Dr. Kreider: "Some of you are married, some are unmarried. If you are unmarried, may I suggest that there are better places to find a spouse than here [in seminary]? Especially if you are female. If you're male and offended by that statement, maybe you're the exception. But if you were offended, probably that means you're not."
I thought that was the best thing I'd ever heard. So I wrote it down and told Liz about it later. She get this distressed look on her face and said, "Why?"
"....Because. What? I don't understand your face."
"Why shouldn't you look for a spouse in seminary?"
"Oh. Um. Well, we're very prideful? Seminary students."
"That's sad."
Liz checked out of the conversation then, which made me distressed, because she wasn't fully appreciating the brilliance of Dr. Kreider's comment. And while it's totally true that seminary students have a higher-than-normal tendency to struggle with pride (I think it's almost built into the idea of graduate learning and the idea that somehow you can study to become qualified to serve God and lead others), there's another facet I think Dr. K was drawing on. Maybe. If not, it's something I have observed.
Men in seminary (women too, but men are more vocal about this) are desperate to get married. Not all of them, but a lot of single guys in seminary are on the prowl. Partly this is because it's hard to get jobs as a pastor if you are unmarried. Partly because seminary students are often committed to celibacy before marriage, and 20-30 years of celibacy often leads to "burning with passion" as the apostle Paul so delicately put it. Anyway, men are looking for a wife.
And that's just it. They're looking for a "wife." Generic, copywrited wife. They aren't looking for a specific person, but an ideal. Probably everyone does this to a certain extent while dating/pining. But it's not healthy. And women would be wise to run away from men who aren't aware of that tendency.
So anyway. It's nice to hear a professor say not to get married, when so many others say things like, "Marriage is so great! I couldn't have gotten through seminary without my wife supporting me, proof reading my papers, making me dinner! It was wonderful!" And I just side-eye them and think, if I'd married them, my life in seminary would be a lot more difficult. I need me a wife.
Or I'll just remain single. That is my solid, supported plan until someone absolutely blows me away with awesomeness.
Which is fine, because that guy with the hot ankles moved seats, and now I can't see the area between his pants and his shoes.
Tongue in cheek response...my experience with those men trained in ministry is that an awful lot of them wouldn't know a Phillips head screwdriver from a crescent wrench. This is OK, but you want a husband who can fix the dishwasher when it bombs instead of praying for enough income to pay someone a few hundred dollars to do it for you.
ReplyDeleteAnother thought...similarly located tongue but not poking into cheek quite as far...as a rule graduates of a ministry program don't make a lot of money. I know money is not supposed to be important, but when you need it, it really is important. You're chances of living a lifestyle with a few discretionary dollars are lot lower with a ministry graduate.
OK, that is enough negative thinking for now.
A husband who is handy would be nice, but that qualification is WAY below many others--one of my favorite things about the church is when we act as family, and I have no problem asking my church family to fix my hypothetically broken dishwasher.
DeleteAs for money, I'm not too worried. I'm a romantic in that way, thinking love conquers money and all that. But I'm also practical, and I know that a ministerial salary plus my counseling salary would be enough to live on, always factoring in crazy life events that no one can control anyway.
I guess what I mean is, money or handymanship is never going to keep me from marrying someone. Attitude most definitely will.
But I'll keep my eye open for a humble mechanic minister with a large trust fund who loves me for me.
Finding someone who loves you for yourself should be relatively easy. You have a lot of positive virtues that would make you easy to love as yourself. Now the humble mechanic minister with the large trust fund...well, those are harder to find!
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ReplyDeleteOne of my friends at an unnamed SBC seminary was told--by one of her professors--that the only reason a woman should go to seminary was to find a husband. It broke my Christian studies major heart and is one of many reasons I didn't apply to that school when I was applying to graduate programs! So, you're right, it is AWESOME to have professors at seminaries fighting that idea,.
ReplyDeleteEw, GROSS. So there's no point in my wanting to study my Creator, to know Him better and learn how to serve Him more effectively? Right, because women are secondary to men and ought to learn from their husbands. Gag me. I thought the beauty of Christianity is that we no longer need an intermediary between us and God. We are a priesthood of believers where there is no gender or race or class divide. Unless you're married, in which case you need your husband to learn for you? NO. Ugh. ARGH.
DeleteI have feelings.
My feelings are extremely sympathetic with your feelings! There was some of that at Union in the Christian Studies department, but that was generally from the "Southern Baptist preacher boys" (did people other than my circle of Christian studies female majors call them that, or was it just us?) and not the faculty, for the most part. I can't believe a professor explicitly telling a female student that. I'd feel like he automatically would fail to take my academic work seriously or value any good work I did, and that would really frustrate me.
DeleteWhile we're on things that annoy us about Southern, conservative-to-moderate Christianity, can I also say that I'm getting really annoyed with the way that people who have hardly met me assume that I want to get married just because I'm single and in my upper 20s?
Yeah, I remember those jokes at Union, but definitely they came from the students and not the faculty. Why are you teaching women if you don't think it's worth their time to learn?
DeleteAs for the 20s and single thing, UGH. My thing with that is that what I hear when someone says, "Don't you want to get married?" is "Don't you realize your life is incomplete." At which point I want to say, "Excuse me, but I'm really happy right now. I've got a great house, great friends, great job, great school. Is all of that not enough to satisfy you? And why am I satisfying you at all?"
I know most people don't mean all that, but let's be sensitive, yeah? People do different things with their lives, and find meaning in different ways. Respect.
AGREED! I've really landed at this "I really don't think I'm going to/want to get married" place recently (not that I refuse to let God show me otherwise--I just don't see it happening without divine intervention). And yet married people I've just met will lace conversations with "when you get married," and even unmarried women make statements about "when *we* are wives and mothers someday." I wonder if there's a point when a woman gets old, wrinkly, and saggy and people stop making those comments.
DeleteI want to get married, but I'm also extremely happy with my life as a single person. I think the key to this situation (and life in general) is to accept that people are in different life stages, and that's okay. Maybe someday people's situations will change, maybe not, and THAT'S FINE. We need to stop assuming things and just allow people to be who they are.
DeleteSpeaking of, I like who you are, Nellene!
Aw thanks, Tricia. I like who you are too :-)
DeleteInteresting discussion here. I wonder how many married folks, if you could see into their hearts, would want to marry again? Or marry the same person again? There is a lot to be said for being single. I did not marry until I was 27. Even then I was too young to make a good decision. (It is a long story, my first wife committed suicide and left me with two children. Karon is my second wife). Someone who would marry just because it is "expected" of them may well find themselves in a situation they could have avoided. Just looking at the percentage of marriages that end up as divorces should be scary enough. Tricia, I hope you have not gotten the impression that I think you should be married. You should be whatever you want to be and whatever makes you happy. I know we will end up in Heaven, but even current Christian theology does not allow us to conjure up a second time around on this earth. Be your own person and ignore the subtle hints and suggestions from "friends".
ReplyDeleteTommy, I definitely don't count you as one of the people who subtly or not-so-subtly say I should get married. I am grateful for your constant encouragement! And honestly, although some people do say things that make me feel awful, I'm madder at our culture of marriage than at any one person in particular.
DeleteI'm so sorry about your first wife. I imagine that was a completely awful time for you after she died. Marriage is hard, and I'm glad you gave it a second try--Karon is wonderful!