Ryder commented:
This [CC: women in bawdy forms of men’s dress] is one of those things that, once you see it, you see it everywhere.
How do we know the legs in this photo belong to kick-ass girls on the job site? Because they’re wearing skin-tight pants.
It brought me joy to read. To help men to observe what they have already and always seen is what I really like to do. It’s why the blog is called “Things We Have Heard and Known”.
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18 thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
As far as I can tell, the sight that Christian men in America see but do not observe is that women (especially wives) are tempted to bring to heel men (especially their husbands) because of their sin nature. They are tempted to this like a man is tempted to avoid work.
Every day most men get up and say, “I wish I didn’t have to work today.”, or, “I hope work goes by fast”, or something like it. And every day women get up and say to themselves, “I wish everyone else would do what I say.”, or “I hope I get to prove to him wrong so he’ll see how right I am.”
Think about that. Every day. All day. As many times that you as a man are waiting for work to be over, or wishing that the work was more satisfying, or thinking about what you will do after work, or waiting for retirement: That’s how much and how often a woman is tempted to tell her husband to step the hell off and do what she says.
The desire of his to relax, and her to command, have not yet abated even though Christ has forgiven our sins. We still die and return to dust. Children are still born and reared in sorrow. Men still must labor for bread. Women still chomp at the bit to reign.
Her desire to rule is not hypergamy from an accident of natural selection; a wholesome sexual selection process that sometimes goes awry. No. Hypergamy is one strategy–of many–that women use to project power over men. Because in her mind it is always in question whether or not she can get him to obey.Likewise, women are not shit-testing to see if her man is “fit” to rule. “Shit-tests” are to see how much she can get away with, and how likely she is to get her way. Period. That’s it. That’s why she gets worse about it after marriage and she’s pledged to have and to hold until death. There’s no final test to pass. There will be no satiation for her hunger to rule until the Lord returns.
It’s just a misery that she has to fight against. There is no benefit just as there is no benefit to any sin.
Observe what you see.
Things that We have Heard and Known 
Brilliant Cane.
This is hands down, the absolute best way I’ve ever heard this explained. It seems so obvious, it’s a wonder I’ve never heard (or thought myself) to say it this way.
I plan to use this illustration over and over. Thanks brother
I guess I never thought of it that way…but it makes complete sense. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that connection pointed out before either.
This is something most men jut don’t get- how much women, especially their woman, desires to control them. With a few exceptions, I don’t think men have the same kind of impulse or desire. Not even close to it. And so we are blind to it, often willingly. Perhaps because we don’t want to believe that women have this weakness we ourselves don’t (and goodness knows that can’t be true, because women are *wonderful*).
Shit tests and sabojacking are also a womans way of aggravating and fatiguing the man, so that his energy is consumed in the process and his rule is weakened. If his plan is messed up in the process, that’s even better (for her). This makes it easier for her to assume control. Do not be ignorant of their schemes, dear brothers!
“That’s how much and how often a woman is tempted to tell her husband to step the hell off and do what she says.”
Now there’s something new to think about. Makes you want to give your wife a little extra credit those times she overcomes it.
Had to laugh at the skinny jeans as women began to turn up at church services dressed like that not long back. Skin tight jeans with little decorative boots, a kind of uniform for troops whose mission is to put their men to the test. Near as I can tell, all the men failed and all the women carved another notch in their guns. Wives cementing control over husbands and women control of the men of the church generally, if you want to tell it the worst way possible, which I kind of do.
I mentioned this on several occasions to various pastors/elders but had to give it up based on their reactions. I can’t muster the killer instinct it takes to keep kicking a man that’s already laying on the ground.
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“male laziness” can be compared to female desire to rebel.
Specifically, God cursed the ground, so that men will toil. God never cursed men to be lazy, or to run away from toil.
Similarly, God cursed women with pain in childbirth. God never cursed women to be lazy in childbearing. “Babies rabies” can be observed in numerous post-wall women.
Therefore there’s no reason to believe that laziness is a male-exclusive sin, nor reason to believe that “male laziness” is different to “female laziness”. If anything, laziness can be easily observed in both sexes, and shouldn’t be compared to female rebelliousness and shit tests (which they are cursed with). I’m surprised no one mentioned this yet.
*“male laziness” CANNOT be compared to female desire to rebel
@White
You’ve confused laziness with desire.
@Cane
Why debate semantics? It matters not if we call it “laziness”, or “desire”.
Point remains that after the Fall, God did not curse men with a “desire to relax”, or anything similar.
God cursed the ground.
@White
1. God did not only curse the ground.
2. The desire to avoid work is not laziness anymore than fear is cowardice.
3. It’s not mere semantics to point these out.
I’m quite sure that the punishment for Eve and women is that bearing children will be difficult which is why it’s often called labour and, in the Holy Bible, also “travail” French for work. And, in the same passage, it gives out man’s labourious contribution as well, working with his hands in constant toil. It just gives out the reason why women keep going back to childbearing despite its difficulty: it’s because she desires knowing (in the Bible sense) her husband.
Women are like men, except a lot weaker. It seems to be the case. A short man, with less strength than a taller man (on average) is liable to develop a Napoleon Complex where he tries to boss everyone round. It’s the same with women except even more-so. True, such things have profound meanings when examined psychologically; but, it’s far simpler to say that strength is the difference. And the reason for gender segregation and enforced female-concealing dress codes is so that men won’t be distracted by sex, nothing else. It’s not so that women won’t try to boss men round about. No. That whole game where men allow themselves to be “bossed” by women is just that, a game, which is foreplay (ie. leading up to sex). Managers in the past who weren’t blinded by the egalitarianism of Political Correctness used to know that having women so close to men in the workplace would distract them because of the draw of possibility of sex.
I think perhaps the height of women confuses people sometimes, and people unthinkingly assume that they’re significantly stronger than they are because a man of their height would be a good deal stronger (and it doesn’t help that there are a lot of unhealthy men these days). It’s probably too that people underestimate how much physicality comes into play, even in a world where fighting, and certainly dueling, has largely been banned, but it’s there all the same. To say that size and strength aren’t very significant is practically gnosticism. And the funny thing is with some guys who spend all day in the gym is that they still can’t constantly boss others because society is still very well ordered (some would say over-ordered, even) so the big guy gets used to backing off from possible physical conflicts, but the guy who spends his time working networks and doing things that develop personal character in a more efficient way than weightlifting does is still going be able to outmaneuver the body builder using rhetoric and surrounding environment. Height is a much bigger part, but not the only variable.
Outstanding. Nuff said.
Extraordinarily well articulated, Cane.
I’m finding this easier and easier to spot in the media where everything is shown at its extremes, but I still have a hard time spotting it in my day-to-day life. (Not skinny jeans on the jobsite; I see that all the time.) Observing a woman assert her desire to rule, contextualizing it, and making it articulate enough to do something about it–all in the span of a brief social interaction–seems to require more mental horsepower than I can muster, whether out in the world or at home, where its sometimes hardest to spot. Of course, the woman wants to stage the fight on the mutable, equivocal ground of social interaction where she has the upper hand, but that’s also where the rubber meets the road. For a generation that grew up watching fathers and leaders demure from, rather than address, these situations, it’s hard work. “Dark saying from of old” indeed.
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wait, so desire to avoid work is not necessarily bad? therefore, desire to rule over one’s husband is not necessarily bad?
@Dylan
It’s one thing to be tempted to be lazy. It’s another to give-in to it. Laziness is what you have when you give in to the desire to avoid work instead of pushing through to get the work done.
Ah I see.