Reply To: Vicarious Accomplishment of Women

hashtorani,

“The woman’s career and happiness are in her home – absolutely and entirely. Her husband, her children and her home are the expressions of her personality and her free will, and they are her chief forms of serving Hashem. The modern wife with a college degree and a job in secular professions is a misfit even in a non-Jewish home. The ideas of revolt against a husband’s authority and the unrealistic dream of equal leadership in the family, lead only to unhappiness and failure, and very frequently to divorce.”

I read almost all of Rabbi Avigdor Millers books. I recognize your quote from “Awake My Glory”.

I have a lot of respect for Rav Miller in many ways, but I disagree with him on this topic, as well as his stance on evolution (I will not elaborate why here).

He also says, for those of you who are incredulous that a Torah hashkafa encourages women to be submissive to their husbands:

“There cannot be two kings… the wife is submissive…” (Awake My Glory, pg 339)

Again, I do not agree. My husband and I happily follow a different dynamic. Please do not believe that anyone who does not follow this model is doomed to a failed marriage. It’s absolute nonsense.

Rising divorce rates happening in parallel to feminism shows you that people were no longer afraid to stay in unhappy marriages. Read a little history about the topic. To say marriages were necessarily happier before feminism is a joke. It was the frustration of women trapped in marriages they did not want because of economic, social and political reasons that drove the initial wave of feminism. And with the rights they gained they finally were able to break free.

Rabbi Avigdor Miller is essentially saying that marriages were happier before feminism. Sorry, but the historical data says otherwise. Again, people staying married does not tell you if they were HAPPILY married.