Equality in Marriage

When we talk about equality, what immediately comes to mind? Do you think about tally marking what you and your spouse do? Do you think about power struggles in choices you guys make? Or do you think about compromise? Love? Your personal well-being and health? Do you think about respect or superiority/inferiority? What does equality mean to you?

This is a hot topic with lots of varying views. I want to express my thoughts and please know that I respect other peoples opinions. To me, equality means that we are respecting each other in the roles we create for ourselves as well as both spouses putting in 100% of their efforts, even if that means we give more when the other can’t and vice versa. It also means that we appreciate and recognize those efforts. There will be times when you feel like you are doing more in the relationship and there will be times where your spouse feels the same way. We can’t just give 50% of our best efforts and think it will all work out, because life happens and we may not be able to divide a line in the responsibilities and say I do this and you do that when your spouse is sick or away on a business trip, or injured. Life throws some curve balls in case you didn’t already know, get ready to give your all and expect nothing back. When you have that mentality your marriage can thrive as you both are thinking of the other person and looking to serve each other. That is what I think equality looks like and means in marriage. But wait, there is more!

Marriage is divine and can be the most sacred relationship you have here on earth. If you treat each other with respect and love, then your relationship will become equal naturally. I asked some people on my Instagram questions about equality and what it means, the most common words or phrases that were associated with equality in the responses were respect, and acknowledging or recognizing others value, ability, and contributions. I agree whole heartedly with this! In a household someone needs to do the dishes, someone needs to make money, someone needs to do the laundry (or it will sit for days like it does here sometimes), someone needs to be nurturing, someone needs to say sorry, someone needs to clean out the car(s). Does it have to be one person to do each specific thing? No. If I do the dishes now, do I always do them? No. If I have a baby and need to stay home because the baby can’t really survive on its own, am I less than my husband? NO! Both people in the relationship will work on it all together, but is it easier for some to take care of certain tasks or jobs and vice versa? Yes.

Did you know that women are created physically to be more nurturing? When you have a baby, who is created to naturally be the one that feeds the baby? The woman! Who has softer skin and a cushion for the baby to be more comfy naturally? The woman! Who is NATURALLY more nurturing? The woman. That does not mean that men cannot be nurturing and that all women have the most nurturing of personalities, some don’t. What I am saying is that we were created to be more nurturing and some women pretend that they don’t see that and they fight it, which makes me so sad. Just because we were built that way, and we may have to stay home so our baby can eat, and sleep and take baths and survive, it does not make us less than the men. I see it as being pretty dang cool to be honest.