Punishment Has No Place in Marriage*

I grew up in an evangelical family, raised by parents who believed that husbands are to lead and wives are to submit. But I don’t recall hearing anything about husbands punishing their wives for lack of obedience. When disobedient wives came up, husbands were generally advised to simply love and pray for them. So I have to admit to being rather horrified by some blog posts I came upon this week.

First I read a blog post by blogger Sunshine Mary, in which she wrote that her husband refused to replace the dishwasher when it broke as punishment for her unwillingness to wash the sharp knives by hand after he told her to. Next I read a blog post by Lori Alexander, who added some commentary, approved of Mary’s husband’s actions, spoke of her own “rebellious and stubborn heart” as a young wife, and wrote that she has “heard of some husbands cutting up their wive’s credit card for spending too much.” In a followup post, Dealing with a Rebellious Wife, Lori adds detail about how a husband should go about disciplining his wife.

But most disturbing of all is a post by blogger Cabinetman:

My wife was terribly unsubmissive for the first ten years of our marriage. To her credit, much of it was due to hormones {don’t take birth control pills ladies, even if for a few months, but that is another story}, the rest from being taught by her mom. She now while still struggling with her health has been just the most wonderful wife I could ever ask for.

There have been times where I have disciplined her by not allowing her to go out with the gals, not spending money on items except necessary food and clothing for the family, not attending women’s bible study {believe it or not…unless you have the right church anymore some can push women further way from their husbands than closer to them}, there was even a few times she had to sleep on the couch, a couple times I made her sleep in the cabin on our property when she was downright in complete anarchy against our marriage, family and God’s Word. She’s had to clean the house as a punishment.

It’s sounds awful but honestly we went from the worst marriage of anyone I knew to by far the best because I was willing to stand my ground and because I waited long enough for God to work miracles in her body and heart.

But still to this day I structure her life and keep it low key. She doesn’t do a lot outside the home. She homeschools and bakes from scratch and takes care of the home. I don’t do this because I’m mean. I do this because very quickly she will become overwhelmed, depressed and exhausted and she knows it now. I saw it very quickly, within a few months of being married I had a pretty firm grasp of it but for ten years she fought me. I was considered mean, and controlling and everything evil in her mind. When all I wanted was what was best for my individual wife {I recognize that every wife is different and mine is not like most} and our marriage.

At the end of the post came some commentary from his wife:

And YES, while I may not enjoy it, I do think discipline is essential. When I screw up something, I need to be called out. If it’s minor, a conversation will take care of it. If it’s big, then there needs to be a consequence. Do I like it? No, but that’s because it’s my own PRIDE and selfishness. No one wants to be told they messed up, but if we aren’t ever corrected, we don’t grow. We don’t learn from our mistakes. It has nothing to do with it being against God, it’s pride that says ‘you can’t discipline me’. When he screws up, I pray and leave it to God. If it is a major thing, then I take Jesus’ advice and would go to my pastor. That’s never been necessary, and in all honestly, my husband asks for accountability to me much more than I ever ask of him.

Um. Wow. I am now thoroughly disturbed.

When was a teen, I remember my mother telling me that she had invited another homeschooling friend over, and that her friend had said “I need to ask my husband, he says the kids and I have been spending too much time out of the house and not enough time at home on schoolwork.” My mother was horrified. That was too far, my mother said. I know, I know, my mother also read Debi Pearl. But in practice my mother had a strong personality and my father was fairly hands off. My mother would not have put up with my father attempting to “discipline” her—even if she had believed he had the right.

I suspect that this is one place where we see a difference between evangelicals and fundamentalists. Fundamentalists tend to make more efforts to be separate from the world than evangelicals, and evangelicals tend to focus on creating their own cultural alternatives rather than withdrawing altogether. Evangelicals tend to see wifely submission as more about spiritual headship and less about who makes the day-to-day decisions. My parents had some fundamentalist influences (Debi Pearl, for example), but in many ways they stayed more solidly in the evangelical camp.

Cabinetman’s actions toward his wife were abusive. There’s no and, if, or but about that. Even today, Cabinetman continues to be incredibly controlling. I am reminded of the Shakespeare play, The Taming of the Shrew. Cabinetman broke his wife. He claims that their marriage is glorious now, because she no longer fights him and instead accepts and trusts him. That makes me incredibly sad.

I want you to notice something in Cabinetman’s wife’s comments. She says that she wants to be called out when she screws something up, and that when she screws up something big there need to be consequences. But then she says that when her husband screws up, she simply prays about it and leaves it up to God. There’s this idea that men are accountable to God, but, for these bloggers at least, women are accountable to men. God is supposed to call Cabinetman out when he messes up, but when Cabinetman’s wife messes up it is Cabinetman who calls her out.

This is the problem, isn’t it? Completely outside of the abuse, the problem I have with this paradigm is how one-way it all is. Marriage is supposed to be about two people being partners, not about about one person playing (traditional) parent to the other. What about both parties holding each other accountable? What about both parties spurring each other to become the best people they can be? All of this is absent. Instead, everything goes from the one partner to the other, in one direction. And suddenly, instead of two parties holding each other accountable, you have one party ostensibly holding the other accountable but having no accountability himself.

Some time ago, I let some important mail slip and as a result our car insurance lapsed. I found out right before we were supposed to go out of town, and I was completely horrified. I felt like absolute crap. Both the mail and the car insurance were my responsibility (we divide and conquer), and this situation was wholly my fault. I frantically searched for solutions to allow us to still go on our trip, with car insurance, and after an hour of calling people I thought might be able to help and searching things online I was able to obtain new insurance. Never once, through this whole situation, did Sean say anything to add to my guilt. He didn’t have to. I’m an adult, I knew I’d messed up, and I was facing real life consequences. Afterwards, Sean and I talked about what had gone wrong and whether we needed to change anything about how we handled mail and bills like car insurance going forward. And that’s it. This is how normal adult relationships work.

Grown women are adults, not children. Marriages should be partnerships, not a replication of the parent-child relationship. And frankly, I’m bothered by the comparison I’m finding myself making here, because I don’t treat my children the way Cabinetman treats his wife. For one thing, I don’t expect absolute submission or obedience from my children. For another thing, I listen to and value their input, and I don’t try to change their very personalities or to control their inner selves. But on some level the comparison works, because children do need instruction and guidance, and these are things Cabinetman clearly feels his wife needs. The entire way he talks about his wife sounds patronizing.

One last note. Sometimes women talk about “punishing” their husbands by making them sleep on the couch. I actually grew up hearing this tossed about as a joke, because while women weren’t supposed to deny their husbands sex, in practice that was the only real leverage they had over their husbands. Here’s the thing: I don’t think wives should “punish” their husbands any more than I think husbands should “punish” their wives. I don’t think sex should be used as a weapon. If a partner is not mature enough to learn from their mistakes, or to care when you let them know that something they are doing is bothering you, you may want to rethink either your relationship or your expectations. You cannot make a partner change, and you shouldn’t try to make them change. If they are going to change, that has to come from them. And if they refuse to change, well, you have to decide how much you are willing to let slide, and at what point it’s too much.

More than anything else, I’m horrified by the way Cabinetman infantilizes his wife. I saw my parents’ belief in husbandly authority and wifely submission create problems in their relationship, but reading Cabinetman’s story has made me realize that it could have been much, much worse.

* I should note that I am aware that BDSM sometimes involves punishment, and that BDSM can be practiced in a way that is healthy and consensual. I’m a bit of a kinky girl myself! I stand by my statement that punishment has no place in marriage, though—outside of BDSM, that is.