🚀 go-pugleaf

Matthew William Damick wrote in message
<6moi7o$856$2@uni00nw.unity.ncsu.edu>...
>
>For me, it's not that I'm asking my fiancee to give up her name so
much
>as she's doing it voluntarily for reasons of perference and deference
for
>me.  Her love for me is such that she wants to be identified and
>connected with me.  Equal in importance here is that my role as a
husband
>requires that I love my wife (and children, when they eventually
happen)
>sacrificially as Christ loved/loves the Chruch.  This isn't about
mere
>feelings.  I'm making a conscious choice to do my utmost (including
>sacrificing myself) to see to the physical and spiritual well-being
of my
>family.  I will commit-promise-vow before God and man to do this
until I
>die.  I'm not taking on a talking possession.  I'll be taking on the
task
>of putting my wife and future children before me b/c of my love of
God
>and for her.
>


If you pull out the mumbo-jumbo about God and Christ, then you have a
great statement of my own personal feelings and commitment to my
spouse, as well.

I married a woman I'd known all my life, and who is still my equal in
every way.  When we married, we committed ourselves to several things,
such as mutual support, mutual policing, both having an input on
decisions affecting the two of us and our future children, raising our
children in a stable family environment, providing for any reasonably
foreseeable mishaps in the future and to not go out catting around.
My wife chose voluntarily, and without discussion, to accept my
surname, and I agreed, without discussion to respect her feelings, but
to be the final arbiter of decisions that affected the two of us, and
that I was competent to make.

Graciously accepting the male lead in the family was not a choice
forced upon her by either me, or any religion, though she still is a
Southern Baptist in many ways.  Anyone who knows her can attest that
she is fully capable of taking care of herself, and would never permit
herself to be walked upon by a husband, child or parent.  If I were to
go off on my own and buy a car, for instance, without discussing it
with her and seeking her input and consent, a living Hell would be
close at hand for me. In the same fashion, she would not consider
doing it herself, either.

Gracious acceptance of a male lead in a family does NOT mean that the
wife is subservient or demeaned in any way.  She merely acknowledges
that the male is the "head" of the family and the final arbiter of
decisions, should this be necessary.

Tom Gauldin, Raleigh NC
-NetMeeting   ils.four11.com,   Live Birdfeeder Action
ICQ 7022136     fax (919) 676-1404
ftp://ftp.mindspring.com/pub/users/scoundrl/home.htm
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The Summerland, where the sun doth shine,
Where the weak grow strong, and the strong grow great,
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