Similarity and difference both contribute to the wonder of marriage. In the similarities there is ground for the deepest spiritual communion: We are “joint heirs of the grace of life.” From the differences—evident in intimacy and instincts and temperament and calling—spring new wonders that affect the entirety of our life together. I am not simply getting to know another human being, but I am getting to know a particular woman with all the power and glory of her femininity evident from our first meeting, our wedding, in the conception of a child, through the work of home and family and as we receive from the Lord “children’s children.” I am married to someone unknowable by a lazy mental replication of myself, but knowable by pursuit of and learning the particular woman who is my wife. How is America dealing with these differences? In a word, with violence.
The hullabaloo concerning Harrison Butker’s (an NFL kicker of repute) defense of the glory of motherhood has caught my attention. In a single speech Butker has become the face of traditionalist home-and-family Christianity and a new punching bag for conscience-stricken progressives. Young Presbyterians looking for cultural heroes should be reminded that Butker also promotes the same Roman mass that the Heidelberg Catechism artfully calls “an accursed idolatry.” In spite of this I remain deeply thankful for his courage to resist the hatred of motherhood so percolating in America.
Butker’s speech in turn reminded me of a recent gathering of men at our home, assembled to send a young bachelor off into marriage. After a hearty dinner of steak and venison the circle of the married counseled the neophyte concerning the unfamiliar terrain he was about to encounter. As you could imagine, very soon the notable patterns of the differences between men and women began to emerge in the conversation.[1] This including jesting, and not disrespectful jesting as in this case the groom-to-be was the subject of the jokes. The husbands were concerned that he not traverse this ground thinking he could fix all things, win all arguments and solve all problems.
I shared, for example, a classic conversation from my own marriage. I am not-uncommonly asked for advice: “What do you think, Peter?” I then let my bride know exactly what I am thinking: “Those shoes do not look good.” At this point there is a significant probability that she will tell me that the shoes look fine. This produces in me a childlike wonder: “Why then did you ask me what I thought?” I am learning to be content with unsolved mysteries. Similar stories were told with deep fellow-feeling as men poured last-minute marriage shaping advice into the neophyte. But deep down we knew that the young Jedi will have to learn for himself before he truly knows. The Lord so helped us, and so we prayed for him.
The ethereal matter of which we were all aware was that of the natural differences between men and women. I can testify that the men who contributed that night have happy marriages and lovely and skilled and competent wives. But we were having this conversation because we all knew and accepted something to be true about nature, God’s nature. He made them male and female. There are profound similarities between husbands and wives, and these provide common ground for communion and fellowship. There are also profound differences—some obvious and some nuanced– which deepen the joy and wonder of that communion and fellowship.
This in turn got me thinking about the differences between Lauralee and I, and how many of our disagreements have been exacerbated by me trying to make her more like me. And I think learned this to be a mistake in part by reflecting on the glory of motherhood.
Child-rearing came early into our marriage; our oldest was born our first year. In the beginning we were too young and inexperienced to notice or reflect on what we were doing. We actually didn’t know what we were doing. We parented like a new teenage driver—wheels in the ditch on one side, over the middle line moments later, no turn signals, rolling stops, hard stops, no stops, terrifying left turns and a total incapacity to integrate wise real-time counsel into the process. And I have learned that beginning drivers don’t listen for two reasons: Information overload and a reliable over-estimation of non-existent abilities. This analogy describes our own beginning quite nicely, and we remain thankful for God’s mercies, without which we are nothing.
But—recently we received from the Lord our ninth child, 24 years into our marriage. I recognize that revealing these two numbers, 9 at 24, immediately puts us into an unusual category and invites labels that those who do not have our lived experience often bestow upon us. If you are that reader, try forgetting the numbers except for one thing: The numbers mean that we are no longer beginning drivers. What we do with our children and how we do it has changed markedly, and we pray for grace to keep repenting.
And more to the topic—how I see my bride has also changed. I understand in deeper ways how God has fashioned her to be different from me, and that there is so much beauty and power and glory that belongs to femininity.[2] I marvel at her womb, in which she has nestled and carried children, and from which she has borne children in acts of strength and will that should humble the strongest of men. Her hormones ebb and flow in a manner different than mine, and this in relation to her ability to carry new life. She has breasts from which flow live-giving power, by a substance tailored and metered by her body for the life of another. These are things I cannot do; I am incapable and unequipped. And our baby, as yet unable to speak for herself, clearly knows this to be true and lovely in ways that shame the insanity of the modern age.