“In Genesis 3:16, we are told the consequences of sin that women would experience due to sin entering the world. One thing that would happen to them is that “…thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” There is great disagreement what this actually means. Even the commentaries of old disagree about the interpretation. I believe it means that the woman’s desire will be to control her husband just as in Genesis 4:7, we are told “sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” Sin’s desire is to control us.”
I’m glad Lori at least admits that there is disagreement over the exact meaning of this verse. However, she offers no support for her own opinion here. In my opinion, a more compelling theory is that this verse is referring to women desiring their husbands in a way they ought only to desire God. In other words, placing their husbands on a pedestal and almost turning them into idols. You know, the way Lori teaches women to do. Either way, the idea that womens’ desire to control husbands just doesn’t hold water. If we look throughout history, which gender is it that has a much more obvious history of being obsessed with controlling the other?
Also, Lori doesn’t seem to notice this verse implies that men ruling over women is part of the curse. Despite this, she continues to portray the rule of men as a blessing for women!
“From what I have observed throughout the years and in my own life, most wives want to control their husbands. This is why they nag and quarrel with them. They want their own way and they want their husbands to agree with them.”
I cringe every time I see someone say “most.” If a specific amount or percentage were available, they would have provided it. This is a good indicator that the person has merely made a generalization based on their own experience, or perhaps even pulled the assertion out of thin air. It would be different if the “most” were followed by a citation of some sort, but I’m certainly not holding my breath waiting for such a thing from Lori.
Anyway, I can think of other reasons why there would be quarreling in a marriage...like, maybe, husbands trying to control their wives?
I asked the women in the chat room how wives try to control their husbands and I received many great responses.
Many of these responses made good points, at least when taken at face value. For example, they condemn emotional manipulation, giving the cold shoulder, looking at the worst in people instead of the best, always trying to get your own way, using the silent treatment, etc. The problem, of course, is the underlying one-sidedness of these statements. If men were to do any of these things, likely the first response would be to question what the woman did to drive them to it!
One comment mentioned the following:
“Belittling him and making him feel incapable of making his own decisions. Guilt-tripping him into things. Pulling Bible verses out of context to show him how he’s wrong (possibly in context but with a bitter attitude).”
Another comment mentions not “letting him make the final decision” as another way women try to control their husbands. This is one of the most frequently seen examples of an idea that is presented as if it were biblical, but does not, in fact, ever appear in the Bible. It’s not even hinted at. And yet, it is frequently asserted that husbands have the right to “make the final decision”, on account of their maleness, I guess. Either men are inherently better decision-makers, in which case complementarians believe women to be inferior in some way (and should admit it, or else they don’t believe there’s a difference and the distinction is completely arbitrary. They can’t have it both ways.
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