Love, Honor, and OBEY!

Those are the words the minister at my wedding asked of me and that I agreed to in 1957.  Today's young woman would gasp in shock if asked to commit to obeying her husband but that was the norm when I got married.  Of course, they were only words to me and the concept was just as foreign to me as to the young woman of today.  There wasn't a chance in hell that I was going to "obey" my dearly loved husband but I wonder if he knew that.  Maybe those words meant something to the young man of that day.  After all, it was a man who included them in the marriage vows to begin with and women have been battling marriage slavery since the beginning of time.

I like what I see in modern marriages.  There is more equality and the reason is that women have demanded it.  Women have gone from the frilly aproned housewife to working woman bringing home a paycheck and that has promoted her equality in the relationship.  She's proven she can do a decent job both inside and outside of the home, bear and raise children, and insist that her mate do his share, too.  Women have always been stronger than they think but, because they're finally realizing it, they've helped make their men better, too.

Of course, this is the ideal and not all marriages reflect the new woman but I've watched the evolution over many years and it's a beautiful sight to see.  What I don't like is the large numbers of young women who are alone and I think that might be because many men are rebelling at giving up some of their unfair advantages over them.

My answer is that it's better to be alone than in an unhappy, unfair relationship.  A strong, secure woman could never be happy with a man they were forced to obey.  A man, so insecure that he needed to exert power over his mate, would be unbearable to live with.

I like the newer phrase, "love, honor, and cherish".  A marriage has a good chance of succeeding if those words are taken to heart.