Woo Pitch
By Ben Merkle
It’s an easy thing to critique the modern approach to dating and gender
roles, because, for the most part, silly things are easy to mock. However, it’s
not such an easy thing to put forward an alternative. But an issue on
Woo-Pitching wouldn’t be complete without us giving it a try.
We’ll start with the girls. Girls can relate to boys in two ways. (This is
oversimplifying the matter a bit.) The first is typified by her relationship to
her father and the second, her relationship to her sons. To keep things short, I’m
skipping over the entire class of casual friends and just dealing with
relationships that have some sort of deeper connection. In the relationship with
the father, the girl is to submit to his leadership. The father is in charge and
she follows his lead. Of course we would want to assume that the man is not a
tyrant. And, in most cases, despite the children’s squawkings, Dad is a pretty
reasonable guy. In the relationship with the sons, the girl then becomes the
leader. Mother’s word is law. And, once more, despite the occasional
exception, moms are reasonable people too. They nurture us boys along, kiss our
owies, and take good care of us.
The whole issue of gender roles hinges on keeping these two categories
straight. And although these categories may appear simple at first, there
remains a lot of confusion regarding the dividing line. The confusion comes in
when a boy and a girl find themselves gazing into each other’s eyes over a
strawberry milkshake. A couple is being formed and she must pick which model,
the relationship with the father or the son, she will use to shape her
attachment to this boy. The inclination that is often strong in a girl is to
pick the mothering role. Women, and this can be a very good thing, are well
designed to be nurturers. I noticed this a few months back at the conclusion of
our church service. My son, now a year and half, was running around the back of
the gymnasium with a crowd of little girls, some smaller than he was, chasing
after him. Every now and then one would catch him and try to pick him up. They
usually fell into a heap and he broke free and sprinted off, starting the game
over again. The maternal instinct runs deep in women, and it had already begun
in these toddlers. They weren’t interested in playing chase, they wanted to
pick him up and take care of him. They wanted to play mom.
Provided this maternal instinct is directed at sons and babysitting clients,
this instinct works wonderfully. But when one steps into the college scene, it’s
amazing how so little has changed. We see relationship after relationship where
the primary orientation of the girl to the boy is one of a mother to a son,
following after with a pocketful of Kleenex to wipe the little runny nose. Think
of how many girls you know that are stuck in miserable relationships because if
she were to dump him, she complains "What would happen to him? Who would
take care of him?"
But Scripture paints a different picture. The orientation that a girl has to
her father is transferred from the father to the husband (Numbers chapter 30
illustrates this well). This has two implications that I’d like to peek at
briefly. First, she must look for a man that will care for her not one that will
require her care. This is the trouble that the girls in the miserable
relationships previously mentioned find themselves in. They have looked for
sons, not fathers. Second, much like the Highlander, there can be only one. Man
cannot serve two masters and a woman cannot have two heads. A girl in submission
to her father has no business submitting to anyone else. She needs only one
father figure. When she gets married her father will give her away at the altar.
Until a girl has been biblically wed, she owes obedience to no one but her
father. This is why, in woo-pitching cultures, such a big deal is made about the
involvement of the father. Until the ring is on, the young lady is being cared
for by her father. And when the ring goes on, it should be placed there by a man
ready to fill the place of her father.
Which brings us to the young boy. If the reader has actually bothered to read
this far in our little magazine, the reader may be starting to notice a sharp
flavor of cynicism in our writing regarding your average Christian male. This is
because all of the problems with girls that we have described up to now are a
direct result of the boys around them. Girls become skanky because boys use
them. Girls mother their boyfriends because their boyfriends are snot-nosed
little brats in need of mothering. Every screwed up relationship in this world,
including the lesbian ones, can be traced back to a Y-chromosome somewhere.
And the cure is simple. All that is needed is for young men to learn to
approach a girl with the goal of replacing her father, rather than looking for
someone to be mothered by. The role of a father is one of giving, while the role
of a son is one of taking. The man has been commanded to love and care for his
wife as Christ has done for the church. His primary goal is to sanctify and care
for her. If a young man has conceded this, than the way he approaches a girl
ought to reflect that he has her protection as his first priority.
This brings us to a curious predicament, because in one very important way
this boy has feelings for this girl that are nothing like her father’s
feelings for her. The young man desires her sexually. Let’s be honest for a
moment. When a boy pursues a girl, there is only one place he hopes for the
relationship to end, and it involves a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the
door. To think that boys want to take the relationship anywhere else is silly.
When he tells a girl that all he is interested in is a backrub, he is lying to
her. He wants more.
This is why the girl is under the protection of her father until she is
married. Any young man who is truly interested in a relationship with this girl
where he will be giving and not taking will appreciate the oversight and
protection of a godly father. When young men are bothered by masculine
accountability, they are looking to take and not to give. If the young man is
willing to submit to this sort of oversight, then he has given proof that he is
approaching this girl with the goal of protecting her the way her father does.
But by and large, Christian boys insist on looking for girls to mother them. And
this ought to be pointed out at every opportunity.
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