2. Relations between the Sexes: Different Responsibilities but Equality in Love

World Scripture

Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because God has given the one more strength than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in the husband’s absence what God would have them guard.
Qur’an 4.34

In the family women’s appropriate place is within; men’s, without. When men and women keep their proper places they act in accord with Heaven’s great norm.
I Ching 37 (Confucianism)

All of you are guardians and are responsible for your wards. The ruler is a guardian; the man is a guardian of his family; the lady is a guardian and is responsible for her husband’s house and his offspring; and so all of you are guardians and are responsible for your wards.
Hadith of Bukhari (Islam)

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Genesis 2.21-23

The husband who wedded her with sacred texts always gives happiness to his wife, both in season or out of season. He may be destitute of virtue, or seek his pleasure elsewhere, or devoid of good qualities, yet a faithful wife must constantly revere her husband as a god.
Women need perform no sacrifice, no vow, no fast; if she obeys her husband, she will for that reason alone be exalted in heaven… She who, controlling her thoughts, words, and deeds, never slights her lord, resides after death with her husband in heaven, and is called a virtuous wife.
Laws of Manu 5.153-65 (Hinduism)

Do not abuse your wife. Women are sacred. If you make your wife suffer, you will die in a short time. Our grandmother, Earth, is a woman, and in abusing your wife you are abusing her. By thus abusing our grandmother, who takes care of us, by your action you will be practically killing yourself.
A Winnebago Father’s Precepts (Native American Religions)

It was right for woman to be made from a rib of man. First, to signify the social union of man and woman, for the woman should neither use authority over man, and so she was not made from his head; nor was it right for her to be subject to man’s contempt as his slave, and so she was not made from his feet.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1.1.92.3 (Christianity)

Woman is as much the creation of God as man is. If she was made from man, this was to show her oneness with him; and if she was, this was to prefigure the oneness of Christ and the Church.
Saint Augustine, The City of God 22 (Christianity)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

The equality of the sexes originates from the relationship of love. Is a woman a match for her husband in physical strength? Can she equal him in jumping? Externally, a man is better than a woman in many respects. Yet a woman is better in expressing love; this makes them equal. There is equality between the sexes—between woman and man—only through love.
(209:208, November 29, 1990)

Can a woman win over her husband in a fistfight? She cannot. Can she defeat him by using force? If she uses force, she will be defeated every time. However, even force is under the dominion of love. When a woman embraces her husband with love, he may pull her and push her, but then he lifts her up and they spin round and round.
For example, I can hold True Mother in my arms and spin her round and round. She says, “I’m so dizzy!” but she is happy. Maybe I will kick her playfully, but even as she complains, “Why are you lifting me up and spinning me around?” she is joyful. We pay no attention to the movements of our feet and our bodies as we spin around in the bosom of love; it is pure ecstasy.
(137:217, January 3, 1986)

When you couples begin your families, it is good if the husband leads a public life and the wife is in charge of the home.¹⁸
(Blessing and Ideal Family 7.3.3)

A wife should be obedient and supportive of her husband. Of course, for this to work, the husband should fulfill his responsibility [toward her].
(Blessing and Ideal Family 7.1.6)

Wives, do you resent your loving husband for being in a higher position than you? Husbands, do some of you dislike your beloved wife because she is better than you? The two of you are one. One! Once you become one, you can freely go wherever you want: you can come up from below, come down from above, or stay in the middle. There are no obstacles.
(91:141, February 6, 1977)

In your family, do you respect your father but regard your mother as insignificant? Do you celebrate your father’s birthday magnificently but do not even remember your mother’s birthday? Even nonbelievers know that the relationship between husband and wife should be harmonious like heaven and earth.
Harmony arises when opposites come together. There is harmony among your eyes, nose, ears and lips because opposites come together. Likewise, only when a father and mother come together can they embrace everything in the world. The father alone cannot do it; it is impossible.
These days the world puts the man first. Therefore we must promote a movement for women’s liberation, one that deals with the fundamental issue. In the Principle perspective, the husband should obey his wife for the first three years of marriage. That is the proper course of restoration. Since Adam and Eve fell together, they must climb up together through a path of re-creation.
(21:194, November 20, 1968)