Just finished reading this. It is an excellent book for Christian married couples but also, I think, offers vital training and insight to young men and women who don't yet have a spouse but also do not have a church or family that is properly teaching Biblical roles in marriage. Even if they do, it is helpful to have an outside perspective and something that can supplement because we all are imperfect humans, and no parent can ever teach perfectly in both word and example. A multitude of counselors leads to victory.
One of the things I love the most about this book is how it approaches roles as well as submission from wives. That topic has been a source of a great deal of pain and frustration personally, but the authors approach it with balance and good humor. I learned something from reading the Scriptures they provided with a better grasp of the cultural context as well as what the Hebrew and Greek behind the original texts actually mean.
A lot of what I was taught went to the toxic side that makes submission into a duty, nor a response, and, really, into subjugation to a "superior" will even when that person is in fact not superior and not living up in any way to what God has called them to. It was one sided, demeaning, and often enabled neglect at best or abuse at worst as it told women to shut up and put up with just about anything short of, maybe, physical abuse. In short, it was a view that set marriage up as adversarial because at the end of the day, the man calls the shots regardless of how his wife and kids feel. There was little no emphasis at all on the counterpart of the man's duties, which is exactly how submission could be turned into the wife's single most important "duty" instead of a response to Biblical headship.
My home modeled submission in a somewhat healthier way, but I still saw my mom struggle in a lot of ways because of a subtle undercurrent of the belief that submission was her only purpose and highest aim as a wife besides caring for us kids and the belief that leadership from my dad meant bringing home a paycheck, occasional sessions on theology with us kids, tutoring when my mom couldn't help us in school, and otherwise full abdication of any actual responsibility (which would imply a duty or standard day to day, not "I'll help if asked, but maybe not gladly") for care of the home outside of offering "help" when she was sick or overwhelmed.
It isn't that my parents don't or didn't love each other or that my dad didn't consider my mom and our best interests when deciding on a direction. They do love one another, and he did. But I watched my mom struggle to stand up for herself when he was emotionally unkind or neglectful because of her fear of conflict and the belief that her needs weren't important due to this warped view of submission.
I saw the impact that had and the way that led to erasing her identity outside of just another mechanism to keep the home and us kids cared for and running. She let go of so much she loved to take on everything at home because it was all made her problem with no actual responsibility from my dad to do more than sometimes assist. Now she has an empty nest and is struggling to figure out her purpose or who she is because her identity become less than what it deserved to be in service to this model.
This model allowed my dad to view every part of child rearing besides the spiritual discipleship and all of thebhousehold maintenance as a woman's issue even when my mom was burned out, at a breaking point, and losing her mind with all of us because of it. This became very clear when she had me and quit working. Even though he wasn't abusive because of the view and he did do his best to care for us all, this mentality didn't equip him or my mom to step fully into what servant leadership and being a husband and child lover/nurturer really involves.
Just because the view I saw lived out was healthier didn't mean it was biblical across the board. Having that background, I was innoculated against the equally destructive lack of any roles and "total equality" idea that leads to emasculating men and women being forced to step into a role they don't want and can't manage without serious harm to themselves.
But I also hated everything about the idea of marriage because I believed the moment I married I signed up to being an inferior, treated as only valuable in so far as I did whatever my husband wanted, and not godly unless I persevered no matter how I was treated and no matter how the leadership looked (absent, healthy, or tyrannical: all demanded the same "submission".)
Obviously, I overcame that aversion since I am married, but I have also continued to struggle with what my role is in marriage with a lot of feelings of resentment or simply feeling like my role is worthless, and I have often received some of the very same bad advice this book addresses or simply been left adrift without any practical way to step into the role and contribute to making the marriage healthier.
That is frustrating, and I picked up this book hoping it would be a breath of fresh air even as I was nervous it would just be more of what hasn't worked for anyone I know or for me.
This book stepped into that by making it clear that my core role is to be a nurturer, to care for and love my spouse and someday our children. But far from that meaning I can never speak up or put boundaries in place and say the hard truths if my spouse is off track, I am called to call him up to the plate with love but firmness to be the absolute best God can make him to be. I can't force him to do that any more than he could force me to be all God made me to be, but I can help him, as he can help me by fulfilling his own role. That can't happen if I or any other Christian wife accepts either the line that no roles and total equality in everything works or that she is less than her husband and has no right to speak out and rebuke because it is "unsubmissive".
I think the most important thing that I learned was that submission is the right response to the husband's biblical role and that enabling the worst in him by sacrificing the best of you when he is in sin is neither loving him, helping him, nor biblical submission. Shut up and put up, which is the view of submission I saw modeled and taught in church growing up, is not Biblical.
The teaching that he would be a better man if you'll just quit speaking up (and I don't mean quit nagging about his socks left all over the house; I mean the idea that a wife must always be affirming and gentle and can never call her husband out for sin and disobedience to God because that's the job of other men only), which is your role as a wife submitting, is not Biblical. Silence even when something is deeply wrong in the marriage is enabling, not submission, even if the woman does it with a heart of love or desire to do what she has been told is right. Just because the intention is right does not mean the action is, and allowing him to abdicate responsibility is just as much stepping away from your true role as his partner as choosing to take his role for yourself would be.
We have to stop acting like the traditional marriage of the past that forced women to endure abuses physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally in the name of submission is healthy or biblical, but we also have to avoid the pitfall of thinking we can totally dispense with roles.
Instead, we need the radical balance the Bible actually teaches, and I think this book does an excellent job of sharing that in a sensitive, humorous way that calls both parties in the marriage to fulfill their roles in honor and respect for one another. Symbiotic is the book's catch phrase for a Biblical view of marriage, not one taking at the expense of the other and calling it "headship" while demanding a non existent "right" to her unquestioning subjugation under the guise of "submission".
There is a third way, and it is the one the Bible teaches if we'll stop taking it out of context to treat women as second class citizens or ignoring it in the name of supposed equality. These are valuable lessons and good reminders, even if you had a good foundation and were taught Biblical roles in a solid, clear, healthy way.
It can't help but improve a marriage, and my experience as I have worked to navigate what the Bible really calls me to and to leave behind the fear based, guilt induced, self debasing view of submission I saw in church growing up is that this middle road that holds tension between the idea that roles are good (traditional marriage has that right) and that both parties are equal in value and deserve to be benefitted by the relationship (modern views on equality did get at least that right) is doing more to help me grow as well as to help my spouse grow than anything I saw or learned growing up. Sometimes it's hard because it means a lot of leaving behind old views while avoiding swinging too far to the other side, but it's worth it. If you're in the same camp or looking for a reminder or a place to learn before marriage to be better equipped, this book has something vital to offer to the discussion.