During a recent visit from our home teachers, one of them asked if they could say a prayer with us. He then turned to my husband and said, "It's your house" which invited my husband to select someone to say the prayer. After this visit, I reflected a lot on the statement "It's your house". This statement may have been made fairly casually, but for me, it implies that it is more my husband's house than it is mine. It implies that my husband is the leader, the head of our house, and I am not.
While I served as a temple worker the temple president made an interesting comment during one of the training sessions. He said that if the Prophet came to your home, that you (the priesthood leader) would still preside in your home, not the Prophet. There is something I like about this idea. Even though the Prophet presides over the whole church, you are the one who is in charge in your own home. This statement conveys the idea that you are the one best able to make decisions about your personal life and that church leaders respect that. However, there is also something that really bothers me about this idea. To me it conveys that, for men, all leadership and outside roles melt away when they are in the walls of their own home. But for women, they are always presided over. The only circumstance in which women are recognized as the head of the household is when they are single (either from never marrying or losing a spouse).
This idea is hard for me to accept. I want a space where I feel completely in charge of myself and my domain. I do feel this with my spouse as we have set up a very egalitarian model of home leadership, but I also want institutional acknowledgement of my position in my home. For some reason, this is really important to me. I guess part of it is that this acknowledgement would mean that I am a full adult in the eyes of my religious community and that I would have recognition that I have worked hard to get to where I am now. I do find the concept of the "head of household" an antiquated idea. I find it odd that tax forms require you to list the head of the household when in my mind there can be two "heads of households". (My husband and I trade off doing the taxes and when I do them I list myself as head of the household). I have also thought about whether I would say anything if this situation with my home teachers came up again. Is it worth it to say something like "no actually it is *our* home, but I don't have any problem if my husband selects someone to pray"?
What do you think? Do you feel like the head (or joint head) of your household? Does it matter to you that you have institutional recognition of your head of household status? How can one gain recognition of that status?
Absolutely! I join my husband as the co-head - though as he was reading this over my shoulder he dead-panned "But something with two heads would be really scary." Go for it - it's worth it to say your "our" line because you both recognize that as reality. I don't think it makes an issue of it any kind of offensive way -it just validates you - and hopefully gets your HT thinking :)
ReplyDeleteGrrrr... Sounds like the continuation of patriarchal tradition phooey. No doubt your HTs will return and this will happen again next month. You teach people how to treat you, and HTs/The Church should be no different. It's your house, your rules. Little-by-little if those striving for equality in The Church can redirect things like this, there is hope for change.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess it now becomes a matter of when and how you want to address it. I think both of you addressing it together on their next visit, will show the shared solidarity of your household. It doesn't need to be anything nasty, just something of a direct by-the-way nature.
In various ways, I am certain those opportunities to bridle your HTs when they visit will continue to happen. Next time may be a bit different, but you have every right in YOUR home to address it. It could be something as simple as saying, "I am going to pick for the prayer this time" without apology and matter-of-factly.
No doubt they will instantly see the difference in which your house is run and will clue in.
One thing I LOVE about my husband is the way he interacted with Bishops, etc. regarding an inquiry of wanting me to do something, prayer, talk etc. He would always say, "I don't know. You will need to ask her".
I hope you keep us updated on what happens with future visits. I wish you luck. You have every right to be bothered by what happened.
As the HT, I'd find it awkward to try and negotiate between the two of you and ask "could the two of you confer and choose someone to ask the prayer?". Would I have to try and remember who I asked last so I could be sure I took turns on who to ask to ask someone to say prayers? Could I ask you to counsel ahead of time so I could just ask one person who has been chosen?
ReplyDeletePlease don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to advocate for an absolute master in the house. I'm just trying to imagine how it would work to be sure that neither spouse feels left out.
Frank - I think you touch on a really good point here. Given that we're talking about shifting a pretty deeply entrenched tradition, what is the best way to graciously and tactfully implement these changes?
ReplyDeleteFrank,
ReplyDeleteGreat question. For me personally, I don't care if my husband always picks people to pray. What I *do* care about is the fact that my HT looked right at my husband and said "Well it is your home." Don't get me wrong, I really like my home teachers. I don't think they were trying to be offensive or make a statement about who the head of the house is, but I do think that it is important to point out how someone's words might be offensive (even when they didn't intend for them to be so).
All that being said, there are all different types of preferences for how family prayers (etc) are handled. I know there are some women who would be annoyed if their husband was always asked to select someone to pray. I think as a home teacher I would take one of the following approaches.
1-Ask the family if it would be o.k. if you said a prayer with them and then start praying. (You could decide ahead of time between you and your companion who would be offering to pray).
2-Look at both the husband and the wife and say something like "Would you like to select someone to pray?" Hopefully the couple would follow whatever protocol they had established between the two of them.
3-While looking at both of them ask them point blank, "Do you have a tradition in your home for how you select who will pray? Do you like someone to volunteer or do you prefer to select someone to pray?"
I think eye contact makes a huge difference in all kinds of circumstances like this. Nothing bothers me more than when my husband and I are having a conversation with someone (Bishop, HM, etc) and they only look at my husband. For example, I noticed that when we purchased our home, most of the people we met with at the bank spent the majority of the time looking at my husband. I kept speaking up in order to make sure that I was included in the conversation. I think that for many people this is an unconscious social habit that is hard to break.
ReplyDeleteI used to have serious questions about why the man in a marriage presides, and I'm still not perfectly clear on why that is the case. However, I think this post, and the comments, strengthen the argument in favor of one presider in a home. It is clearly much more efficient and things actually get done, rather than having to worry about unintended offenses or each individual person's feelings on every single issue ad nauseum. Rather than selecting options 1, 2, or 3, and worrying about whether the wife would have preferred you choose option 1 and the husband prefers option 2 but you really just want to choose option 3 (and what about options 4-25?), we have a clear protocol: husband presides so you ask him to choose someone for the prayer. Consistent with feminist principles? Probably not. A whole lot more efficient? No question.
ReplyDeleteI'm not stating that I understand why it is the husband who presides and not the wife. However, I think the more I come across arguments against having one presider, the more convinced I am it actually is the best model.
I will concede that the home teacher in this situation misspoke. He said it was your husband's home. That statement really only has meaning in the context of legal ownership, which in this case appears to be false (based on your statements I'm assuming you are legally a joint owner of the home). However, I think what the HT meant was that your husband presides. You can't really blame the HT for thinking that since, after all, President Monson said so.
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteOne thing that struck me about your comment was the following statement.
"However, I think the more I come across arguments against having one presider, the more convinced I am it actually is the best model."
My question, is best for whom? Having the same person always select someone to say the prayer is certainly efficient, but for me feeling like I am the joint spiritual leader of my home is more important than efficiency. Personally, I think there are a lot of traditions that are slow to change because people think it is just easier to do things the way they have "always" been done. For me, there is value in questioning tradition. There is value in examining something when it is not working for everyone involved.
Practices have slowly changed in the church, even on the global level. For example, in my mom's day women did not pray in Sacrament meeting and then they were only asked to give the closing prayer. Now, it is not uncommon to see women giving the opening prayer as well. What instigated these changes? It is hard to say, but I don't think that it is all top down. I believe a lot of changes happen when enough people at the bottom speak up.
Very good suggestions, Beatrice. It should also help the HTs to visit more often, so they can get a feel of how the household works, so the know which option works better for which family.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice, I'm a little late to the conversation, but I was just reading through these comments and saw what you said about eye contact. This has been a huge thing for me since I got married--men basically ignore me and talk straight to my husband. It makes me pretty angry and also feels like crap. We've moved apartments a few times in the last couple years and each time we've ended up in a new ward (we live right at the crux of three ward boundaries, which is unusual for this area) so we've basically been new the whole time, and not had assigned home teachers. Some combination of the EQP, bishopric, and missionaries always comes to visit, and they'll be sitting in our living room talking only to my husband, even when I make comments. It's really frustrating to feel invisible.
ReplyDeleteRyan, I have to say I think it's weird that you value efficiency over treating women like equals. "Most efficient" and "best" are not necessarily synonyms.
Miri, arrg so frustrating. What is the best way to remedy this eye contact situation? I wonder if part of it is social training to look at the "head of the household" and part of it is social training to feel discomfort when talking directly to or with women.
ReplyDeleteThe only way I have been able to deal with this is by joining in the conversation and trying to add something of value or ask questions. People do tend to look at me a bit more when I do that. I guess you could also say something like, "Did you just want to talk to my husband or did you want to talk with me too? Because if you didn't want to talk to me I got some stuff I need to get done." Not sure if that would be effective, but sometimes I imagine myself doing snarky things like that :).
After I got married (at age 26), I had a number of disenfranchising moments when I realized that, in the eyes of the Church, I now have less autonomy than I did when I was single. One of those moments was when I looked at the ward directory and found that my husband was listed as "head of household." And that ALL families with married people had the husband listed as "head of household." In the good old days when I was single, *I* was my own head of household. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteBeatrice, I honestly wouldn't put it past myself to do something like that, if I continue finding myself in that kind of situation. I know it wouldn't be the mature way to handle the situation, but then again I just might not care. :) I can totally envision myself standing up and saying, "Well, since you obviously don't need me here, I'll just go back to what I was doing," and leaving the room. My husband has heard me complain about this plenty of times, so I'm sure he'll be able to explain if they're confused.
ReplyDelete