Ann and I were born, raised and married in England, in an entirely different culture to the current North American culture. It was a Christian culture—not one in which everyone was a Christian, but where Christian values were universally accepted.
However, our
marriage partnership was definitely patriarchal; the wife was expected to
support decisions made by the husband. Although discussed together, the
decision to emigrate to Canada in the 60’s was my decision. Ann dutifully went
along, although she confided later that she thought I was crazy—I had just
completed my architectural training and was ready to develop a career. This
union was clearly not the equal partnership of the Bible.
After arriving in
Canada, things changed. Ann noticed the independence of North American women
and realized the lopsided arrangement of our marriage. With assertion on her
part and bewilderment on mine, things began to change. If she was uncomfortable
with a projected decision of mine, I heard about it.
So began an
education on my part and a balancing of the marriage responsibility. Despite my
Christian background, I had not yet come to an understanding of the
relationship between husband and wife that the Bible taught, rather accepting
the patriarchal version of biblical interpretation that was current—and
convenient—at the time.
I could have
considered that this change was belittling to my manhood. But I found that the
injection of female ideas and intuition into our plans contributed to better
decisions. Not only that, I began to appreciate more the abilities and plain
commonsense of the lovely and talented wife God had given me.
How could I have
been so ignorant of the great resources Ann brought to our marriage and blind
to the guidance scripture gave me? The simple answer is arrogance; I simply
believed that I always had the better and final answers to all of life’s
questions.
