Sun Myung Moon on marriage

Sun Myung Moon says, "Marriage is not a light matter, but should be taken very seriously. Marriage is more serious than your own life, than heaven and earth, than your entire hope and ideal. When you find happiness in this serious area, you will find ultimate happiness." We experience the greatest love in marriage. Everyone wants to have a loving spouse forever.

Throughout history God has revealed some of the rules for happy marriages. And when men and women live within those rules then they will find incredible romance and joy. This is what God wanted for Adam and Eve and for each of us. Father agrees with the basic pattern of marriage that is set forth in the Bible. And the most basic law of all is that men and women are different and have different roles. Satan teaches that men and women are the same and there are no roles. God's way is distinct division of labor. Satan's way is for men and women to interchange all roles.

Men lead - Women follow

Father's most fundamental concept is his teaching of subject and object. He says men are always the subject, and women are always the object. He explains that the subject is the"center," and the object"revolves" around the subject. This circular give and take creates love. If the subject and object interchange then we have chaos and unhappiness. Satan left his position and interchanged with God. Then Eve interchanged with Adam, took leadership and led Adam to hell. She was supposed to be Adam's follower.

Patriarchy - Men lead

Leadership by men is called patriarchy. Christ's way is for true patriarchy. Satan's way is false patriarchy. We will look at Father's quotes on men leading a little later. Let's start with the best books that go into the traditional value of patriarchy: Helen Andelin's Fascinating Womanhood and her husband Aubrey Andelin's Man of Steel and Velvet. They teach that men are the heads of the house. They are the patriarchs. There are many other books by Christian writers that express the same ideas. One of the most famous conservative Christian woman writer in America is Phyllis Schlafly. She also teaches patriarchy in her book on roles for men and women. The opposite view to traditional, Biblical values is the ideology of feminism that teaches that husband and wife are"equal." It is an ideology of androgyny or unisexism. Men are not heads of the house; they are the wimps of the house. The Bible and Father teach that women have equal value as the feminists do, but feminists go further to define equal as"same." They teach that men and women are the same and there are no god-given or innate biological roles.

We have a choice like the captain of the battleship had in our previous example. We can obey the lighthouse which is God giving directions or we can go the wrong way and crash. Countless millions of people have abandoned the traditional family and experimented with the many varieties of feminist marriages and suffered terribly. Satan teaches his view of interchanging men and women with books by women such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. The following diagram gives our choices:

     

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. God's champions named above have happy marriages with lots of kids while Satan's champions do not. Betty Friedan is divorced and never remarried after becoming a crusader against patriarchy. [What man would want to live with someone like that?] And Gloria Steinem has never been married and never had children. The result of living God's way of life and respecting patriarchy is love and joy in a happy family, and Satan's way is loneliness and barrenness. There is no third way. Either men are the head of the house and make the final decisions or not. If we introduce even 1% where men are not the head of the house, then we have feminism. It's 100% or it's a feminist experiment. You can't be a little bit pregnant. You either are or you aren't. You can't step off a cliff a little bit. And you can't be partially patriarchal. When does the President of the United States within his four year term ever interchange his role with anyone? Never, of course. What would you think if President Clinton announced that Vice-president Gore would be president on the weekends because he needs a rest from the terrible burden of having all those final decisions he has to make? Can you imagine two Commanders-in-Chief? This is what feminism has done to the family. There is no power, no order, no unity and therefore no true love in non-traditional families.

Helen Andelin begins her chapter called"The Leader" saying:"The father is the head, president, or spokesman of the family. He was appointed by God to this position, as clearly stated in the Holy Scriptures. The first commandment given to mankind was given to the woman, 'Thy desire shall be unto thy husband and he shall rule over thee.' Evidently our Creator felt it so vitally important that the woman understand this, that He directed the instruction to her."

"The Apostle Paul compared man's leadership of his wife to Christ's leadership of the church. 'For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.' He also instructed women to 'reverence' their husbands and to 'submit themselves to their husbands.' The Apostle Peter said, 'Ye wives, be in subjection to your husbands.' (Genesis 3:16, Eph. 5:23-24,33, Col. 3:18, I Pet.3:1)

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