Amy,

I am so glad to see that you posted this message. I had a thought percolating on this subject for a few days, and wanted to express it, but didn't have time for the Forum until now. Your post is something I thought would be very good to see, and now that I have seen it, I see that I was right.

My thought was this: So often, men are asked what they think the command "Wives, submit to your husbands" means, and how they apply it in their own lives. This question, however, displays a fundamental failure to understand the purpose of that portion of Scripture. The command is given to the wife, not to the husband. The husband is never told to enforce this command, or to check up on his wife; he is commanded to love his wife in a later verse, but that's it.

I came to see things in this way when I started trying to figure out for myself what it meant, exactly, for the wife to submit to the husband, as Brunnen-G had asked. The only conclusion that I could come to was that as a man, I really couldn't answer that, and shouldn't even try. To be honest, I still don't completely understand what it means, because men and women are made differently and think differently. As you pointed out in your discussion of the respective yearnings of men and women, there are basic differences in the way the two genders think, and bridging that gap can be hard.

Rather than repeat more of what you have already said so well, I'll say this: I'm very glad to get the opportunity to read the views of a Godly woman who has a very clear understanding of that Scripture and can apply it to her own life in a practical way. I think your words here will be an encouragement and a guide for me as I look for the woman that I will eventually marry.

Don Monkey