Controlling people is a mixed bag. As a mom I was expected to keep my toddlers from slugging innocent (and guilty) bystanders in Sunday school, or chucking rocks at passing cars. If I failed to control them, I became easy prey to onlookers who tisk tisked me with wrinkled foreheads.
Years ago i took the twins and Ben to
a department store to buy a wedding gift, and provided entertainment for the clerks as my kids played tag in the fine china section. I dashed after one just as the next one sprang for a table of porcelain dinnerware. Managing small children who outnumbered me was exhausting.
Then somehow I am supposed to shift gears and participate in a marriage in which I resist the urge to tell John what to do. We are equal partners, with mutual respect.
Right.
But what if he is about to embarrass me?
John is writing a study about freedom in marriage, and it is both honest and gutsy. He looks bravely at the historical travesties that have been allowed to survive in the name of religion, or culture. Child brides, sexual slaves, domestic abuse, and polygamy all lean on domination like the walls of a condemned building weigh on a rotting cross beam. I might try to convince myself that I
am far enough away from those distasteful practices to justify ignoring them, but in my heart I know that is a cop out. Control issues are alive and well in my own breast, and learning to rein in my desire to coerce my husband may do more to free women on the other side of the globe than sending a tax deductible check.
