him, and further stated that, if your man strays and unfortunately impregnates another woman, you should forgive your husband and raise that child with all your children…….. Does this mean men are permitted to mistreat us? At this point my blood pressure shot up from 20 to almost 90 in a split second! it felt as if i had piles, i couldn't sit well in my chair!!!!
Now, with that being said, nna as an individual and a modern woman I have a HUGE problem with learning to keep quite and being a “yebo baba” woman. Especially when I don’t agree with some things, there are some things that I will not tolerate and that i can tolerate, this makes me think that I will never get married, or basically I will never be the “good christian wife”. Does stating my opinion or arguing regarding an issue make me a woman who lacks Christian morals? Does our own career developments as modern woman blind us from being the woman God wants us to be?
She gave us some examples to practice with our boyfriend or husbands for this week, just to practice submission, as on sunday we will give her feedback and she will take the topic further, and boy do I find it difficult to keep my trap shut.... or being submissive rather!!
Not be misunderstood here fellows, I am not questioning the word of God, nor am i saying it is wrong, I just want a clarification, because I am sure God does not expect us to stomach emotional and physical abuse. I must have misunderstood.
So before I loose my mind, can you please tell me what you understand about woman submitting to their husbands? Could being less submissive be the contributing factor to failure of marriages?………maybe I am missing something, somewhere here.
Even if you just have married friends, boyfriends, girlfriends or if you just have a relationship with Jesus Christ, your input is required.