Do You Need Her?

A while back I posted a video “Why Men Really Need Women.”
The comments associated with that video were enlightening:

“In today’s modern times it is very debatable whether men actually need women. In more traditional times women could actually serve as a friend, companion, and partner in a relationship. Now days, if you’re a man who isn’t that interested in having children, women don’t serve much of a purpose, other than to make your life miserable. Don’t even get me started about marriage. That’s a losing battle for a man. It has the 3 rings outcome…the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering.”

“To pay alimony and feeling dumped.”

“Let’s all be honest here, it’s those ‘Holes’. Without those ‘holes’, men don’t really need them, and most men wouldn’t even be interested in spending time, attention, effort & money on them.”

“We don’t need them.”

“The amount of misogynist comments in this section is so alarming. It’s why so many of us women are scared and withdrawing from romantic relationships with men. To be viewed, at best, as nothing more than a sexual apparatus is so inhuman and degrading.”

The idea that men need women strikes a nerve.
That need reveals a weakness, a dependency that men would rather not admit having.

So, do we really need her? And if so, why?

Married men: Perhaps by doing a little self-examination we can get to the bottom of this, and by doing so, help men understand God’s truth and design regarding our need for women.

Why did you marry your wife?
Was it her beauty that allured you?
Did her personality, wit, and charm captivate you?
Did you discover in her a friend who has interest in things that interested you?

Now consider some of the elderly couples that you have met.
Their attributes have sagged, and beauty has faded; their personalities and interests have changed and memories have failed, and yet they are still together.

Why are they still married?

Beauty fades, personalities shift and mature.
Life’s responsibilities can often cause our interests to evolve, become more practical, while former pursuits fade and diminish.

You may have married your wife because of her beauty, her personality, or because you share common interests; however, we marry and remain married because of something that is more intrinsic to the soul of man—something that we really need.

In the beginning, after creating Adam, God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gen 2:18).
The Hebrew word for alone is abadad, which literally means “bad.”
The one and only occasion during the entire creation account that God deems anything bad is in regard to man being alone, in loneliness, and isolated from communion.

When you consider that 1 out of every 5 men suffer from intense loneliness and 4 out of every 5 suicides are men, we can see the wisdom in God’s pronouncement that a man needs a wife.

After stating this concern for Adam, God created woman, Eve, for the purpose of moving man from isolation and loneliness—which is bad—to communion and love, which God deems to be the highest good.

Communion, self-giving love, marriage, the one-flesh union and its fruit—the family—are the highest goods (humanly speaking) because God created these to reflect, relive, and reveal His identity.

What God is in eternity, He desires to replicate, reveal, and relive in our humanity.
God is an eternal exchange of persons whose essence is self-giving love.
God desires that we share in this eternal exchange of love—even now—and therefore, He gives us marriage and the family as the context in which we can experience heaven on earth.
This may not sound like my family or your family, but this is the reason for your marriage and the existence of your family.

The men who commented so disparagingly against the idea of needing a woman, fail to realize their need to vanquish their own selfishness.

Selfishness is the cause of personal slavery to sin.
Self-giving is the remedy to slavery to sin and the path to freedom in love.

This is why you need her, and even if you didn’t understand it at the time, this is why you married her.