Self-Partnership First
Written by Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowski
“For God shows no partiality.”
There is a warm spot in my heart for the actress Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame. Watson’s character is the same age as my daughter, and through the books and movies, we bonded with our daughter. The Potter stories also helped us learn a little more about what our daughter Hannah was going through at each stage in her development. Even after the Harry Potter series conclusion, I have cheered for Emma Watson. Hence, I found it interesting when Watson announced in British “Vogue” magazine that she was “self-partnered.” I had to find out what “self-partnering” even meant.
According to Joanna Scutts, in her Forge article “Emma Watson Didn’t Invent ‘Self-Partnership,’” “Watson pointed to the ‘bloody influx of subliminal messaging’ – in advertising, media, and society at large – telling women they are incomplete by themselves.” Scutts believes a woman’s sense of self-partnership has often been maligned because of societal patriarchy. Scutts continues, “As the women behind the feminist Wages for Housework campaigned argued in the 1970’s, capitalism depends on exploiting women’s unpaid domestic and reproductive labor, and gets away with it by insisting that work in the home is not work but divinely and biologically ordained calling.” As a result, women who do not follow the patriarchal pattern are thrust to the margins of society.
Scutts reminds us, “Until 1974, banks could refuse to issue Credit cards to women without a man to co-sign, and as late as 1979, most states had ‘head and master’ laws on the books that allowed a husband to buy, mortgage, and sell family property without informing his wife.” Women who do not need a man were/are seen as a threat. This form of patriarchy is not what God intended.
Marriage is only sacred when both individuals are equal partners. Otherwise, marriage devolves into master and servant, not making a blessed union. So today, pray for the equality of women and men. Ask God to give our global governments the compassion and wisdom to affirm all human beings as equal under the law and within the family. The idea that God created women as inferior because she was divinely made for the man’s amusement is lousy theology and reprehensible thinking. Only when both partners in the marriage are “self-partnered” can a marriage be equal and thus divinely blessed. When we are self-partnered, we can choose to give part of ourselves to the other, free from coercion.
