The problem is banal and hackneyed, but continues to be relevant for many, if not all, married couples. And the reason lies in the fact that no one wants to be on the sidelines; it is not for nothing that leadership positions are the most prestigious and desirable. But is this formulation of the question acceptable in family relationships? Of course not.
Everything is not so simple, and you cannot transfer office or, even worse, military chain of command home. After all, in essence, no one knows for sure that it is he who controls the situation in the family, and the rest obey him. The “family council” system looks much more plausible, when everyone can express their opinion, weigh the pros and cons, and come to the optimal decision.
Classic distribution of roles
And yet, certain patterns of relationships are inherent in every family. For example, a generally accepted situation is that a man is recognized as the head of the family, while he takes on global issues on his shoulders - such as the choice and purchase of large purchases - a car, an apartment, household appliances, furniture.
At the same time, he takes care of everyone at once and each individually, takes into account the needs of children, which change as they grow up, and also worries about the convenience and comfort of his wife.
The woman, in turn, ensures comfort and order in the house, takes care of raising children and minor household problems. Her contribution to the well-being of the home and family is no less important than that of men; housework is valued by her husband and children, to whom she can give instructions.
This is the classic distribution of responsibilities in the family, and it’s great if it suits all household members. However, no one claims that every married couple is obliged to push themselves into established limits. Fortunately, the times have passed when men's and women's occupations were strictly distinguished and the public jealously monitored their compliance.
Role reversal
Today, the opposite situation in the family is no longer an innovation, and, interestingly, no one suffers from it.
A woman can calmly deal with solving “global” issues, coping with this task no worse than men. Perhaps the whole point is that now girls can get the same education as boys, and professions that from time immemorial have been considered exclusively for the stronger sex are being actively mastered by young specialists. Thus, women prove to themselves and others that they are capable, on an equal basis with men, and sometimes better than them, of understanding complex ambiguous situations, making important decisions, and demonstrating excellent logic and erudition.
At the same time, many representatives of the stronger sex themselves express a desire to take part in raising children, preparing homework with them, giving advice, and so on. Moreover, they get completely sincere pleasure from it. When it comes to cooking, cleaning and other household chores that undoubtedly need to be done, men are ready to take on the main work here too, and cope with it no less inventively and successfully than women.
How do such relationships differ from classic ones? And nothing, it’s just more convenient and comfortable for such married couples, they love each other and are happy in marriage. Children grow up well-groomed and well-mannered, treat both parents with equal respect, and try to help each of them.
And all because in both cases everything is thought out, there are no disagreements or conflicts, everyone does what he likes best and what he understands better than others.
Common Misconceptions
Someone, looking at such a couple, may contemptuously call the man henpecked and the woman a manipulator. At the same time, without seeing the main thing - harmony and family happiness. Intelligent and self-respecting people will respond with leniency to such short-sighted criticism.
The classic prejudice is that the one who earns more is the leader in the family. Perhaps for some couples it would be legitimate to say that the one who earns it manages the money. But this does not mean at all that one depends on the other; most likely, this is pure coincidence. After all, it is not enough to earn a certain amount of money; planning a family budget sometimes requires great flexibility and imagination - yes, yes, almost creative abilities. Thus, money is usually managed by the one who manages to do it more rationally and successfully.
Again, this is by no means leadership in the family. A man or woman is undoubtedly responsible for the family budget and all expenses, and nothing more.
And finally, the most common misconception is that someone has to be in charge in a family. Perhaps it’s a matter of wording, but these words actually jar, they are too official for a warm and friendly family atmosphere.
A much simpler and more pleasant term is distribution of responsibilities. This means that each family member dominates in the area that is closer and clearer to him, and the main thing at the same time is the well-being and happiness of all household members.
If you are just starting your life together and suddenly become concerned about the issue of leadership, you better reconsider your priorities - you are starting from the wrong place. It would be more appropriate to think about what you can do for your young family? What do you do best? What would you ultimately like to do?
By the way, cases are not uncommon when absolutely all aspects of family life are decided together, and it is impossible to determine who makes the final verdict. If such a scheme works and does not bring chaos and discord, why not? Each cell of society is unique and requires an individual approach.
Therefore, do not be led by stereotypes, make decisions on your own, and do not let prejudices ruin your family happiness. Over time, everything, of course, will fall into place, minor quarrels and troubles will be resolved, and harmony will come in the relationship. I sincerely wish this for you, and also recommend that you gain wisdom and patience.
Mother's Notes
Who is the boss in the house? If you believe the popular song “dad is, of course, the head of the house, if mom, of course, is not,” if you believe your eyes and ears, looking around the expanses of many familiar houses, then the head of the house is, perhaps, most often the wife. And often the husband is not at all against this arrangement. Less power means less responsibility. The wife is the head of the family even when it is declared that the head is the husband. This is when “the wife is the neck”, wherever I want, the head will turn there.
You can find families in which the head is really the husband. A real head, a wise leader, whom all household members really respect, love, and whose advice they really want to follow. And there are also fairy-tale, dragon, multi-headed families. Both the wife and the children are trying to be the heads of them at the same time. Grandmothers have more experience, and children get the best. It is difficult to determine who is more important and louder in this situation.
Who is the boss in the house? Why, why on earth – the main one? This is not an idle question. This is the question of why we are together. Why, for what we are a family.
The main one is who earns more money? Logical. This is when we live for money.
The main one, “on whom the whole house rests”? Also logical. This is when the floor is clean, hot borscht and ironed shirts, that is, “everyday life” and “comfort” are what we live for.
The home is led by the family value system.
The home is led by the family's value system, and this value system determines everything
And this value system determines everything. All. How we talk to each other. Where does our morning begin? How we sit down at the table. What is the layout of the rooms in our house? Where do children go for the summer? How we greet the news of pregnancy. How we face the death of someone we loved...
Every family, from the moment the future spouses meet, from the first words spoken about marriage, determines for itself this main value. This value is the very thing that unites two souls into one house - or this value gradually grows along with the structure of the house. One way or another, it is this value that becomes the foundation of the house and completes it, heads it. At first it could be one value - and gradually it will be replaced by another. We can also specifically, consciously renounce one value and dedicate our home to a completely different one. How a monastery grows on a destroyed temple, how a pagan temple turns into a place of service to the True God.
A family can even be a paradise: “...make your home a heaven,” the same John Chrysostom calls us. And then he adds absolutely amazing words, my favorite words:
“Where husband, and wife, and children are united in harmony and love by the bonds of virtue, there is Christ in the midst.” .
Christ can be “in the midst” of our home. Inside our house. The living God is with us.
The family – the small Church – is headed by God
Provided that there is love and harmony in the house. If we are all united with each other not only by everyday life, not only by pleasant feelings, but also by the desire for virtue... And God will be the main thing in the house.
The head of every man is Christ, the head of every wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.(1 Cor.11:3).
It turns out that there is such a hierarchy in the family, in marriage: the wife has a head, and this is her husband; and the husband, in turn, has a head - this is Christ. The main one in such a family is God Himself.
“In marriage there is always a third person - the Face of God Himself”, writes S. Troitsky, a researcher of the patristic teaching on marriage.
The family—the small Church—is headed by God. And he enters this house and is inside it. God, who created heaven and earth, may be among us. And it really is possible. This is a real family: one in which God is the main one.
Family relationships - to God
In a family we are connected to each other. Mutual obligations, mutual responsibility. Christ is in the midst of every relationship in a real family. Let's see what it looks like.
Husband
A husband must love his wife just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her(Eph. 5:25-33). It’s not easy to love. Loving your wife is with God, for God’s sake, as the path to God:
“You should love her not so much for her own sake, but for Christ’s sake... So, do everything out of obedience to the Lord and as if you were doing everything for His sake.”
How exactly to love, where is the measure of this love - it is said: like Christ. To death. In everyday life it is also very clear:
“At least you see that she neglects you, that she is depraved, that she despises you, know how to bring her to your feet with your great care for her, love and friendship. There are no bonds stronger than these, especially for husband and wife... the community of life... must be tied to oneself not with fear and threats, but with love and affection.”
As long as everything goes well, as long as everything is in order, it is not difficult to love your wife for her own sake, for the sake of the joy that communication with your beloved, beautiful, dear woman brings. And when everything turns upside down, when the wife does everything wrong, and says the wrong thing, and is hysterical, and a quarrelsome woman, and the very sight of this grumpy woman causes irritation... In the end, when she herself does not fulfill the duties assigned to her, when she doesn’t listen to her husband and is even “depraved”... Then it’s already a feat for Christ’s sake - to love her. Then it’s a feat to wrap her in warm care, “love and friendship.” For the sake of Christ, in whose Name we live, to whom our House is dedicated, for the sake of obedience to the true Head of the family.
Wife
A wife must obey her husband how the Church obeys Christ(Col. 3:18, Eph. 22-24). And again - to obey not for the sake of your husband (although for his sake too), and not for the sake of peace and harmony in the family (although peace is ensured), but as if serving God, serving the One for whose sake all relationships in the family are built, for whose sake - this whole house. According to Chrysostom, a wife must obey her husband “if not for the sake of her husband, then, especially, for the sake of the Lord.” This, the teacher of the Church continues, means leaving a husband or wife to follow Christ: that is, fulfilling one’s duty of love for one’s wife and, accordingly, obedience to one’s husband precisely for the sake of God, precisely as service to God. And the saint reminds us, wives, of the words of the apostle:
“If you obey your husband, then think that you obey as one who works for the Lord.” .
It is easy to listen to the one you love, it is easy to obey the husband who loves you. For whom you are the only one, beautiful, dear. But minor and serious problems, illnesses, grievances, fatigue, in the end, the obvious antics of the female psyche during pregnancy and during ordinary female conditions - all this first of all spills over into the relationship with her husband. And if at this time you see only your husband, then... it’s not so easy to pull yourself together, it’s not so easy to force yourself to obey him. The one who, of course, is wrong (how can you put greens in soup before potatoes?! How can you allow children to watch cartoons for 4 hours in a row? How can you put a plate of blueberries on a white tablecloth in front of a child?!). Listening to your husband at this time is difficult, almost impossible.
What if you look not at the husband who calls, but turn to God? To obey my husband is not because he is right, but because the Lord is right, who commanded me to obey. Obeying your husband is like making a sacrifice to God. And the most amazing thing is that in such cases, when for the sake of the Lord, and not in the name of logic and especially not in the name of demonstrating obedience (now the husband will see all the absurdity of his orders!) he manages to defeat his pride, his desire to emerge victorious in all quarrels , – then everything falls into place. For the sake of such a tiny feat, the Lord, the Head of our house, gives peace to our house. And love gives - not the love that “by itself” once brought us to each other, but a new love, even stronger and stronger. And after such a small effort on oneself, made precisely for the sake of God, “natural”, easy obedience to the husband appears, obedience in love for him, obedience in the joy of agreement and like-mindedness... Yes, like-mindedness in the family is achieved somehow even banally: the wife obeys her husband - and there can be no disagreement:
“It was not simply and not in vain that Paul showed great concern for this matter when he said: “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” Why? Because if they are of the same mind, then their children are raised well... But if it’s the opposite somewhere, then everything is a mess there...”
This is how easily peace and unanimity come to the house: if a wife hears and listens to her husband, where will disagreements come from? The very mechanism for the emergence of quarrels, anarchy, “disorder”, in which our children are usually brought up - children of disorderly families - is destroyed...
This is also not just a theory or ideology. This attitude towards children affects the entire structure of our care for children. We send our children to sambo and to the swimming pool, we look for English courses for them with a native-speaking teacher, we prepare them for mathematics olympiads, we read funny books by Astrid Lindgren, turn on cartoons about rabbits and films about Sherlock Holmes - but the main thing is always what the Lord entrusted our children to us for. The main thing is when we do not allow children’s activities, children’s hobbies to grow and support children’s sins and passions. The main thing is when we build every child’s day, and the entire space of children’s activities, in memory of this main thing. The main thing is when the “teaching of the Lord” precedes and accompanies all other types of teaching children and all our communication with our children. The main thing is when we begin every task, every day, and every seventh day we join our small Church to the Great Church. When the community of our entire family with the Church of Christ, with the teachings of the Church permeates the entire structure of life in our home.
If the Lord entrusted us, namely us, with the upbringing of our children, this also means the degree of involvement of parents in the upbringing of children. We can no longer brush aside this task, this commandment, “because there is no time,” and even because “I don’t know how to raise children,” we cannot easily and completely throw this good yoke onto someone else’s shoulders. Moreover, in our house, above our house, there is our Head, our true Father, Educator and Teacher - the Lord, who will always take care of our children. Will help us raise them. If we ask Him for help, if we generally call Him into our home, if we dedicate our home to Him. Then it turns out that our children are born and live in the house of God... Nothing less. Because what else can you call a house in which God is the Head? What else can you call a small Church?
If the Lord entrusts us with children, then we will greet the arrival of a new baby with joy: after all, this is not an accidental “flight”, but a gift to our home, a gift from our God. And with calm confidence: since the Lord gave the baby, He will help us take care of him. And if it seems to us that we are not ready, that we cannot cope... it only seems so: God gave - He will help us cope, He knows when and who to bring to our home. And all we can do is accept the baby, love him and raise him. For the One who sent it to us.
And if He took the baby... Big, small or long-awaited, but not yet born... This is a grief that can destroy the house. This is grief. But it destroys when the house is not towards God, not in God. But a real family is the house of God. After all, the baby is God’s. After all, the birth of a baby is not a prize, not a toy, birth is a task to raise a little person for his true Lord and Father. Our God, our King entrusted us with education - and took our pupil back to Himself. We loved this baby, we cared for him - but our King withdrew His commission. We thought we would raise the baby until he grew up. So that he himself can continue to live - live towards God, go to God and enter into. And the Lord gave us to take care of him not until he was an adult, but just the first trimester of pregnancy, or just until his fifth birthday... And he went to God, to his Father, much earlier than we had hoped. But the main thing is that in the end, now or in eighty years, he comes to Him, into His hands... Isn’t that what we prayed for from the very moment the pregnancy test showed two red stripes?
Everything in a real family is towards God and in God. And therefore - everything is simple, everything is easy, even when it is too difficult and not at all easy. Our whole house is in God’s hands...
With love and unanimity for the Indivisible Trinity
It’s like this: serving God in the family seems to turn us away from each other. And indeed, Chrysostom says: listening to a husband for the sake of God means “leaving husband and wife” by following Christ. And it turns out as if we, going to God, are leaving each other. But the miracle is that everything is exactly the opposite. After all, all these commandments about family relationships literally force us to be closer to each other, closer, in general, nowhere.
We go to God - and unite along this path, this path with each other
Abba Dorotheos says that God is the sun, and we humans are like the rays of the sun: the closer we are to God, the closer we are to each other. These are the two main commandments: “love God” and “love your neighbor.” We go to God - and unite along this path, this path with each other. This happens even with a monk, to whom the words of Abba Dorotheus are mainly addressed. What can we say about family!
In a family we go to God together. truly, forever connects us with each other.
We are bound not only by mutual debt, mutual obligations, by those commandments that we, family people, must observe if we consider ourselves Christians.
A family is a single organism. This is a unit, not a set
A family is a single organism. This is a unit, not a multitude.
It all starts with an incomprehensible thing: husband and wife are one person. Saint John Chrysostom says:
“It is known that from the beginning God took special care of this union, and, speaking about both, He expresses himself as one: I created husband and wife (Mark 10:6)... He arranged from the beginning, uniting them into one, as if on a stone foundation."
Many times, in a variety of sermons, the saint repeats that “a husband and wife are not two people, but one person.”
“From the ideal point of view of God’s perfection and God-manhood, that is, what a truly Christian and most perfect married couple should be, it is “one flesh,” one indivisible bodily-spiritual organism, with one body and one soul, one mind, one heart, one will "- wrote the teacher of St. Hilarion (Trinity) prof. M.D. Muretov.
The community of husband and wife and the less close but also strong connection between parents and children are not idle words or abstract philosophy. Yes, of course, husband and wife are two halves, we love each other, and we love our children. But, as it turns out, this situation moves from the category of a romantic image into a plane that for a believer is incredibly serious and even scary.
This is how Saint John Chrysostom addresses the father of the family:
“Is it really possible that if our wives and children are disorderly, we will be held accountable for them? Yes, if (this happens) because we do not accept strict measures, because for salvation our own virtue is not enough for us... but the (virtue) of another is also required.”
That's it - your own virtue is not enough. You won’t be able to work hard yourself, but others will do it somehow, at their discretion. A family man will not be able to go to God if he does not lead and does not try to bring both his wife and his children to Him. Here are the words of Chrysostom, from another of his sermons:
“You are responsible for saving both children and household members. Just as we will give an account for you, so each of you is responsible... for your wife and for your son.”
This responsibility in itself makes us one. And this whole begins to live like a living organism, sick or healthy.
It seems that the doctrine of salvation speaks of the salvation of a person’s soul. But the house can also be saved as a single soul. For example - salvation has come to the house (τῷ οἴκῳ) therefore(Luke 19:9). Salvation is not for the owner of the house alone, not for the housewife alone, not for the servant of God Alexander or Elena, John or Vasilisa - but for the house.
A house can be saved - and can perish, “fall into wickedness”, and also - as a single whole, as a connectedness, as the interdependence of household members. In the book “The Shepherd” of Hermas, included in the “Writings of the Apostolic Men,” we read:
"Not for you actually The Lord is angry with you, but because of your house, which has fallen into wickedness<…>And you, loving children, did not admonish your family, but allowed them to be corrupted." . .
We have obligations to each other. And before God. This is not just a tradition, not just a way of life, but a path to salvation. Fulfill all these obligations - together, with the whole house, go to God. Yes, the house can walk. To God or from God. And the house goes to God if it is a real house. And, one by one, we gradually move from our earthly home to eternity, to God. We must, we must come to God. And then it turns out that some of our family are still here on earth, while others are already “in place,” already with God. And the house goes into eternity. And the house turns out to be eternal.
This is how a house is built: from earth to eternity. From the very beginning – and forever.
Saint John Chrysostom suggests that the husband speak about this to his wife immediately after the wedding:
“Real life means nothing, and I ask, and beg, and try in every possible way to make us worthy of arranging real life in such a way that we can meet each other completely fearlessly there, in the next century. The present tense is brief and unreliable; If we are worthy to cross this life, pleasing God, then we will dwell forever with Christ in great joy. I prefer your love to everything, and nothing can be as hard for me as ever being separated from you.”
To be together forever, to be with God forever
Never be separated - neither in earthly life nor in eternity. To be together forever, to be with God forever.
Fulfilling the commandments entrusted to us, family people, can be a difficult feat. Probably comparable to martyrdom or foolishness... If you have to serve God in the family - alone, if you have to love your obstinate wife for the sake of God, if you have to be submissive to a hard-hearted husband for the sake of God. Do not abandon your cross, but carry it to the end. Even to death... After all, they don’t come down from the cross. They are taken down from the cross...
But if we follow this path together, if we serve God together in this way, then our home will truly become heaven on earth. Where the husband surrounds his wife with care, love and friendship, where the wife is obedient to her husband and like-minded with him, where parents devote themselves to caring for their children and raising them, where all relationships are in love for each other and for God. And we will restore this heaven, this paradise again and again, when our pride, our passions lead us astray from our chosen path. They shot down, they are shooting down and will continue to shoot down as long as we live on this earth... And we, falling, will get up again, and again we will walk, crawl, climb, helping each other, pulling each other out. So that our children are born and grow up in the house of God. To serve God as is available to us, as He Himself commanded us. So that we all meet in the Kingdom of Heaven. So that our family may remain forever with Christ, with the Head of our home. And so that our love never ceases.
When people start building relationships, sooner or later, the question arises: “Who is the boss in the family?” Some believe that the head of family relationships should be a man. Others argue that this is an overabundance of the past and a woman can also lead the family nest. Whose opinion is actually true? Now let's try to figure it out.
Is the man the boss of everything?
Since ancient times, there has been an opinion that a man should be the master. This happened because he was the breadwinner, and the woman worked at home with housework. She had no right to contradict her husband and had to do everything he said.
In the modern world this is far from the case. A woman is able to provide for herself and realize herself in life. If a man was raised in a family as the head of his future life, then he will try to take over the basics of government in the relationship. It is from this moment that conflicts with the opposite sex begin. In this case, the man should talk with his other half and distribute responsibilities.
How to understand who is in charge in the family: husband or wife?
Nowadays it is rare to find a family in which there will be a specific main person. There are several criteria by which championship can be determined. Here are some of them:- the influence of the other half on decision-making (the influence can be hidden, open, using the necessary levers to make a decision);
- the last word always belongs to the head of the family (no matter what they say, the decision is made by the leader);
- distribution of funds for necessary needs.
What ways are there to determine who is the head of the family?
On the Internet, on various resources, you can find different methods and ways to understand who is in charge. Let's look at some of them now.
There are arguments that if the head of a man’s family was his mother, then he grows up to be a weak-willed person and needs care and guardianship. If the father was the head of a woman’s family, then she gets used to obeying and can hardly decide anything herself.
Toes
Start by taking off your shoes and paying attention to your toes. If the second finger is longer than the first, then we can safely talk about leadership in the family.
Dog to the rescue
If you have a common dog that obeys one of the spouses, then you can safely talk about leadership. This happens because dogs are intelligent creatures and sense many things. She uses the smell of a person to determine who is in charge and obeys him.
There are also families in which both partners are the main ones. Conflicts often arise in such relationships. This happens because no one wants to give up primacy to each other. Unfortunately, such families either break up or find a compromise. But one will still suppress the other. Therefore, such a family can rarely be called happy. The most important thing is to learn to make concessions to each other. If this happens, then the relationship can be saved and people can be happy.
This article revealed the moments that are so important in our lives. Building relationships is a lot of work. After all, obstacles can await you at every step. To overcome them easily, you need to be not only mentally strong, but also be a partner for your soulmate.
First of all, he needs to be imbued with the idea that family is the most important thing in his life, and only then career, business, favorite activity, friends and hobbies. After all, if family is not the main thing for you, then how can you be the main thing in the family?
To be a real head of the family, you need to be a real man. But not everyone puts the same meaning into this concept. More than once I had to observe how women awarded the honorary title “real man” to plain-looking (at first glance!) and even frail men. This happened when they performed a courageous act, demonstrated determination and endurance in critical situations, and miracles of professionalism.
Many people believe that the concept of a “real man” includes pumped up muscles; the ability to “punch in the face”; rude manners; tendency to use profanity; careless, slightly arrogant treatment of women; priority of male friendship; emphasis on your masculine abilities; the indispensable presence of “male vices” in the form of smoking, drinking, night parties, etc. This is a system of values from adolescence, when external male attributes are important for young men for gender self-identification. During this period, the main efforts of adolescents are aimed at appearing like men. Their courage is sometimes replaced by bravado, self-confidence by boasting, and their inability to organize themselves and achieve goals is covered up by the “philosophy of not giving a damn.”
But all this is too small for a mature personality, the main criteria of which are the development of the volitional and emotional spheres. You need to be a man, and not seem like one. The will to self-organization and self-discipline, the will to daily small victories over oneself, the ability to curb one’s instincts and bad inclinations, to take responsibility - these are truly masculine qualities. Not all young men develop them. This is why there are male boys with gray hair at the temples. Strength of spirit is much more important for a real man than muscle strength. Courage is manifested in not being afraid of responsibility and not shying away from it.
A real man will never be a tyrant in the family. Women are humiliated and suppressed by notorious, weak-spirited men who have not been able to assert themselves either in the professional or social sphere. Just like those who cannot forgive a woman if she is at least superior to him in some way - more educated, smarter, earns more. The simplest and most primitive thing is self-affirmation based on gender. It is undignified and shameful to pretend to be strong while humiliating someone who is weaker than you. Or even worse - someone who depends on you. Or completely disgusting - the one who loves you. A real man is confident, noble, generous and not petty; he is not tormented by doubts about his worth, including to his family. It makes no sense for him to increase his self-esteem by humiliating others.
But what do men themselves see as their role in the family? We conducted a quick survey in our immediate male environment, and the majority of those surveyed answered the same: “Provide for the family financially.” We don't argue. This is very important, but an association involuntarily arises with the old joke: “A man is a male plus money.” Many men nowadays feel inferior because they do not provide enough (either in their opinion or in the opinion of their wives) for their family. But “not enough” is a vague concept. Both a teacher and a millionaire businessman can suffer from a similar inferiority complex. It's not about the amount of money, but about the presence of an alternative value system, which is much more important than wealth. To be an ideologist of the family, a spiritual leader, to be able to stop a woman, and then children, in the race for ever greater material wealth - this is also the responsibility of the head of the family (of course, we are not talking about extreme options associated with the family’s refusal of the basic needs of life).
A good husband is obliged not only to bring money into the house, but also to listen to his wife, share her concerns, give her empathy, sympathy, and attention to the smallest worries and pains. This does not mean doing something instead of her. Most likely, what lies in the sphere of purely female responsibilities, she will do later herself. But the husband’s involvement in issues important to a woman increases her self-esteem, maintains her confidence in the importance of her role in the family, and gives her strength to fight routine and dull everyday life. Men! It doesn't matter how often you have the opportunity to pay attention to your spouse. This could be just a couple of hours a week. But if a woman knows that at the first opportunity you will try to give her real, not formal attention, that your soul will respond to her joys and sorrows, she will wait patiently. After all, thirst is much easier to bear if you know that you are going to a spring of spiritual communication. But it is unbearable if you are sure that you are in an emotional desert.
Family as the meaning of life - isn't it a bit small for a man who is destined to play the main role in society? Not at all. A good family man will be a good teacher, since ideals are not alien to him; a responsible politician because he dreams of his children living in a civilized state; a brave warrior, because he has someone to protect. For a real man, the family is a kind of springboard, an airfield for spiritual and social takeoff to creative activity.
>>Head of the family. Who is the boss in the family?
Is the head of the family a man or a woman?
Is the man the head of the family?
Earlier the man was the head of the family, we have known this since school. His most important responsibility was to provide his family with everything they needed. A woman’s duty is to preserve the family hearth, give birth to and raise children, and, of course, remain faithful to her husband. In general, everything a woman received - money, or even just bread - she received from the hands of the breadwinner, the head of the family. Now the situation has changed dramatically, everyone, or almost everyone, will agree with this, and nowadays even a woman can earn and provide for herself and her children. This begs the question, who is in charge in the family now?
In the past, the moral authority of a man, as the head of the family, was based on the economic side of the relationship, which directly affected all other relationships in marriage. And this was spelled out in family legal norms and enshrined in law. Those. the law turned its face to the man in the family and its back to the woman. It is possible that we feel sorry for those who lived their lives according to patriarchal laws, laws of dependence on men, where the husband was unconditionally the head of the family. But we are in vain trying to adapt our psychology to those times; our psychology there is invalid.
In those dependent women and their husbands there lived an awareness accumulated over centuries that a man, as the head of the family, is responsible for everything and this is how it should be. This is how it happened historically and it suited both spouses and there was no question “who is the head of the family.” it was also smaller. But if you evaluate the human coloring of relationships, then there were different families with both black and white relationships, there were both, and there were those who never managed to find family happiness. Those. Tolstoy’s classic formula that “all happy families are alike, and each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” works both for patriarchal families and for modern, democratic ones.
By the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the patriarchal family model was increasingly shaken, exploding, as if from within. And future social changes were being prepared not only in the economy and production, they were also being prepared in marriage relations, ripening in the depths of the human soul. And, ultimately, dramatic social changes destroyed the system in which the man was the unconditional head of the family. Marriage turned into a union of two free people who entered into this union on their own and, as they conducted a joint household, it was determined who the head of the family would actually be. And the head of the family was not necessarily a man.
Is the woman the head of the family?
Now, if a man offers his hand and heart, it does not at all mean that he will be the only economic support in the family, economically, perhaps woman - head of the family. And in modern families, at least in most of them, only children in the family are dependent, and both spouses provide for them. From this point of view, it also becomes unclear who is the head of the family in economic terms, especially if the woman earns on an equal basis with the man.
There is a contradiction in this scheme itself, because Married spouses are now equal, but how can there be a chief among equals? But, on the other hand, can different people be equal? Only identical people can be equal, but identical people do not exist, every person is an individual. Therefore, any two people are not equal to each other. And, we can assume that now the head of the family is not the head “by law”. Now the head of the family is a leader, this is a person whose influence and authority is voluntarily recognized by all family members.
According to sociologists' research, family leadership belongs to the one who performs administrative and regulatory functions. And, according to research by the same sociologists, in most families the function is performed by a woman. She is also the organizer of family consumption. And the main front of the economy lies on it - cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning, sewing, etc. And, as a rule, the main teacher in the matter turns out to be a woman (although here sociologists disagree; according to some data, she works a little more with children, according to others - a woman). And it turns out that the actual distribution of leadership in the family does not coincide with the generally accepted one. In fact, as it turns out, the woman becomes the head of the family in many respects.
Who is the boss in the family?
So, who is the boss in the family? Let's start with the fact that the concept of the head of the family has become dilapidated and has become old-fashioned, as has the title "breadwinner". There is no such concept in the modern Civil Code, as well as in the Constitution and family law. So who is the head of the family now? It seems that this concept lives only in our consciousness, which means that it still retains a certain force of inertia. Just how great is this power? Modern married couples characterize their union as a family without a head. And the number of these families increases with an increase in the level of education and a decrease in the age of the spouses.
As we remember from previous sections, the answer to the question “who is the head of the family now” can be answered that this is the person who is the main manager, organizer, breadwinner and support on whom the household, raising children in the family, etc. rests. If these responsibilities are distributed unevenly in a family, this gives rise to many contradictions. And the more unevenly responsibilities are distributed, the more contradictions appear between spouses and spouses.
If such contradictions turn out to be very acute, they can lead to serious consequences, such as dissatisfaction with your marriage. And the more unevenly the responsibilities are distributed, the greater the percentage of unhappy marriages, the greater.
And the third party wins when the husband and wife do not argue about which of them is the head of the family, but participate as equals in household chores and other responsibilities. Therefore, modern happy families are similar to previous happy families, but they are similar only in the end result. But the roads to these results were completely different. Those. The paths to achieving family happiness in the past and present have fundamentally changed.
