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Wolf: “Rav Avigdor Miller (Awake My Glory): There cannot be two kings. The marriage relationship is two-fold. 1) The wife is submissive. This is not only Jewish but natural. There can be no harmony when there are two commanders. Without this indispensable condition, the home is disordered.
I do not find this to be true.
“First of all, I find it strange that anyone would compare a marriage to a military formation. Of course, in the military there must be one person in charge. But a marriage is not a military brigade, nor is it a kingdom to be ruled. It’s a partnership – and like all partnerships, it has to be run according to the personalities and skills of the partners. If the partnership works with one dominant person and one submissive — then all the more power to them. But saying that it is impossible to work with two people who have equal say in the affairs of the marriage is downright wrong, as there are plenty of people today who have marriages where they work together — not as king and servant or master and servant.”
Wolf, I don’t think there is necessarily a contradiction between what you are saying and what Rav Avigdor Miller is saying. The problem with these quotes (and presumably the reason that the moderators didn’t want to post them) is that it is very easy to misunderstand and misapply them.
I highly doubt that Rav Avigdor Miller intended that people should view marriage as a military formation. I also don’t think that the Rambam meant that women should be treated as slaves.
The husband and wife ARE partners! BUT at the same time, they do have different roles and the husband’s role involves being the more dominant one in certain ways.
Everyone is different and everyone is affected by their society to some extent, and while me must try to apply the Torah guidelines to our lives and our marriages, we also have to be realistic about who we are, and go about things in a natural way that works for us.