Category Archives: Marriage

Pride

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This Mother’s Day I got treated to rest and dinner. My husband took care of my one-year-old all through church service and fulfilled most of our children’s demands throughout the weekend; I ate at my favorite restaurant (The Blue Nile, Ethiopian); and I finally watched the TD Jakes’ movie Not Easily Broken with Morris Chestnut and Taraji P. Henson.

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it’s about what happens to a married couple that doesn’t keep God at the center of the marriage. In this movie, selfish desires take precedence and allow bitterness and blame shifting to become basis of the couple’s interactions. Ultimately, pride is what keeps each of them from continually pursuing the other to make amends. But a conversation with her mother led the wife to a revelation of her complicity in destroying her marriage.

In defending why she encouraged her daughter to put her husband out of the house, her mother said: “Black women have to be strong and you know that.” “And in all your lessons about how I need to be strong and proud and independent, Mama, you left out some very important things. How to love, Mama. How to really care about somebody. How to forgive.” Oh, this struck a chord with me. My mama, too, like many of our mothers, gave us the reality lesson of the double struggle that comes with being black and a woman: People automatically discount your strengths so you have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. And for me and others I know, this made us work more than twice as hard because we wanted to be considered more than half as good. This excellence, for me, resulted in pride. Not the kind that prompts you to have good self grooming and appreciate how God made you (this is good pride), but the kind that says, “I’m all that. I’d rather just do it myself to make sure it gets done right.” I became self-reliant and in my recovery, I have had to learn how to have God esteem, not self-esteem, and let people help me.

Pride has been my source of strength, my vice, for many years. We know that pride comes in many forms, and I have dealt with a good variety of them: intellectual pride, family pride, sorority pride, material pride, just to name a few (Yes, there are more. I will be delivered, in Jesus’ name). As I prepare to reveal my proud self in various areas of my life, tell me where you struggle with pride. How has pride been a hindrance for you? Talk to me.

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith

Test Your Mama

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Someone once said something like this: “If your mama says she loves you, check it out.”

your mama

your mama


This is the reason why I posted the Alice Walker quotation on Monday and will post other poets’ thoughts, too. Alice Walker is considered a mother of black feminism. I want you to check out even what your mothers say. You might not consider Walker a mother, but many in our American and Christian cultures do; she is an icon. Often we take the words of icons as pure gospel just because we love the people. Let’s scrutinize and never be hoodwinked from sweet sounding words that move our hearts. Let’s also scrutinize so we can give credit where credit is due. Someone may not be a Christian, but they can speak truth, and all truth comes from God.

The Alice Walker quotation was provocative to me because at first reading it seemed anti-biblical. I agree that animals exist for reasons apart from for humans; they help to balance the world’s ecosystem, but it’s arguable whether or not animals were created for humans. After God created animals he placed humans (Adam and Eve) in charge of them (Genesis 1:28). Walker was right about black people not being created for white people. God created us all in His image for His good pleasure not for one race to demand pleasure from another (Revelation 4:11).

Finally, Walker was right in one sense about women not being created for men. All women weren’t created for all men; in other words, women weren’t created so men could dominate them, but women were created for men to have as wives. So the woman who becomes a wife was created for the man who becomes her husband, and vice versa (see 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 and 11:11-12). Man was created first but men cannot continue to be created without a woman. There is definite interdependence with a man and woman, the husband and wife. So you can see I didn’t totally disagreed with Walker, but I just wanted to get you to think without inserting my opinion. Thanks to the many of you who read the previous post and the brave one who responded. I always want to hear from you so tell me what you think of this post or any other one. Can’t wait to hear from you.

Marital Roles

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I remember reading an analogy in PB Wilson’s Liberated Through Submission about the daily requirement of submission from all people. She talked about driving and the need to yield (submit) to other drivers, particularly when merging in traffic. It’s not that the other drivers are better than you; it’s just that for the safety of all, yielding is necessary. This helped me see my role in submission in marriage differently. Her description in no way gave a picture of a doormat to be stepped on, but an act necessary for the benefit of all. This is the picture that Scripture paints.

Men and women in general, and husbands and wives more specifically, are the same in value in Jesus Christ’s sight (Galatians 3:28), and He requires mutual consideration in marriage, but each spouse has been called to different functions. I believe this is so for there to be order in the marriage (1 Corinthians 11:3-12). Two main functions for the husband are provider and protector and for the wife, submitter and respecter.

The husband was called from the beginning to be a provider and protector when he was told to dress (work) and keep (protect) the garden (Genesis 2:5-17). God didn’t change his mind about man’s responsibilities in marriage when he laid out the duties of sanctifier, nourisher, cherisher, cleanser and lover in Ephesians 5. Each of these duties fall under provider and protector and require the husband to do so spiritually, physically and emotionally (See also 1 Corinthians 7:3, Colossians 3:19 and 1 Peter 3:7). The husband is compared to Jesus Christ and the woman to the church (Christians). So just like Christians are to submit to and respect Christ, so are wives to submit to and respect their husbands. Jesus Christ is the perfect provider and protector, and through Him a husband can seek to fulfill these roles in marriage. And Christ was perfect in submission and the respect of others, and through Him we can do the same for our husbands.

The major roles of each spouse don’t exclude the other from operating in the other’s roles from time to time when appropriate, but they are not the other’s primary responsibilities. So strong black woman, you don’t need no man to provide for or to protect you, but if you’re married this is what God requires that husbands do for you. Don’t let a bad attitude or a confusion of roles keep you from receiving blessings from your husband. Remember, each spouse seeking to fully operate in their function is biblical equality.

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith

Marital Oneness

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“I don’t need no man,” many a strong black woman has said. And she is right. In fact, if you look at why God made woman, you could infer that the man needs a woman (Gen. 2:18-23). But I don’t think this is what God wants us to get from that passage. It’s about two whole people coming together to enhance each other’s wholeness and being on one accord. This is what I think typifies oneness; two people can come together knowing their strengths and weaknesses and contribute and accept enhancement from the other (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). The two agree, based on God’s word, how they will develop this oneness.

Oneness wasn’t even in my mind when I was demanding a new family structure from what my husband-to-be was accustomed to (see previous entry). I told him that we were not going to his people’s house. I didn’t tell him what I thought and ask him what he thought so together we could decide what a new family custom might be. I was also drawing the line between what’s his and what’s mine, by referring to his birth family as his people instead of seeing them as our people. Being one means his family becomes my family. He leaves them and becomes one with me, not being under his parents’ rules anymore but operating based upon the guidelines of our new family (Genesis 2:24). Our oneness now requires synergy based upon a scriptural model. And part of the scriptural model for marriage is the different roles assigned to husbands and wives (Ephesians 5:21-33). I’ll talk about that more next time, but for now, in what ways may you have disrupted oneness in marriage? What about others you know? You know I want your feedback. I look forward to receiving it.

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith

Marital Equality

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I had it all figured out. I told my husband to be: “When we get married, we ain’t going over to your people’s house every week for dinner. And I’m still going to present at academic conferences. I’ll just have our baby strapped to me, but I’m going.” There was no way that I was going to be obligated to his family’s idea of together time, and there was no way that I was going to stop my career aspirations. I knew the scriptures told a man to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and I knew that God had gifted me to work just like He had gifted my man (Genesis 2:24; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11). I wanted to assert myself, make sure that he knew how things were laying before he gave me the ring, before I said I do. I wanted him to know that he couldn’t make all the decisions because we were equal. But none of my thoughts considered what God had to say about marriage, namely that the two shall be one and that husbands and wives have different roles. I’ll discuss both more fully in future entries.

I didn’t consider what God had to say because I thought what I had to say was more important (Proverbs 3:7). My wisdom told me that we could still operate married like we were single and that we were equal in how we should function. And though I talked about the 50/50 split in marriage, I always wrestled with that one because my common sense let me know that would be impossible (though it would be ideal, I thought); the only way you could split everything 50/50 in marriage is if you marry your clone.

Marital equality calls for each spouse to seek to operate fully in their functions, not to perform the same functions. And sometimes these functions require what you’d rather not do, like submit to attending a family dinner or postpone an academic career to properly care for children. Initially both seemed hard, but God’s wisdom has proven that my notions were the way of death (Proverbs 14:12).

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith