Ladies First – Is it respectful or not?

That doesn’t conform to Rav Miller’s “There cannot be two kings… The wife is submissive… There can be no harmony when there are two commanders…”

I don’t see why not. Please explain yourself.

The husband and wife ARE partners! BUT at the same time, they do have different roles and the husband’s role involves being the more dominant one in certain ways.

And I disagree with that being a rule.

As I said, if a couple works with the dynamic of the man being dominant and the woman submissive, then fine — that’s what works for that couple. But the same is true if it’s the exact opposite, or if their personalities are somewhere in the middle. My objection was to Rabbi Miller’s statement that it *must* be this way for a marriage to work. I know from my own marriage and plenty of others that it’s simply not so.

No two marriages are the same, as the people involved in them are different. How each couple interacts with each other is up to them. To say that the man must have traits X, Y and Z and the woman must have traits A, B and C for a marriage to work is just false. Each couple has to determine on their own how their relationship is going to work and trying to force them into roles that are not within their personalities or that would upset the dynamic of their relationship is just asking for trouble.

The Torah ideal isn’t for the man to be dominant and the woman submissive. The Torah ideal is to have a functioning, loving relationship — however the interpersonal dynamics between them works out.

The Wolf

Wolf: The Torah ideal isn’t for the man to be dominant and the woman submissive.

Torah: ????? ???????? ????????????? ?????? ???????? ?????

We’ve covered this before. That’s not a statement that things *must* be that way. In the same Parsha it also says ???????? ???????? ???????????? ?????????? ???????? ???????? ??????. Does that mean that a woman can’t have painkillers during childbirth?

It doesn’t matter how many other sources you bring because I can see with my own eyes that there are successful couples where the marriage works even though it isn’t in the dominant male/submissive female paradigm. Saying that it must be that way for the marriage to be successful is false — and it doesn’t matter how many sources you bring to the contrary because the evidence of my own eyes and the experiences that I personally have gone through are more convincing to me.

However, I will throw you a bone on the matter. Many of those sources you brought were written at a time and in a culture when, perhaps, the dominant male/submissive female paradigm was dominant and expected. But today, the culture is very different than back then — and people’s expectations of themselves, their spouses and their roles in marriage have shifted significantly since then. So, I’ll grant, it’s possible that the statement that a marriage must work that way was true in certain times, certain places and certain cultures — but in the America of today, it is not.

You can decry it. You can wail and gnash your teeth about it. You may state that it’s a betrayal of everything the Torah holds dear — but it doesn’t matter. You can’t change people and their expectations by whim. You have to deal with the reality as it currently exists and, as it does, your preferred paradigm for marriage does not have to be the only one for a successful marriage.

The Wolf

Joseph did you even read what the Wolf said? He made it very clear on several of his posts that he disagrees with you because his own experiences show otherwise. Why do you insist on making this about feminism and the western world?

You keep bringing the western world in, which makes me suspect it plays a very big part in the way you form your opinions.

If I must add my one and a half cents..

Joseph is right in a sense, the world was created in a fashion where when things are the normal way, it follows how the designer intended it to be. And everyone knows that. Its common sense. I just feel that there’s no need to keep harping on such issues. Gemarah somewhere says that because Achashveirosh sent such silly edict proclaiming a man should rule in his house, for it’s plainly obvious – even a lowly man is boss in him home, they decided to cast away his second edict of destroying the Jews as foolishness too. So keeping on this topic over and over doesn’t do anyone good.

On another note, as I’ve read from Rav Pinkus’s books, if one is questioned about any mitzvah, one is not allowed to “water it down”, make it appease-able to the public ect. Even if it’s pikuach nefesh, he says it’s ???? ??? ?????, included in the aveira of ????? ??????, to alter the Torah or mitzvohs. HOWEVER, there is NO MITZVAH to initiate, to go around and broadcast things that might get us in a bind… No, no Mitzvah to do that.

Joseph:

If you open your eyes and look around you you’ll see many frum families where the wife has a lot to say on everything that happens in the house. They are not all sinners or feminists. In fact, when I read stories about gdoley israel it’s clear that some of them had wives who had a lot to say on many things. They are also not sinners, baaley toeiva or feminists.

Here’s how I see it: the Rambam only talks about the wife. He doesn’t say anywhere that the husband is obligated to be the dominant one. Please let me know if any of your sources say anything about the husband being obligated to be dominant.

So if the husband has made a decision but his wife won’t listen to him, I can see how that’d be a problem according to the Rambam. Or, if the husband made a decision, but he listens to his wife because he thinks men and women should have an equal saying on everything – I can again see how that’s a problem.

But if the husband is just not cut out to be a “king” or a “commander”, and his wife is the one managing the house simply because she is more dominant in her nature, I cannot see how that’s a problem at all. In general if for any reason the husband wants his wife to be the one who have a word about some subject, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Person1: “If you open your eyes and look around you you’ll see many frum families where the wife has a lot to say on everything that happens in the house. They are not all sinners or feminists.”

Who said otherwise? I specifically quoted Rav Miller zt’l as saying: “He is the Captain, but she is the First Mate whose counsel is respected.”

“and his wife is the one managing the house”

It’s quite common for the husband to delegate managing the house to his wife. Probably even prevalent.

Regarding the wife having to do what her husband tells her, it is b’feirush halacha in Shulchan Aruch and throughout the poskim. See, for example, Shulchan Aruch YD 240:17 and S”A EH 69.

It depends how you learn p’shat in that Gemarah. And the plain p’shat would be that indeed it would not be permitted for us to do. Those were the words of the ????????, not the Chachamim.

The Torah Temimah and Rav Emden and some of the others lived fairly recently. In fact, the Torah Temimah passed away in the 1940s and even lived in America for a time. So it was the way of the world from Matan Torah through the modern era and only changed when Susan B. Anthony or Betty Friedan came along?

None of that matters. I was throwing you a bone. Don’t want it? That’s fine… but my point still remains – saying that a marriage must be the way Rabbi Miller describes it (or else it’s not a successful marriage) is just plain wrong.

Many people claim that they see with their own own eyes and/or experience that toeiva “marriages” are “successful couples” where the so-called “marriage” works.

Really??? You’re comparing a marriage of the type we’re discussing to a homosexual marriage? You think that they’re both the same???

The Wolf

They are Halacha.

i love halacha i think im going to switch jobs with lilmod ulelamaid.

lilmod ulelamaid – why dont you want to be a pharmacist? i dont want to be a pharmacist because its taking me ages.

Joseph – whats the S”A?

” The Torah dictates that are being quoted regarding marriage are: a) not D’oraisa as far as I know”

As you can see from the afore-quoted halacha in Shulchan Aruch, they are so strong that it actually takes precedence over the wife’s d’oraysa of Kibud Av Veim, one of the Aseres Hadibros.

The S”A actually uses the word ??????? which in the way it is used in the talmud simply means: “has obligations to”

(that’s at least how they use the term in the yeshivot today. I’m not 100% certain it doesn’t have any additional connotations in the gmarah)

Joseph, I congratulate you on coming up with an innovative way to prove a point when you have no sources. Simply claim that the relevant Gemorah would support you if it hadn’t been censored.

Do you have the original text to prove your point?

Seriously, your position is a dangerous one. What would you say if an OO rabbi used your argument to get around a Gemorah that he found troublesome?

Joseph – so youll treat your wive obnoxiously?

You should meet in the real world. That’d be on awsome argument to listen to.