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Okay Good reasons for it? hmm, Sorry nope. I think a lot of the Lazy men, are because of attitude and culture. I’m a constructivist. I believe if we construct one view though we are going to fight for it because those who have benefited have seen no wrong with it. I simply have this view of the world that we are naturally wanting power, and we will construct ways to get power. And if there is a God-given basis for that power, then we will hang onto it, even if that “God-given” bases is constructed. Honestly have I benefited to a degree with men presiding? Yes to a certain degree, but I find I really don’t care about that much, consideirng I have not had the family situation most OBM’s (Orthodox Believing Mormon, I am a TBM, I just am not the type of TBM that OBM’s are) have had. I like a man, who can share power, rather then do the whole administrative thing on spiritual things and I just follow, most women want a man to preside to me, because that is what they have been taught to like, and what they have learned to like. I’ve sort of came to the fact my Patriarchal blessing really is saying I am the one who is going to be the spiritual leader in my home (though not in those exact words, but God hasn’t hit me with a lightning bolt yet about this idea)
I honestly, don’t like patriarchy. My fiance feels the same. Preside to me is a word that is just the same as head. I seriously have issues with it. Preside to him is a non-issue. Will he take charge on certain things? Yes, when I am very ill and can’t get up, which may happen a lot, considering health issues. But i don’t equate taking charge when partner is ill Presiding, I call it love.
Fwiw, there were at least two references in the last couple of General Conferences to men and women both presiding – and one reference in the CHI training about a single mother presiding in her home. I wish there were even more such references and even more explicit teaching of that concept (and I believe it actually is taught now, especially compared to when I was young), and I wish the local leaders all would listen and understand the change, but it is being taught now from the global pulpit. It’s getting the water to the end of the rows by breaking down the dams, without causing massive flooding, that is the issue, imo. (or pruning in such a way as to not over-power the root, if you want a scriptural analogy)
Interesting, I for one at times can not really like CHI. I think at times its too controlling over things that should be left up to individual discretion with the spirit. I find it nice, but I notice a change in policy takes years to take effect. Interesting to hear about this change in policy. Interesting to hear any change in policy, when it comes to patriarchy. But I noticed that Laws (Policy) in a religion are the least of my worries, when something is so clearly stated in the Temple. Optimistic me: The Brethren are doing what they can, where they can without breaking down their idea of patriarchy to a degree they are uncomfortable with.
Pessimistic me: This is just a bone to chew on for now, and they could change it back. Policy is fluid, and it can change on a regular bases.
Partly I think patriarchy is throwing a bone to the old codgers in the church who haven’t died off yet because they see all social progress as the world going to hell in a handbasket. In 30 years, I don’t see this term being used. But the church is invested in ret-conning the past as part of the restoration process. Anything from the past has to look like it’s been restored, but frankly, some things are not worth restoring. *ahem, polygamy* Partly I think it’s a moot point anyway because Mormon men (on the whole) don’t behave like that anyway. I would bet they are generally better at sharing responsibility and changing diapers and being parents than their non-LDS counterparts (except maybe in Norway).
The church doesn’t even seem to mean anything by “preside” or patriarchy. Just that the husband is the prayer-chooser. Oh, the awesome absolute power! (that was sarcasm) We say these words, but we don’t mean what the words mean.
If you’ve got a husband who is enlightened, I would say you have little to worry about on this front. If you were living in a machismo culture, maybe you could worry. I do think men in a machismo culture need some sort of bone thrown to them so they don’t feel so emasculated at church, because church is not exactly a biker bar. Our men are pretty tame.
Quote:I like a man, who can share power, rather then do the whole administrative thing on spiritual things and I just follow, most women want a man to preside to me, because that is what they have been taught to like, and what they have learned to like.
Just a thought. My wife and I share quite a bit (I guess you’d have to ask her how effectively) but the sharing of power, administration and other things does have its downfalls. What happens when you don’t agree? Let me use an innocuous example. We have both done laundry throughout our married life (going on 23 years). However, she HATES how I fold the clothes (I’m just not that good at it). She initially (and to my mind, rather condescendingly) tried to teach me how to fold but I just didn’t care enough. This led to unnecessary bickering. Finally, I insisted that if I’m doing the laundry I get to fold clothes any way that I want and she left me alone. This same scenario played out in many other aspects of our marriage. Then I read some research that indicated that marital satisfaction was highly correlated with how well the husband and wife roles are defined in a marriage. When there is little or no ambiguity regarding who does what, both spouses are happier. When it’s not clear, meaning that sometimes the husband takes on certain responsibilities and sometimes the wife takes on those certain responsibilities, it is a breeding ground for conflict. I am by NO MEANS advocating a strict patriarchal order in the home. But if you’re not going that direction, you need good communication between the partners to deal with the inevitable tensions that arise when two people of widely varying backgrounds, values, and goals attempt to run a home together (and children just make the whole thing more complicated).
Quote:I am by NO MEANS advocating a strict patriarchal order in the home. But if you’re not going that direction, you need good communication between the partners to deal with the inevitable tensions that arise when two people of widely varying backgrounds, values, and goals attempt to run a home together (and children just make the whole thing more complicated).
Look, no matter what you do, you have to have good communication in a marriage because people don’t have an innate sense for who is going to do what; there are no real pre-described roles. Everything needs to be a decision the couple makes together.
We learn parenting styles from our parents usually. People make assumptions. My in-laws gave us some advice when we got married. They said that in my MIL’s parents’ house, her dad always did the finances. In my FIL’s parents’ house, his mom always did the finances. So guess what happened when they got married? MIL thinks “oh, doing the finances is the husband’s job” and FIL thinks “doing the finances is the wife’s job.” Those finances weren’t so good when they finally figured out their problem. Neither sex is more equipped to do the finances, but they had sure better get done.
In our marriage, my husband was the oldest child in his family. With 5 younger sibs, he helped out a lot around the house. He taught them to read. He knew how to help them with their homework. I was by far the youngest in my family, mostly living alone with my much older parents. I had zero experience with kids. Even when I tried babysitting as a teenager, I was just terrible. I didn’t know how to get kids organized, didn’t think about things like they needed to be fed or brush their teeth or couldn’t watch whatever I watched on TV. Parenting is not an innate skill. Women are not in fact inherently good at taking care of kids. My husband is far better at it, even now.
My wife and I decided early in our marriage that we couldn’t shop together without ruining a wonderful marriage. I won’t relate the details, but we simply shop in polar opposite ways – and it led to tension and conflict, so we stopped. I shopped one week; she shopped the next. Then, we had kids, life got more complicated and we worked out a different arrangement. Now, almost 25 years later, we can shop together – usually – except when we can’t. We now know how to shop in each situation, and we choose the best way for us in each situation. There’s a lesson in there that relates to just about everything in my life.
Also, frankly, I care less about the “details” of most things than my wife does – so I generally am fine with her having the final say when we disagree about something. If we disagree strongly, we have learned to table it and not make a decision – since it almost never is critical to make a decision RIGHT NOW. We don’t make major decisions unless we agree – period. “We” are “one” . . . and “half” can’t decide for “one”.
If anyone is interested, the following posts generated a lot of comments on my personal blog, at least relative to the few comments I normally get on that site. They might appear to be saying two contradictory things at first, but they really aren’t – since one deals with “world-wide reality” and the other deals with “the ideal”.
Also, remember, I write that blog knowing that most of the readers are going to be more “traditional” than this site – and that at least one of the commenters is an ultra-orthodox, ultra-conservative, trapped-in-the-past member: “Presiding: An Evolution of Definition”( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2008/10/presiding-evolution-of-definition.html “Men Are to Preside”( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2008/10/fathers-are-to-preside.html Hey Ray, One commenter on your blog referenced the patriarchal order as a support for the traditional “man in charge” definition of “preside.”
Quote:Elder Dallin H. Oaks Q12: The government of the family is patriarchal, whereas the government of the Church is hierarchical.
Elder Boyd K. Packer Q12: The patriarchal order is not a third, separate priesthood. Whatever relates to the patriarchal order is embraced in the Melchizedek Priesthood. The patriarchal order is a part of the Melchizedek Priesthood which enables endowed and worthy men to preside over their posterity in time and eternity.
I find it ironic that the patriarchal order as I understand it contains something akin to offices for “King & Queens, Priests & Priestesses” without any clear hierarchy. I do not pretend to know the mysteries of the patriarchal order, but they certainly do
notseem to contradict (and could easily be framed to support) the talk of co-equals, co-presidents, co-presiding, presiding by example, being united, walking side by side, interdependence, equally yoked together, sharing in decision making, true and complete common consent, and becoming one. The following are some important quotes to flesh out what this might look like in practice:
Elder L Tom Perry wrote:As a leader in your home you plan and sacrifice to achieve the blessing of a unified and happy family. To do all of this requires that you live a family-centered life. Remember, brethren, that in your role as leader in the family, your wife is your companion. The man neither walks ahead of his wife nor behind his wife but at her side. They are coequals.
President Boyd K. Packer wrote:In the home it is a partnership with husband and wife equally yoked together, sharing in decisions, always working together. While the husband, the father, has responsibility to provide worthy and inspired leadership, his wife is neither behind him nor ahead of him but at his side.
Quote:In THESE sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. (Emphasis added) Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. (The Family: A Proclamation to the World)
Quote:There may be a “presider”, but that does not mean he is the “decider”. His major responsibility is to ensure that a decision is reached, but the highest form of that in practice is ensuring that the decision reached is unanimous and not contrary to the will of God. There often are multiple options that would not be contrary to the will of God, so being able to reach an acceptable consensus through personal or combined compromise often is the truest form of “presiding”.
Quote:A woman (or man) learns more about righteous presiding by becoming a true disciple of Jesus than by any other means I know. As you devote your life to Him, the Spirit teaches you about Him. The more you learn about Him, the more you learn about righteous leadership and the less it matters to you who leads, so long as it is done in righteousness. It no longer becomes a matter of dominance, but a matter of eternal love. It isn’t something that can be communicated through words, but that does not make it any less real.
I can understand Wonderingcurrent, your aversion to a male dominated hierarchy. As Elder Oaks pointed out, the family unit now and in the hereafter is not to be organized after a hierarchy at all – it is to be a relationship based upon a partnership of equals. When seen from this perspective, the “patriarchal order” is not anything to be scared of and is something quite different from the “patriarchy” you seem to be acquainted with. More good news: in the eternities when the “unity of the faith” has been reached (Eph. 4:13) and the “more excellent way” prevails (1 Cor. 12:31), the drafty old hierarchy will be moth-balled and the children of God will live as a family!
:angel: I am giggling because my darling fiance and I love shopping together, though on certain food items I told him “its better to pay a high price for quality meats then to buy cheap”, got a bit of a bickering argument there, but he finally gave way (since we both had separate living spaces obviously, I let him have his really cheap hotdogs, probably will, just to keep the family peace). We both decided to try the Equally shared parenting model, which requires periodic sit downs. We are going to first call it the Equally Shared Partner model, because we obviously have no children.
I think that its different things for different people, but so long as things get done, we will both be happy. I honestly have had this talk with him. We will work it out, hopefully.
To me though, sometimes I see patriarchy as the hardline patriarchy, in the church, where it has to aboslutely be the way the man says things are. But I remember a good term to describe our Patrairchy. That is Chicken Patriarchy.
Men Preside, but men and women are equal. Oh men get to call on prayers (Who cares in my opinion, lets just create a chart, there every one knows when they will pray). I mean maybe i dont’ hate patriarchy, rather the insane way we view it. And i just find it completely unnecessary.
Maybe that is it. Wow, talking out problems with other people really helps me to have a new perspective.
I’ve done several blog posts about sexism in the world and church that might add to this conversation: http://www.wheatandtares.org/2011/01/04/why-dont-men-care-about-sexism/ http://www.wheatandtares.org/2010/10/26/the-world-is-sexist/ http://www.wheatandtares.org/2010/11/02/the-world-is-sexist-part-2-our-bodies/ A lot of these discussions related to the problems with how sexism is an inherited situation for both men & women, not one that contemporaries would create now, but we are living with the world that we inherited. The post on men and sexism got into a good discussion about the difference between feminism and anti-sexism.
But do we even have to call it patriarchy at all? Do we even have to call priesthood only or can we expand our language and view? Honestly yeah that sounds nice Roy, comforting at times, but still, the wording matters. And the practice matters too. And as I see it, it just isn’t necessary to me. Patriarchal Order to me does equate Male leadership, and male rule, and I just don’t really honestly see how that can be any different. I guess we could get to near-equal, but near-equal just isn’t good enough for me.
And you can say I can do it differently obviously, and I will where I can. Still don’t really like patriarchy or calling what should be Partnership, patriarchy.
I know one thing though: I don’t hate patriarchy, just find it completely unnecessary, and find it completely unnecessary to call everything after a male connotation of things.
(but then one can always blame the English Language, as I have many times)
The word patriarchy is totally unnecessary, IMO, but the way we use it, it doesn’t even mean what the dictionary says it does. The other observation I’ve made about the Proc on Families specifying gender roles is that if those are really inherent, there’s no need to specify them. And if they aren’t, then you can’t force them. Hawkgrrrl I agree. One of my favorite quotes is by Clare Booth Luce, and to sum it up, it states exactly that, That it is time to let what is natural just be natural, and allow opportunity for change on what can be changed.
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