For people in the West, rights are pretty much the air you breath. Everyone insists on their rights, even if they’re not sure what they are, nor where they really come from. It may seem odd to be proud of our rights in an era when government restrictions control such an incredible amount of life, but it is ingrained into how we think. While the western notion of rights is a blending of a few Christian ideals with Humanist ones, I would look with skepticism about where they come from in our culture, and find the stronger basis of rights is in the God of the Bible and in His law, rather than from what western thinkers a few hundred years ago dreamed up.
The original discussion of rights in the West was among Christian thinkers. Rights were not — at that time — simply the right to follow your heart as long as you don’t hurt anyone, nor were they very subjective ideals based on a loose notion of human dignity. Rather, rights involved the right and just thing to do. Theologians looked at God’s law, and sought to discover what was just in any given circumstance. On examination they saw that if an obligation existed, then by inference, we could see a certain right as well. If I am obliged to give to you, then you have a right to receive. If I am prohibited from stealing from you, then you have a right to your property. Rights were derived from God and His law.
Over time, these rights were co-opted and blended with more Humanist ideals. Instead of a set of rights clearly stemming from divine revelation, they echoed the allegedly enlightened notions of their day, giving only a philosophical nod to being rooted in the Creator, and in a concept of human dignity. We ended up with an impersonal God of nature, and “divinely” founded rights that sounded suspiciously like the secular thought of the day. Eventually the notion of being rooted in God and revelation was dropped, and we ended up with a system which does not claim any more objective foundation for rights than mankind and his culture. Our rights flow from us, in the contemporary understanding. That’s why today we have a right to commit immorality, a right to lewdness and pornography, a right for a woman to act like a man, the right of a woman to have her baby killed in the womb, and more clearly self-serving liberties. No one really knows what our actual rights are anymore, and they’re clearly just making them up as they go along. Right becomes synonymous with the lust of the heart, at least the ones the current culture condones. The original purpose has been overturned. These are not the actual rights we have, and should not be confused with them.
I want to examine the concept of rights as it pertains to men and women. Since I find rights must be rooted in God, and in nature, I’m going to look at what rights we receive naturally from our obligations before God. Our rights, we will find, are very different if we look at them that way. They do not change with the times. They allow us the freedom to do what is right, and to use our selves as we are designed. But they do not include the freedom to do what we feel, just because we feel like it. They do not include the freedom to sin. That kind of sounded like wishful thinking to begin with, didn’t it? Let’s look at both women and men’s rights in marriage, and we’ll briefly mention children as well.
Women’s Rights:
The right to be provided for: Because women have full time work in caring for the children and the home, it is her natural right to be provided for. That responsibility firstly lies on the husband, who when marrying his wife, takes on that obligation. If his income is not enough, family, church, and community can help provide the rest. If the husband becomes injured or dies, the woman should not feel obliged to leave the home to work full time. Until she can remarry, church and society should support her, so long as she is living a moral lifestyle and responsibly cares for the home and children.
The right to bear children and nurture: Similar to the right to be provided for, no wife should be robbed of her purpose in marriage, and the use of her unique gifts. She should be bearing the children God gives her, and have the time and resources to nurture them. Bearing children is an obligation to God as well, and cheating one’s spouse in this regard is an attempt to rob God.
The right to be protected: A wife can reasonably expect that any husband she married will protect her from harm. It is a part of his job. She is the weaker vessel. He not only protects her from physical harm, and takes up the more dangerous work around the house, but he also protects her from spiritual harm. The woman is more susceptible to the spiritual attacks of the devil, as evidenced in the Garden, and her man must be sure to keep her from false religious teachings and the occult. He should keep her from the feminist influences of this era as well. She should not have to fend for herself in these areas.
The right to be led: She has a right to receive her man’s leadership. He will lead the household liturgy, make practical and ethical decisions for the home, and also supervise her activities. His leadership should provide her helpful guidance, comfort, safety, and reassurance. His strength will make her strong.
Men’s Rights:
Right to govern/rule his home: The man is by position the leader once he has married his wife. He has rule over his wife and children. No government nor church has any authority to tell a man he cannot use his authority in marriage. By right of being the husband, he has right to set the rules, tell his wife what she must do, and correct or discipline her if she is out of line. Discipline comes with governance, and it is impossible to attack the right to discipline without also attacking the right to rule. Take away that right, and the decisions of a governor become mere suggestions. Along with a man’s authority always comes the right to discipline.
Right to his wife’s submission: Since a man is the head, and since his wife is given the role to submit, a man has a right to receive his wife’s obedience. Her respectful words, sincere help, and submission are all things he can expect, by the simple fact that he is her husband. Of the many people who try and reinvent the meaning of submission, so that it means something more like being considerate, they are wrong, and do damage to the home. The wife submits by putting herself under her husband’s authority and obeying him. It is the same as any other vertical structure.
Right to his wife’s help: Along with receiving her submission, comes receiving her help. Since being his helper is her job, it is right for him to expect this. She is there to assist in his goals, assist in his needs, and make it her part to be available to him. Along with helping him practically includes that she helps him by bearing and nurturing the children. She raises them and trains them up as he instructs her.
Both Men and Women’s Rights:
Right to Marital Affection: Both a husband and a wife have a right to sexual intimacy from their spouse. Marital affection should be normal, and never withheld. That is the teaching of Holy Scripture. Similarly, it should be regular according to love for a man to meet his wife’s needs for affection which is non-sexual, such as holding her, or holding hands, and make her feel safe and comfortable physically. Since the husband has the authority, he also has the right to insist if his wife withholds affection. He can enjoy his wife sexually as he desires to, and can expect his wife to obey him in bed as elsewhere.
Right to faithfulness: Faithfulness can speak of faithfulness to marriage responsibility in general, but here I specifically mean faithfulness to the spouse, sexually and physically. Marriage is by nature monogamous, and any spouse can expect the other to be monogamous with them. It is their right due to the nature of the union, as well as God’s condemnation of adultery. It is important to point out, that while adultery is a violation of the covenant, it does not end the covenant. Man and wife are joined until death, and all spouses will sin at some point in marriage. Sin is warrant to forgive, not warrant to pick another partner. Monogamy rules out adulterous affairs, “open” marriages, polygamy, and remarriage. You are locked together for life.
Right to lifelong fulfillment of the responsibilities: In line with the right to faithfulness, is the right to receive our spouses responsibilities in a lifelong way. They are not part-time pursuits. When we marry, we agree that that union, and the obligations we have to the other, do not cease until death. Husband and wife each plays their role continually, and can expect the other to do so as well.
Children’s Rights:
Right to father and mother: Since it takes a male and female to make a child, any child has a right to both his father and mother, and for them to be together. We know this also from the command for man and woman to become one flesh, and the fact the bond is only broken by death. A child should be able to expect his father and mother are united for life, and are both available to him.
Right to teaching, protection, and to be provided for: Since Scripture commands we teach our children, the child has a right to such teaching, firstly spiritually and ethically, and also training in practical work he can make a living with. He also has a right to protection both due to his smaller size and less developed mind, and the commands of the Lord not to harm children. Any child has a right to receive food, clothing, and housing from his parents. If they are unable to meet these needs, some extra help can come from family, church, and community.
Right to a peaceful home: Since man and wife are commanded to live in love, are given a harmonious working order of headship and submission, and are called to peace, any child has a right to be raised in a peaceful home, which is known by edifying words, loving admonition, and fatherly discipline. Fighting, screaming, cussing, and violence are all violations of that rights, as are having a broken home and needing to be shipped back and forth between houses.
Right to only two parents: While there are tragedies, and sometimes children lose a parent, and find he has a new one, this only occurs out of necessity when someone dies. A family by nature and design has only two parents — father and mother — and no child should be exposed to a rotating network of boyfriends, girlfriends, or step-parents. All of these not only break the structure of marriage, but are also more likely to harm a child, and nearly always love them less. Children also bond less with such adult figures, and are more likely to lash out violently at them.
Finally:
At a time when virtually everything under the sun is considered a right, it’s important to remember that our rights are limited by our obligations. They are not infinite. They are not there so we can seek personal satisfaction, or fulfill our lusts. Rights are only observed to be there as we examine what one person is obliged to do for another. In that sense they are secondary kinds of truths. The root of the matter, and where they come from, is our duties, and those duties come from God. They are limited by what God teaches are right and wrong. If we concerned ourselves much more with these important duties, and ceased making excuses for not doing them, we would need reliance on rights far less, and would not need to debate exactly which we really possess. A marriage done according to God’s ordering will fulfill man, woman, and child. They will lack nothing.
Your can find most of these articles organized by general category here any my About Page.
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