Dropping a line

I will more than likely only be posting about 2 to 3 times a week...as you might have already noticed. Dial-up is frustrating to me, so i won't be nearly as up to date while at school.

I'm going to post a page from my Old Testament Theology book by Paul R. House. He mentions something rather interesting about the roles of men and women in marital relationships. For all non-religious viewers, i apologize if this does not interest you:

"the woman receives two basic penalties for her actions. One is physical, and the other is relational. Pain will accompany childbirth (Gen 3:16), which indicates that the effects of sin cannot be localized to some spiritual portion of human life. Rather sin impacts the woman's physical being as well, forcing her to remember her failure during what should be a joyous moment in her life. As hard as this punishment is, it is less pervasive than the second. her sin also bears the penalty of frustration in her relationship with her husband (3:16).
Martin Luther argues that this punishment means that women are now placed nder the man's authority in all matters but procreation and the nurturing of children, tasks he considers eminently honorable. This subjection would not have occurred without sin. G.C. Aalders offers the fairly common idea that though the woman knows the pain associated with childbirth she will still desire sex with her husband, which in turn leads her back to her pain. He agrees in principle with Luther's opinions on the woman's subjection to her husband. Victor Hamilton modifies this viewpoint somehwhat stating that this punishment means that instead of 'being a reign of co-equals over the remainder of God's creation, the relationship now becomes a fierce dispute, with each part trying to rule the other'"

Now my main focus on these two paragraphs is the last quote in mentioning "with each part trying to rule the other". I found this interesting because that is, no doubt, a constant dispute amongst marital relationships, especially those in the Christian community. Probably one of these disputes, which many probably stemmed after The Fall, was the idea of the symbolism of submission (in other words, what submission means). We associate submission with "giving up" or "inferiority" and we immediately associate this "inferiority" from the "punishment" that started with Eve. I suppose submission has many meanings, especially in American culture, but one thing I think we must not confuse submission with, is that somehow its origins from punishment make it "bad" or "a sign of weakness". Submission was considered a punishment because it was a HARD thing to do. What would punishment be if there was no challenge established behind it, or no difficulty resulting from it? Everyone can say "I win", but how many can say "the victory is yours"? I do hesitate on using this analogy, because its biggest flaw is assuming that submission is an idea that revolves around "winning or losing", when in fact it is not. I simply cannot come up with a better way of showing the difficulty and challenge behind the thought of submission. I apologize for any offense. I suppose amongst all my rambling that I am trying to say is that the cultural idea of "submission" is deeply flawed, and how disputes of "trying to rule the other" started from is indeed interesting and worth thinking about.

Well, I could write more, but thats just a tidbit on what I was thinking about from my Theology book.