“Men have a unique, God-given need for respect.”
When evangelical leaders teach this in regards to marriage, what, practically, are they saying that men need? What are they telling women to do?
I’d love your thoughts!
Because here’s the thing: We’re taught this constantly: Men need respect in a way that women don’t understand. Men’s need for respect is the same as women’s need for love. And it’s God-given.
But what do people mean when they say “men need respect”? Because it’s rarely actually defined. In the entire book Love & Respect, for instance, Emerson Eggerichs never gives a definition of respect. He just says that you respect your boss, but you don’t love your boss. And then he gives an acronym of the things that men need to feel respected:
- C Conquest
- H Hierarchy
- A Authority
- I Insight
- R Relationship
- S Sex
This idea that men have a unique need for respect is everywhere, and pastors and teachers would never say they’re teaching anything bad.
But overwhelmingly, when I asked people what they thought this meant practically, the answers were stark and quite depressing.
And while pastors and authors might protest, saying, “that isn’t what we mean!”, when you actually look at what they say–it is, indeed, exactly what they mean.
So let’s look at how people answered–and how that accurately depicts what teachers and preachers actually argue:
“Men Need Respect” Means Men Have Autonomy and Can’t Be Challenged
“I have counseled many evangelical couples as a marriage therapist where this comes up. When we attempt to unpack what they are saying it seems often to really mean, “I want you to let me behave the way I want. I want autonomy but as my wife you need to submit to make life in our home less difficult.” Men want autonomy to have negative feelings but want their wives to be positive all the time.”
“They think respect means being a doormat, means blind obedience, means never challenging them, means catering to their wants and preferences, basically being a slave.”
“Always agreeing that they are right and always say yes because if not you can’t possibly respect him and disagree or do something against his wishes.”
Compare all of that with this message from Steve Gaines, former SBC President and pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church:
Got that? Your husband is your leader. Don’t correct him.
It reminds me of Emerson Eggerichs labelling his wife Sarah disrespectful for asking him to stop leaving wet towels on the bed. He’s the one leaving them there; she says stop; he says you’re nagging and you’re being disrespectful. The solution? She stops asking; and he gets to keep leaving the wet towels there. (Read more about the wet towel incident!)
Men Need to Be Flattered and Told They’re Amazing Even if They’re Not
“I remember doing a couples Bible study with our neighbors on the love and respect book. The part I remember I rolled my eyes at the most were the bits about how you have to show the man respect even if it is unearned. Even if he is not behaving respectfully, being loving, or acting in ways that would earn him your respect. You were meant to “be his cheerleader “ and act like he is the greatest man despite his actions or your feelings. Then he *might* be motivated to change.”
“I think this teaching conveys the idea that men somehow have an inherent need for greater admiration and praise for their good qualities and more deference and understanding of their shortcomings. I believe they are telling women to ignore red flags and make excuses for men, and ignore and invalidate their own needs for respect and deference. We must violate our own experience and intuition and emotionally prop up men because they need respect inherently, not because they receive it based on merit.” – Female commentator
Now compare all of that to this teaching by Josh Howerton:
So if your husband is treating you badly, you just need to pretend that he is amazing, and then he will become amazing.
That’s not how it works, but it’s very convenient teaching if your goal is to have men flattered rather than held to account.
“Men Need Respect” Basically Means “Obey Your Husband”
“At the very beginning of our marriage, my husband gave me advice about a problem I was having. I considered the advice, but didn’t do what he suggested. He thought I was disrespecting him, and he felt hurt. I said, “you thought I was disrespecting you because I didn’t obey you. I respected you by fully considering your advice and not shrugging it off. Respect doesn’t guarantee obedience or compliance.” He completely got it!
“Respect is code for wives to obey, flatter, not ask for their own needs to be met and to not hold men accountable.
Respect should be mutual and it should mean treating the other with full humanity and dignity”
“I read that and hear “I, a man, need everyone around me to do whatever I say, no matter what.””
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Does respect mean to obey your husband? Many pastors would say no, of course not, that’s too much!
But at the same time, they teach that men are in authority over their wives. That men get to make the decisions. As Emerson Eggerichs says in Love & Respect, the husband is the tie-breaker, and can make the decisions for the family. AND the husband also gets to decide what constitutes disrespect.
Put those things together, and you get obeying your husband.
When pastors call for women to respect their husbands, this is what we hear.
Especially when the illustrations they use are about not correcting him; about letting him make decisions; about telling him he’s awesome, even when he’s not.
When these pastors don’t ALSO talk about how to draw boundaries; about how to speak up when your husband is doing something wrong; then they are painting a very clear picture of what respect is, and it isn’t pretty.
Almost everybody who answered my question defined respect as a woman having no autonomy and a man having no accountability.
This isn’t healthy for the church, and it needs to stop.
Tomorrow on the Bare Marriage podcast, get ready for an AWESOME episode, where we demolish the love & respect thesis once and for all, using all-new data.
But for today–just remember that pastors and authors love to teach that men need respect, but they rarely admit what their teachings lead to. And this needs to stop.
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I’ll let one of my responders have the last word:
“I don’t think they are asking women to do anything.
I think they are asking women to BE something. And that’s to be less than man.”
Yep. Even if they won’t admit it, we all see it.
What do you think? When people like Emerson Eggerichs say that men need respect, what are they calling for women to do? Let’s talk in the comments!
Josh Howerton’s wife’s face looks so pained, just like it did in that Facebook video they made, where she said the Holy Spirit convicted her to have more sex with her husband. Does anybody else recognize that look of pain? I recognize it as my mother’s. I am the oldest daughter of a pastor and his wife, and as such I was especially attuned to my mother’s pain. She also confided in me, which I know was unwise, but I have forgiven her because I know how isolated pastor’s wives are, they cannot complain to other women about their husband.
I could write several blog posts’ worth about the errors and inconsistencies in the first video clip, lol. And I’ve become so sickened by JH’s haughtiness that I have a visceral reaction hearing/seeing him: I literally feel a need to spit or throw up, so I no longer watch clips with him. Besides, it’s the same old song and dance of lies.
It’s essentially the moving goalpost of what is considered “respect.” If they keep moving the target, no woman can ever attain it therefore she will always be a “failure” in some capacity. If a man can only feel better about himself by setting up his wife or women to “fail,” then he really needs to take a long look at himself and his relationship with Jesus. Jesus said He came so that we may have life to the full- not that men may have life to the full *by* subjugating their wives.
If it is a universal and consistently God-given need for men to be respected, then it makes sense that it would be derived from a consistent and definable set of behaviors.