As you know, I have a very large number of younger siblings. As more of my siblings have begun growing up, I\u2019ve been noticing a pattern in how my parents have treated their children\u2019s relationships with those of the opposite gender. Let\u2019s just say it\u2019s a gendered difference. A major <\/em>gendered difference.<\/p>\n The girls have all had their prospective beaus scrutinized in detail, and each time there ends up being drama and pain and heartbreak. And it\u2019s not just the beliefs that are scrutinized. It\u2019s everything. The boys? Nope. Nada. The boys can bring home a prospective marriage partner and all they get is excitement and a pat on the back. Their prospective sweethearts aren\u2019t questioned or\u00a0scrutinized\u00a0at all.<\/p>\n There is a serious double standard here.<\/p>\n And in case it\u2019s not already obvious, this makes me mad. It\u2019s not that I want my brothers to have their relationships put through my parents\u2019 strainer, it\u2019s just that when I watch how my parents treat my brothers\u2019 relationships I can\u2019t help but think I wish that was me<\/em>. I wish they had reacted that way when I brought a boy home. And the whole situation just feels so unfair. It hurts.<\/p>\n But it has also made me think. Why is there this difference? What all is involved? And I\u2019ve come up with two things: First, my parents belief that husbands are to lead and wives are to follow; and Second, my parents believe that parents are to serve as gatekeepers and protectors for their daughters, but not for their sons.<\/p>\n Husbands Lead, Wives Follow<\/strong><\/p>\n My parents\u2019 belief that it is the husband\u2019s job to lead and the wife\u2019s job to follow affects how they view their adult children\u2019s romantic relationships. It\u2019s pretty simple really. As my parents see it, my brothers are looking for women to follow them, to echo their views and their vision, but my sisters are looking for men to follow, men whose views and vision they will echo.<\/p>\n It\u2019s almost like a wife is to become her husband\u2019s shadow, to cling to her husband and lose herself in him completely. She becomes her husband\u2019s echo, her husband\u2019s helper, her husband\u2019s reflection.<\/p>\n When one of my brothers brings a girl home, my parents look at that girl as a prospective shadow of my brother, as someone who will follow my brother and do as he does, say what he says, and live as he lives. Who that girl is in and of herself becomes less important, for first and foremost she is to become a shadow, and echo, and a reflection.<\/p>\n When one of my sisters expresses interest in a young man, it\u2019s completely different. My parents look at that young man as the person my sister will become the shadow, echo, and reflection of. That young man must therefore be perfect, completely ideologically pure and economically prepared. As my parents look at that young man, they ask themselves whether they want their daughter to become this man\u2019s shadow, echo, and reflection, losing herself completely in him and in his vision.<\/p>\n The result is that my sisters\u2019 marriage interests are subjected to a grilling the likes of which my brothers\u2019 marriage interests never face. And I was no exception. My parents put their daughters \u2013 and their daughters\u2019 marriage interests \u2013 through hell, trauma, and pain. My brothers and their marriage interests? Nope. They, in contrast, are welcomed with open arms, smiles, and immediate wedding planning.<\/p>\n Daughters in a Tower<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s something else going on here as well, though. My parents believe that parents \u2013 and especially fathers \u2013 are to be the gatekeepers and protectors of their daughters.<\/p>\n Imagine a world in which parents lock their daughters in towers and stand guard around them. At the same time, they send their sons off to seek their fortunes. In their travels each of these young men eventually finds a young woman \u2013 locked in a tower \u2013 who strikes his fancy. He must apply to the young lady\u2019s parents, who are carefully standing guard, to release her from her tower. Only if the young man passes the parents\u2019 inspection will they unlock the tower and free the young lady to leave with her suitor.<\/p>\n Now of course, the towers we\u2019re talking about here are figurative, but the idea is the same. Parents are to stand guard over their daughters while young men are to go off and search for brides. Every adult daughter, then, is to have a protector and gatekeeper \u2013 her parents, but especially her father \u2013 whose scrutiny a young man must pass in order to obtain her hand in marriage.<\/p>\n Now back to how this relates to my parents. My parents don\u2019t see themselves as gatekeepers or guards over their sons, but only over their daughters. It is their duty, they believe, to protect their adult daughters by carefully screening marriage prospects, but the need not do the same with their sons. Thus they treat a daughter\u2019s marriage interest completely differently<\/em> than they would a son\u2019s marriage interest.<\/p>\n My parents, of course, expect that their sons must pass the scrutiny of their marriage interest\u2019s parents, and especially of her father. I suppose that if one of my brothers was interested in a young woman and her parents said \u201cno\u201d to the relationship, my parents would encourage my brother to let it go. If my brother and the young lady in question decided to start a relationship in defiance of her parents\u2019 wishes, my parents would almost certainly object. They would not, though, object because they objected to something about the young lady but rather because they objected to my brother not gaining the proper permissions from her authorities and protectors to start a relationship with her.<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n Wow, I just realized how very much these ideas relegate women to the position of property, property to be bought and sold, unthinking\u00a0automatons\u00a0to mindlessly follow their current male owners. There was a time when I would have said all of this sounded natural and right. That time is long gone.<\/p>\n What it seems like my parents cannot conceive of is two equally capable young adults finding each other, falling in love, and forming an equal partnership in which each retain their own individual thoughts, minds, and desires. They cannot understand that for some people, marriages really are equal partnerships, or that some people see young men and young women as equally capable of choosing the direction of their lives for themselves.<\/p>\n Indeed, my parents seem to see young women as incapable of making good decisions for themselves, and incapable of having their own independent identities. For my parents, adult daughters must be carefully guarded and protected, and once they are handed off to husbands they will morph into shadows, echos, and reflections of those young men.<\/p>\n I am no shadow. I am no echo. I am no reflection.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As you know, I have a very large number of younger siblings. As more of my siblings have begun growing up, I\u2019ve been noticing a pattern in how my parents have treated their children\u2019s relationships with those of the opposite gender. Let\u2019s just say it\u2019s a gendered difference. A major gendered difference. The girls have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,25],"tags":[132,114],"class_list":["post-2723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-christian-patriarchy","tag-courtship","tag-sexism"],"yoast_head":"\n