My Perfect Husband, and the Death Trap of Comparing Marriages

Last month, my husband and I celebrated three years of marriage, and thus far I can honestly say that I fall in love with him more every day. Marriage has been a beautiful adventure for the two of us, and the longer we are together, the longer I understand God's purpose in joining us.

One of the reasons I love my husband so dearly is his character. He has taught me much about strength, love, and sacrifice, laying himself down for me on an almost daily basis. In my eyes, he is exactly what a Christian man should be, a sentiment that conjures great respect in my own heart.

However, my esteem has a strange and unfortunate underbelly. I find in myself a tendency to compare the behavior of other men against the goodness of my husband. To me, my husband is the gold standard, so there is a temptation to judge other husbands against the perceived greatness of my own.

This bias is one of the unfortunate flipsides of being in a happy marriage. A good marriage and a good spouse not only provide insight into God's design for matrimony, but these blessings can also color our judgment. They can instill us with prejudice as we read scriptural teachings about marriage and draw conclusions from those teachings.

To understand the danger of this bias, consider a recent study conducted by researchers at Harvard, NYU, and the University of Utah. The study, titled "Marriage Structure and Resistance to the Gender Revolution," examined how married men with stay-at-home wives view women in the workplace. The study of 718 married men yielded the following fascinating results. The researchers write,

We found that employed husbands in traditional marriages, compared to those in modern marriages, tend to (a) view the presence of women in the workplace unfavorably, (b) perceive that organizations with higher numbers of female employees are operating less smoothly, (c ) find organizations with female leaders as relatively unattractive, and (d) deny, more frequently, qualified female employees opportunities for promotion.

The use of terms like "traditional marriage" and "modern marriage" betrays an inherent bias. Nevertheless, the findings are fascinating. An article in The Atlantic helpfully summarized the study's significance this way:

The studies showed that personal views and the domestic architecture of male leaders' private lives helped shape women's professional opportunities. This held true in both surveys and lab experiments, including one that tested whether candidates with identical backgrounds, but different names—Drew versus Diane—should receive a spot in a sought-after, company-sponsored MBA program. According to the research, men in traditional marriages gave Diane "significantly poor evaluations" compared to Drew. It seems that husbands with wives working at home imprinted that ideal onto women in the office.

One of the study's authors, Sreedhari Desai, attributed the findings to what she called "benevolent sexism." As she explained it, it's not that men deliberately intend to hold women back. In fact, their treatment of women may stem from a desire to take care of women and protect them. Their intentions are by no means malicious. But regardless, their home life shapes the way they view other women in a variety of settings.

The findings of this study are not surprising to me. As I mentioned, I sometimes compare other men against my own husband. Additionally, I have encountered men whose own wives serve as their standard of excellence for Christian women. For this reason, I would love to see further studies that explore the perspectives of men who are married to working women compared with men whose wives stay at home. To take the research further, scholars might also consider how women view men who work versus men who stay at home, or make less money, all in relation to their own family situations.

When a particular family dynamic works well for our lives, we easily make universal assessments about what all families should do. (Cue the mommy wars.) Where this tendency can become especially dangerous, however, is when it influences one's interpretation of Scripture. Here we move beyond the culture wars to a kind of legalism that is not only suffocating but spiritually burdensome.

Over the years I have read books and heard sermons about biblical womanhood that, as far as I could tell, reflected more about the wife of the pastor than the truth of God's Word. I have no doubt that these women are godly wives and mothers from whom I can learn much about Christian faithfulness, but caution is also in order. In matters such as working versus staying at home, comparative income levels, parenting methods, and other dynamics that are subject to life circumstance and personality difference, teachers must be careful about imposing standards upon women that God himself does not impose. The result will be unnecessary shame upon women who already exist in a culture plagued by female guilt.

The standard cuts both ways, of course. In the same way that I don't want to be compared with another man's wife, I should avoid doing the same to other men. Fortunately, the scriptural model of marriage—Christ and the church—is less a formula than it is a paradigm with some room for flexibility. Since we serve an infinite God who laid himself down for a diverse church, we can expect there to be a number of expressions of the Christ-church relationship, all of which reflect the one true type.

While the above study might be discouraging to some, perhaps it will also help us to name the diversity among us. Rather than use my own healthy marriage as ammunition against other marriages, I can instead look to the marriages around me for additional insights into Scripture and my relationship with God. I hope the couples in my life will look to my marriage and do the same.