Let me tell you a little story. Not long ago, we moved to a new ward. After a few weeks, my husband and I were invited to come early to church to meet with a member of the bishopric. We figured, of course, that he wanted to extend a calling to one or both of us. When we arrived, he asked my husband to come in and speak with him first. So I assumed that my husband was getting the calling.<\/p>\n
To my surprise, after I was ushered into the room, the bishop\u2019s counselor extended a calling to me. He explained that it was church policy to obtain the husband\u2019s permission before his wife even found out about the calling.<\/p>\n
When my husband remarked dubiously that this is the first time he\u2019d ever encountered such a policy, the counselor said (somewhat defensively) that they had been instructed to do it that way by the stake president. According to him, it\u2019s part of an ongoing effort to \u201chelp the brethren step up to their responsibility to preside in their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t go into the details of how exactly being given control over whether their wives get the opportunity to serve at church helps men to be better husbands and fathers.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, I found the exchange depressing, not to mention insulting. To my later chagrin, I didn\u2019t say a whole lot other than accepting the call, partially because I was just floored by it happening in the first place, and partially because I wasn\u2019t sure what TO say.<\/p>\n
I found it embarrassingly awkward to be treated like a child who needs permission. Because, um, last time I looked at our relationship, my husband was not my parental authority figure. But how childishly petulant does it sound to stamp your foot at the bishop\u2019s counselor and say, \u201cdon\u2019t treat me like a child!\u201d It was obvious to me that at least to this particular man, I would sound like a power hungry insubordinate and a bad wife if I objected to what he evidently considered a divinely sanctioned policy.<\/p>\n
My husband and I had a lengthy discussion about it afterward, during which I was eventually able to roll my eyes and laugh ruefully at what had happened, and pass it off as a relatively minor annoyance.<\/p>\n
Until this morning, that is, when I was sitting in the pew after Sacrament Meeting, and a brother in the ward came up to our row. He said hello to me, and then promptly turned to my husband, to ask if it was all right if I substituted in his primary class next week. I just stared. To his everlasting credit, my husband simply responded, \u201cshe\u2019s her own person. Ask her.\u201d<\/p>\n
You\u2019d think I would have come up with some kind of appropriate response myself after my experience a few weeks earlier, but again, I merely said I would do it (once the good brother\u2019s attention had finally wandered back to me, that is, of course).<\/p>\n
After I finished crying on my husband\u2019s shoulder in the hallway over the whole indignity of it all, I started contemplating what would be the best\/most appropriate response to a situation like this (since it appears that at least in this ward, it happens frequently).<\/p>\n
Should I just grin and bear it? Is there some kind of church policy that might actually somehow be construed to mean that a wife needs her husband\u2019s permission before she undertakes to do any sort of positive action? To what ridiculous ends will this lead us? When I call a Relief Society sister to ask if she\u2019ll take dinner to someone in the ward, should I really be speaking with her husband first to see if it\u2019s OK with him?<\/p>\n
I should add that the second story did actually have a happy ending. My husband had a lengthy discussion with the offending primary teacher, who said he had only been trying to be respectful (of whom? The \u201cman of the house,\u201d I suppose). He said it was just like when he had asked his wife\u2019s father for her hand in marriage. Sigh. Just like.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure if he was convinced by my husband\u2019s energetic explanations, or just thought we were weird, but I was very touched when this same brother came up to me after church and apologized for offending me. He said that he was sorry he had made me feel bad, and grateful he had now been educated so he wouldn\u2019t do it again. He was really humble and sincere, and it made me feel so much better to have my feelings acknowledged. It also made me feel a little hopeful that change might actually sometimes happen, at least on the individual level, if we approach it in a constructive way.<\/p>\n
So with that said, what is the most constructive way? What would you say if your husband were asked to speak for you (or you were asked to speak for your wife)? What have<\/em> you said in situations like these? Do you think it\u2019s more effective when speaking to an intentional or oblivious chauvinist for my husband to point out that he thinks it\u2019s inappropriate to be treated like he owns me? Or should I say it myself?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let me tell you a little story. Not long ago, we moved to a new ward. After a few weeks, my husband and I were invited to come early to church to meet with a member of the bishopric. We figured, of course, that he wanted to extend a calling to one or both of us. When we arrived, he asked my husband to come in and speak with him first. So I assumed that my husband was getting the calling. To my surprise, after I was ushered into the room, the bishop\u2019s counselor extended a calling to me. He explained that it was church policy to obtain the husband\u2019s permission before his wife even found out about the calling. When my husband remarked dubiously that this is the first time he\u2019d ever encountered such a policy, the counselor said (somewhat defensively) that they had been instructed to do it that way by the stake president. According to him, it\u2019s part of an ongoing effort to \u201chelp the brethren step up to their responsibility to preside in their homes.\u201d He didn\u2019t go into the details of how exactly being given control over whether their wives get the opportunity to serve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1887,54,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-handbook-2-features","category-mormon-life","category-women-in-the-church"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20424"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20426,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20424\/revisions\/20426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}