More on patriarchy

In our interactions with the birth of Benjamin, my dear wife and I noted that a lot of the time, it was the parent without pregnancy hormones coursing through his veins who was remembering various critical details, from dosages of painkillers to techniques for successful feeding to details of why a certain procedure might be the right choice.  The one without swollen breasts was also the one who successfully troubleshot problems when wires got crossed in the medical circles--which happens even when the hospital is part of a system founded by two brothers named after a popular salad dressing ingredient.  Not to be grossly self-congratulatory, but in our case, I'm pretty sure that our family did a lot better because I was keeping an eagle eye on everything going on.  In other cases, I'd have to guess that a husband's eagle eye has literally been the difference between life and death for his wife and/or children. 

In short, God's design for family is more than a spiritual reality mirroring the Father's relationship to the Son, and the Son's relationship to the Church--although it is of course certainly that.  It is also a way of preserving the family through complementary roles, and it's telling that what our grandparents would have told us without hesitation needs to be spelled out today.