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We celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary in
July. It doesnt seem a long time since we were married. Yesterdays reading
came from the letter of St Paul Col 3:12-21. Very like the arrangements in Eph
5:21-33. It paints a picture of bossy women wielding their power autonomously
to the detriment of their husband and children. It is a problem I have myself,
not least because I probably have an overinflated view of my own intellect and
capabilities, so as to discount even the remotest possibility of my husband
being my head. Of course Paul has seen that this is the case with many women
and is trying to let them see a different reality. I wish him luck. He has
virtually no hope of swaying the stubborn bigoted bitch matriarchs that the world
produces. Why would I want to share my power with a mere mortal? Why would I
even take the time to consider what Paul is saying as relevant? Ultimately
though, I am convinced that what he has to say is relevant exactly because it
is confrontational and not what I want to hear. I can appreciate Paul because
he does say quite a lot of things that I can directly relate to in a positive way.
And this statement is not really in discord with the other things. I just have
to rid myself of a few cognitive dissonances in order to be a better person.
For instance, Paul compares the relationship of Christ and the church to man
and wife becoming one body. For Paul this is a mystery. Jesus also draws from Genesis
when speaking of marriage. Genesis might not be the book most people set great
stock in, but give it a chance. If Jesus and Paul draw from it, it must have
its virtues. I consider myself to be a positive scientist and because of that I
generally make comparisons to physical and biological mechanisms to aid my
understanding of mental and spiritual ideas and reasoning. But apparently so do
Paul and Jesus. What is marriage? For humans it is a fundamental biological
mechanism for reproduction. It is necessary to understand all the implications
of marriage before we can begin to see where the analogy with Christ and the
church goes to. If we have no conception of what marriage means, how can we
begin to have any knowledge of Christs meaning?
In
my thinking, one enters into marriage as a long term process. The initial
celebration being more of an acknowledgement of what other marriages have
achieved in the past, than of anything the bride and groom have accomplished. How
does a marriage make man and woman into one body then? When I was young I had a
very narrow view of humanity, I simply believed my marriage would make it
possible for me to reproduce my genes. I was gracious and condescending enough
to tolerate a male in this process (unlike my grandmother). In addition I had a
rather dim view of education or tradition. As my children grew older and had little
educational success, I began to think that there maybe was an area of
reproduction that I had neglected. Parenting became more important as the transfer
of knowledge, tradition and identity. Is genetic makeup subordinate to that?
That is the wrong question. The gene-meme dualism is not fertile. I now have
renewed respect for the ancient well-honed intelligence of life and see the
recent cognitive developments of humans as a small, albeit interesting, piece
in that puzzle. Becoming one body is the definition of marriage and it is made
possible through evolution. These days there is more and more scientific understanding of
microchimerism taking place between mother and unborn child, and a start has
been made by linking microchimerism and disease within the context of a
tripartite conflict but very little research is done on straightforward husband-wife
microchimerism. I am a believer in microchimerism as one of the most tangible ways that husband and wife become one body. For one thing it makes sense for human sexual activity as not only being useful for reproduction, and it
puts new meaning into the words: in sickness and in health.
27-12-2010 om 20:08
geschreven door Dee 
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