Brave Marriage Podcast
SHOW NOTES:
Reverend Erin Moniz and Blake Dean talk to us about why mutuality matters for Christian couples, for the church at large, and how it’s impacted their marriages in different stages. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to tune in to the Mutuality Matters Podcast, part of the CBE International media network!
RESOURCE LINKS:
Podcast Editing by: Evan Duszynski, MA
Music by: John Tibbs
SHOW NOTES:
We’re starting this conversation with a little understanding of history, how the 1950s defined marriage and split-sphere gender roles as we know them today.
Together, we’ll consider this question: If Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 not to conform to the patterns of this world, then why does so much of what we’re taught today in the church reflect the culture of marriage in 1950s America rather than mirroring Christ?
Join Kensi Duszynski this fall as she facilitates a conversation around marital health, relational dynamics, and the proper place of gender roles in Christian marriage.
Conversations will take place biweekly.
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to the Brave Marriage Podcast, a podcast for couples who want to grow as individuals, do marriage with intention, and live mutually empowered, purposeful lives. I’m Kensi Duszynski, a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified professional coach. And you are listening to episode 1 of season 2, where ready or not, like I said in the trailer, we will be diving into a conversation every other week around marriage, mutuality, and gender roles.
I know we have some new folks listening, so just to give you a little bit of background on who it is you’re listening to, I am someone who grew up in the church in a small town in Kentucky. I felt called to ministry as a teenager, was commissioned in that calling by my church body, and have spent my vocational life pretty much ever since in marriage ministry, if you will, which for me, has taken the shape of becoming a licensed practitioner and working with married couples in the Bible Belt. I studied at Focus on the Family’s Leadership Institute in college, where I learned about what has come to be known as biblical manhood and womanhood, I graduated from Asbury University, where we talked a lot about the integration of psychology and theology, I attended Asbury Theological Seminary where I learned evidence-based practices of couples therapy, and then I worked toward my license as a MFT for four years after grad school. And I’m getting to the age now where I can look back on my reading and study of marriage over the past 15 years or so and compare it to what I’ve seen in my work with couples over the past 8 years or so, and see what is actually helpful and actually true when it comes to helping couples and what’s not. So season 2 is really a passion project for me to synthesize all these ideas, and I appreciate you coming along for the ride!
As I’ve been thinking about where to start this series, I knew I couldn’t start with what’s good, what’s bad, and here’s why as a therapist, because I know, as someone who’s grown up in the Christian community, how deeply we hold some of our ideas about marriage and what it means to be a good husband or wife. I also know, having grown up in a rural area, that some can feel mistrusting of psychology and therapy and don’t even know how to conceptualize mental and emotional health as something as important as physical health. I know that when it comes to relationships, those of us who’ve grown up in conservative families and churches trust what we’ve been taught about marriage and gender roles there, even if we’ve also been influenced by the media and culture around us.
So instead, I decided to start this conversation about marriage, mutuality, and gender roles with a little understanding of history. Because when we’re inside of a certain context, like right now, as we’re living through history, it can be hard to step outside of it, to take a look at it, to examine it, and to evaluate it based on its strengths and weaknesses. But personally, when I began to understand marriage in the context of history, that’s the place where I was finally able to assimilate all these ideas and come to my understanding of what I’ve seen in the church, versus what I’ve seen in marriage therapy literature, versus what I’ve seen in my office.
So here’s what we’re gonna do: In order to examine marriage as we understand it today, we’re gonna start by taking a look at marriage in a decade before most of you listening were born: the 1950s. The first time I ever thought about marriage throughout history was in 2010 at the Focus Leadership Institute, where I had my first marriage and family studies course. Our professors, as kind of a warm up exercise, had written each decade from the 20th century on a piece of poster board, and spaced them out around the perimeter of the room. And they instructed us to go and stand in front of the decade in which we thought we’d most want to live, if we could—to choose the decade that we thought had the best that marriage and family life had to offer.
Okay, so there were 44 of us, and as 20-somethings who grew up in the ‘90s, most people ended up in front of the 1970s posters or later. I, on the other hand, had grown up watching reruns of I Love Lucy, Happy Days, and the movie remake of Leave It to Beaver, so I stood in front of the 1950s poster, along with one other classmate who chose that decade because she liked the idea of wearing pearls and poodle skirts, that was her reasoning. But when asked why I chose that decade, I said something about how it seemed like the 1950s held all these moral values that growing up in the church, I’d learned were a part of Christian living. And so, from what I’d seen on TV, it seemed like the 1950s were a pretty ideal place for Christian families to live.
…And that’s when I got my first education on just how little I understood about the history of Christian marriage in America.
So I would like to do a little exercise with you. I’d like you to use your imagination to travel back in time with me to the mid-1950s. Eisenhower is President of the United States, and we’re about 20 years removed from the end of the Great Depression, and about 10 years post-World War II. Compare that with the distance we are today from 9/11 and the recession of 2008. So understandably, between Truman and Eisenhower’s presidencies, lots of effort has gone into re-stabilizing society and the economy upon the return of millions of WWII veterans. This effort is seen in government programs like the GI Bill, which provided unemployment aid, education, and mortgage assistance to millions of American veterans. It’s seen in strengthening the image of America as a strong, militarized nation, armed with a capitalist economy and Christian family values. And it’s seen in the emergence of the ideal American family: the white, middle-class nuclear family with a breadwinning husband who works outside the home, and a stay-at-home wife, who works within the home to keep her family strong.
Can you bring to mind the image of Rosie the Riveter? Well, if she was the model picture of a woman in the 1940s, a woman who stepped up and served and worked to aid in the war effort on behalf of her country, then upon WWII veterans’ return, Rosie the Riveter was replaced with the image of June Cleaver as the ideal 1950s woman.
So imagine you’re a married person doing life in this 1950s world. Some societal and economic stabilization has been achieved, and if you’re white and above the poverty line, you’re enjoying the benefits of this in a disproportionate scale to your black neighbors. I say this to indicate here that many black Americans weren’t granted equal access to things like VA mortgage loans or suburban housing due to some legalese in the GI Bill that placed federal benefits in the hands of the state, many of whom were still operating under Jim Crow laws and racial segregation in the south.
But on the whole, the economy is flourishing such that compared to what’s been called “the prosperous twenties,” the middle class in America has nearly doubled, as has your discretionary income. In the mid-1950s, this means wealth building, again, especially if you’re white and benefiting from government programs, and extra money for things like houses with separate bedrooms for everyone, a second car, a new TV, and modern kitchen appliances.
So you’ve just endured a few decades there of recession, of war, and of hardship. And in a matter of ten years after the war, you find yourself the recipient of a quaint little home in the new suburbs, with a church of your denomination not too far away. You can now rest easy in the assurance that you live in a safe, Christian nation, which you’re reminded of every time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, which now, includes the phrase “one nation under God,” or every time you spend your new discretionary income because of the recent addition of “In God We Trust” that’s been added to all US currency. I mean, compared to what you’ve known, this is ideal, this is the good life. This is the epitome of the American dream.
And as a middle-class couple living in the 1950s, you find yourself enamored with a couple of things: First of all, new and improved home technologies that you can now afford, like the washing machine, an electric dryer, a refrigerator/freezer combo, the vacuum cleaner, all things that promise to make your home life more convenient. K, this is like the Alexa or the Roomba of the 1950s. And on the topic of home life, the second thing you find yourself all consumed by is how to construct this nuclear family ideal that you’re seeing everywhere in mass media and pop culture. From TV shows and magazine ads, to family experts and marriage advice columns, it seems like all efforts are being aimed at solidifying and reinforcing rigid male-female gender roles.
From Hoover vacuums, you see ads that read, “She’ll be happier with a Hoover.” From a refrigerator company, you see a blindfolded mom holding the hand of a child while her husband presents her new fridge. The copy reads, “The surprise of her life…and the best!” From Edward Podolsky’s book, Sex Today in Wedded Life, you read, “Be a good listener, let your husband tell you all his troubles and yours will seem trivial in comparison. Don't bother him with petty troubles and complaints when he comes home from work. Let him relax before dinner. Discuss family problems after the inner man has been satisfied. Remember your most important job is to build up and maintain his ego; morale is a woman's business."
From his advice column, “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” in the Ladies Home Journal, Paul Popenoe maintained that a husband’s job was to work outside the home and provide for his family, while a woman’s job was to keep her husband happy, faithful, and successful at work. A man’s behavior was thought not to reflect his character, but to offer a window inside his home as to what type of woman he was married to, and what type of home environment was contributing to his behavior and success at work.
And a question I have is, why? Why were so many in the 1950s invested in creating and maintaining split-sphered gender roles?
Well, from a socio-ecological perspective, if you’re trying to restabilize a society that’s been marked for decades by men leaving the workforce and going to war, and women entering the workforce with higher paying wages than they’ve known before, and then suddenly, both men and women are trying to find their place again in the midst of a culture that looks quite different from the world before they left, then the way to give men and women a sense of purpose and patriotism after World War II is to promote these split-sphere gender roles as a way to continue to serve your country, especially during the Cold War, is by keeping the family strong. For men, the hope was re-entry into the workplace and back into their seat of influence, as before. For women, the hope was that the preoccupation with, and distraction of domesticity, would soften the blow of what they were losing by focusing on all they stood to gain: namely, a happy home, a happy husband, and the social rewards of playing by the rules and conforming to cultural marital scripts.
Back to the 21st century and messages we’ve received in the church: What messages like this linger? Does this advice seem absurd to you? Or does it seem in line with what you’ve been taught or internalized somewhere along the way?
Now, I want you to time travel back with me all the way to the early church in the 1st century, about twenty years after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. Imagine the legacy left by Jesus in the Greco-Roman world. Imagine trying to understand how to live according to the legacy of a man, who was God, who literally died for your eternal salvation but before that, challenged culture and the status quo by bringing life and health and wholeness and dignity to men, women, rich, poor, Jews, Gentiles, and the most marginalized in society. Imagine His influence as you consider this line which Paul writes to the Christians in Rome in Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The New Living Translation translates it this way: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”
So my last question for you is, if we’re not to conform to the patterns of this world or copy its behavior, then why does so much of what we’re taught today in the church reflect the culture of 1950s America rather than mirroring Christ?
If you have thoughts, questions you’d like to eventually have answered on the podcast, or monologues you need to get off your chest, know that I can relate and I would love to hear from you. You’re welcome to email your innermost thoughts to kensi@bravemarriage.com. I’d really like to engage with you and hear where you are and what you’re taking from this season along the way.
That’s it for today on the Brave Marriage Podcast. I’m your host, Kensi Duszynski. Podcast editing is by Evan Duszynski. Thank you so much for listening and for your interest in learning. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and are excited for this series, please share it with someone else you think might be interested. I’ll be back in 2 weeks to pick up where we left off and I look forward to sharing with you again soon.
RESOURCES:
EPISODE SHOW NOTES:
BMP is back for a second season! Join Kensi Duszynski this fall as she facilitates a conversation around marital health, relational dynamics, and the proper place of gender roles in Christian marriage. Conversations will take place biweekly.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to the Brave Marriage Podcast! A podcast for couples who want to grow as individuals, do marriage with intention, and live mutually empowered, purposeful lives! It has been a while, I know, and I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone by.
If you’re listening to this, you’re probably already subscribed to the podcast so you most likely already know that I took some time off this year. But just in case you’re new here, here’s kind of the deal: At the beginning of the year, I decided to take a semester off of the podcast in order to teach a counseling class at the college level. And this felt like a really great opportunity, like a growing experience for me, but one I knew I would need to devote time and attention to, seeing as how I’d never taught a day in my life before that! I don’t love public speaking. I’ve pushed myself to do it over the years, because I know it’s important to my calling, but I’ve certainly never lectured or taught for hours on end before that, so I just knew something had to give in order for me to engage that new role well.
But here’s kind of what’s transpired since. And I want you to know that I’ve really been trying to wrestle down this first episode back. I apologize for the lengthy explanation, as I’m sure some of you would prefer that I just get back to the content, which I totally understand. But after trying to figure out how to jump right in and pick up where we left off, the fact of the matter is, I can’t—and I need to explain why.
So during class last semester, we were able to have some really engaging discussions around how counseling helps us become healthier as humans and as Christians, and how we integrate those two things, because all of us, no matter how long we’ve known the Lord, still grew up in families, churches, and communities that shaped us for better or worse. You know, they shaped our personalities, the ways we learned to interact with the world, they shaped the skills we have or don’t have to cope and to engage in healthy relationships.
And of course, in my line of work, I’ve thought about these things for years, having processed my own family background, church background, and context in which I grew up. But what was so fascinating for me to see through teaching was my students on the very front end of this processing. Still discovering who they are, in light of who they want to be, and wrestling through questions around faith and counseling and psychology and theology and their future roles as Christian counselors.
And it just so happened that as we were talking about all these things, a few professors got together during that same semester to host a series on purity culture. So I facilitated a short discussion with my students in a conversation around this topic, thinking surely, with them being ten years younger than me, that they’d grown up with healthier views than my generation did on sexuality, purity, and gender roles in marriage. But you guys, I was shocked at some of the messaging they’d grown up with, just some really unhealthy views, although maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised, given the conversations my husband, Evan, has had in working with college students.
And so, as you all already know, I am deeply passionate about helping others learn how to do marriage relationships well. And what I’m seeing—both in the culture at large and in the classroom (you know it’s like, once you see it, you can’t look away)— is this subtly, yet deeply distorted way of looking at Christian marriage and of talking about marriage and sex in the church. In a way that doesn’t lead to life and freedom and valuing each other as we should, but instead leads to dysfunction and bondage and diminishing each other. And that’s not who we are as Christians, that’s not who we were created to be in the imago Dei, that’s not what the family of God is supposed to be, and yet, the way we continue to talk about marriage, unthinkingly, just repeating what we’ve heard before, it’s actually continuing the perpetuation of these relational ideals that are not good for everyone across the board. And end up landing twenty-something year olds in my classroom and couples of all ages in my counseling practice having to work through damage done to their relationships and to their psyches sometimes by the church when the church should be the place where we find the most healing and health and help for our relationships.
So clearly, all of this has led me to the inability to podcast about anything other than this topic for a while, this topic of healthy marital dynamics and our callings and roles as Christian couples. Until I’ve said all I’ve needed to say on it, until you’ve said all you need to think and say on it, and until the conversation around marriage and gender roles in the church looks more hopeful and creative than it does rigid and oppressive.
A few things have led me to this place: The first is, living on a Christian college campus for the past 4 years. We’ve seen what’s become healthier when it comes to living and relating in Christian community, but we’ve also seen some of the same old, unhealthy teachings from decades past just continue to live in the zeitgeist of the Christian community, and not only that, but we’ve also seen some really unhealthy things strengthen in the Church that are anything but Christlike. So there’s that, and then there’s this: I’ve really felt led over the past couple of years to speak more courageously to some of these topics, but to this point, have failed to do so. I’ve resisted and avoided, quite honestly, talking about these things publicly. I made excuses, all wrapped up in fear because who wants to give a minority voice to the majority Christian culture, right? Certainly, not me. Certainly not me.
But then after my class, after these conversations (and a slew of others over the past few years), I just knew I couldn’t not address the roles of men and women in marriage anymore, and how our understanding as Christians of these topics affects our marriages, because it affects our mental and emotional health, and therefore, our relational health!
When I first started the podcast, one of the very first questions I received was, “Which is a better model for Christian marriage: complementarianism or egalitarianism?”
And if you’ve engaged with that question at all, you know it’s not a small question to answer.
But at the time, applying my counselor brain to this podcast: I knew I hadn’t yet built a relationship with you guys to be so bold as to initiate that conversation—that’s not really my style of relating. The other part is, beyond my own personal experience with both positions, I hadn’t given that question three years of deep thought, as I have at this point in my professional journey. When I started the podcast, I knew I wanted to be practically helpful to you all, offering short teachings and action steps that would make an immediate difference in marriages for the better.
And I think, at least, to some degree, this podcast has accomplished that, as you guys have told me or left ratings and reviews saying, “I’ve never heard some of these things before, I’ve never heard marriage or sex talked about in such a positive light in the Christian community.” Not that it’s not out there—there are so many people doing really good work right now around these topics in the church. People I actually hope to talk to in the future on this podcast, so prayers that I’d be able to make some of those connections. But the thing is, the thing I can’t skirt around any longer is that, to those of you for whom this podcast feels different than what you’ve been taught elsewhere, that’s because it is! This isn’t what so many of us are taught! And I think it’s time that I make this teaching even more explicit for you. I want to give you understanding and language that you haven’t had before to engage these conversations in your own home, in your church, and in your community, if you find relational dynamics and gender roles in marriage relevant to your own life, to what you’re passing on to the couples you mentor and to your kids.
So, a few months later, here we are with the Brave Marriage Podcast shifting direction a bit. Unlike Season 1 I’ll call it, where there was a quick teaching, an action step, followed by a prayer for your marriage, Season 2, if you will, will be more educational, historical, and hopefully, conversational. I would love to hear stories from you and further understand your experience. I would love to talk to other experts specifically around these topics. And I would love for the upcoming episodes to serve as conversation starters in your own home and Christian communities.
There’s been a lot of talk in the public square about how everybody is deconstructing everything, and how millennials and younger are losing their faith and what does this mean for the future of the church, and more immediate than that, for our kids?
But listen, what I’m wondering is, is if we can move beyond that fear stuff? Or perhaps more accurately, as my friend reminded me of yesterday, can we add goodness to the conversation despite our fear? And I’m talking to myself here, too, maybe even more than I’m talking to you right now. I am just tired of adults in the room and the loudest adults in the room peddling fear instead of Hope, because we have a hope, y’all! His name is Jesus! And He has not given us a spirit of fear, other people have, but He hasn’t! He’s given us a spirit of power, and of love, and of self-discipline! 2 Timothy 1:7 And personally speaking, I’m tired of being the adult in the room who’s not peddling fear, but equally as bad, is too afraid to speak up.
So here we are, diving into marriage and gender roles and healthy relational dynamics because I believe that after all the pruning—after all the deconstruction of so many things that we’ve missed the mark on as a church, myself included—that there is fruit to be found. There is love and a Savior who says in John 10:10, “It’s the thief who comes to do nothing else but to kill and steal and destroy, but I have come that you may have life, and an abundant one at that.”
So I hope you’ll join me on this journey. On this second season of the Brave Marriage Podcast, if you will, where we’ll dive into marriage dynamics from a biblical perspective, a psychological perspective, and a relational systems perspective to see if we can’t create something better as Christian couples, to see if we can’t engage in relationships that emanate life and hope and healing in a hurting and broken world.
If you’re looking forward to this series, please leave a rating and review if you’re able on Apple Podcasts. And if not, no worries, I completely understand, and I will see the rest of you back here soon.
