How Christianity is Damaging to Marriages (and Women)

I have a hard time with this subject. It has been a painful year, wrestling with the decision to divorce, owning that decision, defending it to outsiders and mostly myself, despite the fact that I was taught all my life that it is NOT OK.

I believe in marriage. Or, I did. I believed marriage is forever. I believed that divorce was NEVER an option. Until about 1 week before I decided to divorce (even after we separated), I believed that married people should remain separated and never divorce, no matter what.

Despite whatever flaws there may or may not be in those statements, I also believed that marriage was important. Not just a little important, but essential. Critical, even. It was paramount, I was taught, that you get married as soon as you can. Many people in my independent, fundamentalist Baptist (i.e. Christian-cult-like) school were getting engaged in college. To me, marriage was the most important thing in the world and it had to be done ASAP.

So why did I think that? Well, good question. Here are the reasons why (according to what I was taught by culture/peers/church):

• Being married validated you as worthy. I was taught I must be pure for my husband. I was taught you would never be wanted by a man if you weren't pure. And the emphasis there is on the prize of a man who wants you. Interestingly, Elizabeth Smart recounts how she didn't even think it was worth escaping the man who kidnapped and raped her because she was now no longer pure and no man would want her, "I felt because of what he had done to me, that I was marked, that I was not clean, that I wasn't pure, that I wasn't worth the same, that my personal worth, my self values had just dropped. I felt like I was nothing. I didn't feel like another person could love me again, so at that point I thought, "Yeah, I could take the risk of being killed and trying to escape." Source.
• Being married meant you could have sex. I didn't really care much about sex, but this was supposed to be a big prize, too. I mean, I probably heard a sermon every other week on sex. Whether it was how women shouldn't tempt men, because they are visual and wearing low cut shirts or short skirts would tempt our brothers and we were responsible for them, or how we need to not watch porn, or have sex, or be virgins, etc. 
• I don't like being alone.
• In the Midwest, it's very cultural to get married young, have families young, etc. So I felt I needed to do it because everyone else did it too! And, frankly, I was worried people would think I was strange if I wasn't coupled up.

There are many things I could say about these reasons, but I want to focus on the first two.

For one thing, the churches I went to focused on sex SO MUCH. Not surprisingly, these sermons were always given by men (because women weren't allowed to speak in the church). Occasionally, a female teacher would discuss that she went on birth control when she got married or that we might want to buy lingerie for our wedding night, but other than that, this is not a subject that I struggled with. By and large, this message should have been for teen boys. And the emphasis for women should have been much, much more relevant.

Pretty much everything surrounding marriage that I was taught was about sex. How we shouldn't have it until we were married, how women were supposed to sleep with their husbands whenever they wanted it, signing purity pledges, having a True Love Waits ring that told the world we were married to God until we got married to a man, how divorce was bad, how you could never get your virginity back if you "gave it up," etc.  I even heard lovely political sermons on how teaching about birth control in school was not trusting teens enough to not have sex and how abortion was the worst possible thing. I was in elementary school when my parents started making me hold "Abortion Kills Children" signs in the freezing cold on the side of the road and when I got my first fetus that I was supposed to show my friends. "This is what a baby looks like at 12 weeks," I was supposed to say.

But you know what I did not learn? Some of the things that would have been very, VERY helpful when I emerged from the bubble of evangelical, right-wing Christianity:

• How a husband should treat a wife.
• What consent is and looks like outside of marriage (cuz date rape is a thing and if you don't say yes, but you don't say no either, did you just trash your purity?!). 
• What consent is and looks like inside of marriage (not just, do it when you husband wants it because his needs are different).
• How to use birth control even AFTER you are married. I learned this all on my own.
• What to do if you've been raped or sexually assaulted or sexually abused and you can no longer say you are a virgin. Guess what most of the "good girls" who got raped did? Assumed it was their fault.
• What is acceptable behavior from a husband to his wife

I also learned that men and women are different and since men have different needs, women can't possibly understand so they should just submit. But that excuses a lot of behavior. Sexuality aside, it means that when your husband tells you you are crazy, you think "oh well, that's how men are" because that's what you learned. When a husband ignores you and does what he wants, you excuse that bad behavior as "just men." Maybe there are things that women can't understand. But where is the line? When is the bad behavior not excused by a husband "just being a man" and what do you do about it? Who do you talk to? A trusted woman friend? A pastor? A therapist? A couples counselor? How do you reconcile this? And where and how can someone get support to leave and stay away from an abusive relationship or one where the husband is sleeping around outside the marriage? And not be rejected by the church.

And let's not forget the husband that ignores his wife and children, does little to nothing to contribute then pressures his wife for sex. If she's taught to just bend over and do what he says then is that rape? Is he being "just a man" in asking and you doing your wifely duty by saying yes? How bad is it to say no? Are we NEVER allowed to say it? 

And, here's the thing that really pisses me off. I don't know if we as a CULTURE discuss this. I did a quick Google search for "what to expect in a man husband." And, do you know what came up? 3 articles on what a woman should expect in a relationship and the rest were all about "What your husband wishes you knew" or "What you should do for your husband as a wife" or "What husbands want their wives to know/do/etc." Seriously?! I can't even find articles on how women should expect to be treated? THIS IS NUTS.

Let's change the dialogue, people. What do we want for our daughters? Healthy, productive relationships where people feel supported. Not excuses that leave us alone and shells of our real selves.