Why Women Need Men
Femininity needs masculinity. Woman needs man. Her softness and depth not only invites intimacy; woman possesses a marvelous capacity to nurture relationship. Therein lies the paradox of woman—powerful in love yet equally powerful in her vulnerability to be wounded in those relationships.
Woman is a deep well. She needs man’s help to guard the waters, to keep them clear and free. And to help ensure that the gift of that water finds rich expression. Secure in the blessing of masculine love, she thrives like a ‘well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.’
A woman’s gift is herself. Unlike man, she finds meaning primarily in her relationships. The ‘earth-bound man’, raised from the dust, finds his match in the one taken from his side. Woman’s source is not inanimate; she is formed from a human, which establishes her as an essentially relational being.
Woman’s gift is in relationship. In whatever she aspires to do, her tasks and goals will have an implicitly relational dimension. Annette has noted that in spite of her many accomplishments, she instinctively defines herself relationally. She is not first a publisher/administrator/healer; she is Annette, daughter of Ruth and Harry, wife of Andy, mother of Greg, Nick, Kate, and Sam.
But that gift has a downside. Like the souring of man’s good earth and the strife that accompanied the work of his hands, woman can find her relational ‘sources’ cruel and embittering. And she not only the victim but the perpetrator as well!
Her curse involves relationships: the pain of bringing forth children, and a ‘desire’ for her husband that connotes a grasping, possessive grip. He will ‘rule over her’ outside the garden, an authority that strikes me as more ominous than protective. (Genesis 3: 16)
Woman is now set up for a grasping after relationship that invites pain and hurt—engendering a dark subjectivity in her depths. She needs the whole enough masculine to come alongside her, not to rule, but to call forth and guard the beauty of her exquisite and profound being.
When man rightly beholds her gift, and stands faithfully on her behalf, she thrives. Heaven is glimpsed on earth when a masculine image-bearer loves his feminine counterpart in a way that releases her to be grateful for the gift that she is. Woman needs man. Honor marriage for the good of all. Vote YES on Proposition 8.
“O God, we honor Your design in creation, man for woman, woman for man. We do so humbly, full well knowing that our dignity together is matched by our capacity to bruise and break one another. In mercy, free us to honor Your design in creation by how we honor one another, man to woman, woman to man.”
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