“13 Be watchful, stand firm in the
faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love.”
1 Corinthians 16:13-14
(Read part one here).
You have all
heard the song, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, that’s what your love means to me!” This song,
Respect, is well known around the world as Aretha Franklin’s greatest hit. But
what a lot of people do not know is that before this song was taken and retooled
as a feminist anthem, it was written by a man and sung by a man, the great Otis
Redding.
Redding is as
famous as Franklin in his own right, and if you are not familiar with his
music, but have seen Top Gun, you will probably remember his beautiful song
Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. That song is pure goodness. Go listen to it
now, you won’t regret it.
But before he
wrote that hit, another one of songs was Respect.
There is some
debate over who originally wrote the song, but we know the lyrics were
re-worked by Redding when he released the song. Before he sang about the beauty
of sitting and watching the ships roll in, he sang about one of the inherent longings
of the man for respect from his wife,
“[Verse
1]
What you want, honey, you got it
And what you need, baby, you got it
All I'm askin' is give me a little respect when I come home
Ooh, yeah
Hey, hey, hey
Yeah, now
Ooh, yeah…”[1]
The song is about a man who wants to give his wife anything she wants, everything she needs. He even says, “And I wanna give you all of my money”, so he does mean everything, and all he wants in return is some “respect”. There is some debate online about whether or not Otis meant to use “respect” as a euphemism for sex, as apparently this was one way this word was used as slang in the street culture of his day.
However, even those who make this point, highlight how the end of the song really drives home also just how important plain old respect was to the man,
“[Outro]
Respect when I want it
Respect when I need it
Respect when I want it
Respect when I need it
Got to, got to have it
We got to have it
Got to, got to have it…”[2]
As one
commentator has noted,
“In
the coda that follows the final verse, Otis goes to work, wresting the word
free of this narrow meaning, asserting his prerogative with an insistent
determination that turns the song in its final moments into a plea for simple
human dignity – "Respect is what I want! / Respect is what I need! / I
got-ta got-ta have it! / Just give me some respect!" – that doesn't stop
at mere discretion.”[3]
Take just a moment
to meditate on the irony of a song about a man wishing for respect from his
wife being turned into a feminist anthem, which is how many people remember
this song to this day. It is incredible what feminism can subvert, isn’t it; to the impure nothing is sacred. Maybe sit on the dock at the bay and ponder this for a bit.
But then just sit back and consider how this song highlights two things very well: First, just how much a man wants his wife to respect him for who he is, what he does, and how he provides. But also, that simply expecting her to do so is often wishful thinking, and also counterproductive. The song encapsulates how many men think, “Well I provide, therefore my wife should respect me.” And she should. It is common decency. It is not something that should be taken for granted.
But how many people respect those who provide them with stuff without accountability? The government provides, doesn’t it? How many people respect their welfare providers, man or woman? In fact, the less the government demands of them to receive their welfare cheques, the more contemptible their opinion of their provider will be.
You might
think that my example paints many wives in a bad light, but that is not the
case. How many men have started their complaint to a friend about an impending
divorce, that they did not see coming, with this statement, “But I was a good
provider!” I am sure you were. I am sure you can relate to Redding’s song,
deeply, “All I'm askin' is give me a little respect when I come home.” But the
truth is the man who puts himself in the position of begging for respect is
only going to be increasingly viewed with contempt. You can’t demand respect,
you have to command it by how you carry yourself, and what you expect from your
loved ones.
We all know
the difference between “demand” and “command.” But perhaps I should illustrate
it to make it clearer. There were those bosses, or teachers in school, we all
had that tried to be our friends, and when that failed they over-corrected and
demanded respect. But it did not work. The more they demanded it, the less we
gave it. Then there were those bosses, or teachers in school, whose boundaries were knew from the start. Their boundaries were clear and reasonable, and we therefore had respect for from early on. And that respect grew over time.
This contrast
between the one who “demands” respect and who “commands” respect is such a
common trope in our culture that it is all through the fiction we consume. You
can hardly see a military movie without them presenting some young Lieutenant who keeps
demanding respect and not getting it, while some Sargent, Warrant Officer, or
higher ranked officer, is inherently given respect by his men. Countless movies
use this stereotype, precisely because it is all too commonly experienced in
life. We have all experienced people who fit into both these categories.
The one who
begs for respect, or seeks to demand it, will have contempt returned, in
increasing measure. In the context of the military unit an officer can correct
this by simply showing himself capable in his role. But part of how he does
this is by proving himself competent AND having clear boundaries of what he
expects and will not tolerate. Boundaries for how you will be treated AND how
you will treat others consistently with that standard, really matter.
A man who
wants respect need to recognize this. You command respect not by shouting that
you deserve it, but by showing you should be respected. If early in your
marriage your wife starts speaking down to you, or contemptuously towards you,
and you simply allow it, or worse, you just beg for her to stop it, you will
likely develop into the man with the unruly wife over time. This is not good
for you, her, your kids, or even society.
Most women
have within them the capacity to be a good wife, or a bad wife. Even a good
woman has the sinful nature, as do you, and if this sinful nature is fed, your
beautiful, loving, and submissive wife can become your tyrant, and then you can
find yourself, like so many other men, wondering why you provide so well, but
are treated poorly.
So, ask
yourself, if your wife talks down to you in front of her friends or your
friends, will you just ignore it, or will you look her calmly in the eyes and
say, “Don’t!”? Will she know that to speak of you in that way is not to be
tolerated? Not, that she cannot share her mind, or her opinion, or anything
like that, of course she can and will. But if she disagrees with you, she knows
to bring it to you at the proper time?
A good woman
will want to speak her husband up in front of her friends and his friends. But
what if she has friends who influence her to do otherwise? How will you address
that? A woman’s friends can mean the difference between a good marriage and a
terrible marriage. Some men do many of the right things, but because they take
no care to their wife’s social activities, they get blindsided. Are you making
sure that you both spend time with people who will model respect between
husbands and wives?
Remember Paul
said this to Titus in the passage we looked at in our previous piece, “6
Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded,…” (Titus 2:6). Why do you
think in the context of husbands and wives, that Paul tells young men to be “sober-minded”?
It is because young men can be a bit silly, a bit daft, and a bit reckless. And
if you approach what you tolerate in your marriage with a silly mindset, you could
start patterns between you and your wife that may never be turned back away.
Are you
willing to walk out of room, or a social gathering, rather than be disrespected
by your wife?
Are you
willing to live in such a way that you are easier to respect?
Does your
wife reciprocate the respect you make sure that she experiences?
Yes, providing,
giving money, being that kind of man in some ways should be enough to get
respect from a thankful wife. But if your wife works, why would she need to
respect your ability to provide? Also, there are plenty of men who can provide,
and probably a lot more than you can, as a lot of man learn from painful
experience. Why should you be respected for doing something that you would have
to do if you were single anyway? Sure, over time many women will generally come
to appreciate their man’s provision. But not always, and sometimes it is how he
commands respect in other ways that actually builds that appreciation.
Do you see
the conundrum young men? There is often a disconnect between what you think should
get you respect, and what actually will. There is a reason that the bad boy,
who might not even hold a steady job, has plenty of interest from women, when
the solid middle manager on a decent income might not have had a second date in
several years.
Do you have
the temperament that commands respect? Does your wife look to you and feels secure
in your arms? Do you have the ambition that will build a life where your wife
is able to thrive and be freed from many of the burdens that modern women face?
Does she see other men look at you with respect?
This where I
bring in church again. Many men get their professional respect at work, and maybe
in some social environments with their friends. But Church, alongside of also
giving you the chance to fellowship with believers and be challenged about how
to be a better man of God, gives you the chance to have your wife see how other
mean evaluate you in the context of a group dynamic. Especially if their husband
does the right thing at home, and then leads in the context of the gathering in
some way. If your wife is a true and genuine believer, this will make a
difference to how she views you. Every woman, whether or not they believe in
Jesus, wants to see her husband respected by other men; the difference is
simply that Christian women, who take the Bible seriously, reframe that within a
Christian framework and context. But the same principles apply across the
board in other social contexts.
Note though
men, that living in a way that commands respect needs to be consistent. If you are
one thing in one environment, and another in the other environment, those
closest to you will lose respect for you. That is one of the reasons we often
see men who appeared to be notable guys in the church, lose their marriages.
Along with what we spoke about in
part one of this series, the disconnect in his behaviour bred contempt in
the home.
Now, someone
at this point might want to exclaim, “Matt, that song was talking about sex,
not respect. Men are sex obsessed, that is what he wanted!”
But stop,
pause and reflect on this: how much does a woman want to go to bed passionately
with a man that she does not respect? It is a turn, off, isn’t it. We all know
this. Whereas a man she respects, looks up to, and admires, is a man she is
also more attracted to. There is a reason some women leave their husbands for
their boss, or other men in authority over them. Because this dynamic of
respect matters.
It should not
surprise us, then, that the street culture in Redding’s day brought “sex” and “respect”
together, because they are very closely linked in a marriage relationship. Show
me a marriage where, for whatever reason, a woman does not respect her husband,
and I will show you either a sexless, or very low sex marriage. This is not
rocket science.
Men, you need
to understand that if you present a compelling banner under which your wife can
reframe her own life, your chances of ever having the difficult wife decrease
massively. If you already have a difficult wife, this is going to be a lot
harder for you to achieve, because she is holding probably a lifetime of your failures
to lead, or inability to set adequate boundaries, against you, as these mistakes cause women to feel unsafe.
But the sooner you start to be wise and seek to be a man of respect in the
home, and outside, the more chance you have of turning things around.
List of
References
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