HI Myron, if you want to complete the comment, I can then delete this and republish.

The predominant modern view, whether you talk to Christians or anyone else is an opinion that the soul and the spirit are one and the same. Lacking the proper understanding of the separateness of these two things, and the proper function of each everything is out of balance and does not function correctly.

Why do I think it was important to bring this into the discussion and particularly as a comment to this answer? Because in biblical symbolism the soul is symbolically represented as a woman and the spirit is represented as a man. The analogy then applies to each of us individually and to our masculine and feminine halves; it applies to a couple and it applies also to a king (or government in general) and the people being ruled over, who are often portrayed in biblical symbolism as a woman, especially as a wife. Trump was mentioned as an example in this and it is quite fitting, even in ways you don’t seem to see yet, but that has more to do with additional levels of meaning this society just does not teach than anything you may have missed. The same things you saw in Trump’s marriage also show up in his governing/business management style and are why he has been getting himself in so much trouble with so much of the populace.

In biblical symbolism there are two (maybe we should say three) different kinds of wife, and each has a different relationship with her husband. The most common wife is the bondservant type. We used to find this as the most common type of wife taught in Christianity as demonstrated by the traditional marriage vow for the woman where she promised to obey her husband. This is as opposed to the marriage to a free woman who is an equal partner, has her own property rights where she can even hold property separate from that of her husband and he cannot tell her what to do with it. What comes into the marriage with her also leaves with her if the marriage fails.

I won’t concern us much with the third type because it is really more like a subcategory of the marriage to a bond woman. By Hebrew law a bondservant is not a slave and cannot be treated as one. A male bondservant is to be released at the end of the bond term, and under modern definition is an indentured servant. A female bond servant is taken into the master’s household “for life” but is either taken as a daughter with all the rights thereof, or as a wife, with all the rights thereof, and there are legal provisions for this relationship to be ended if the master refuses to treat her properly. She is not property, and like all servants (even slaves) she has certain rights which, if breached by the master, can end the contract (bond).

The third kind of wife is a slave. Under biblical law slavery was allowed but only under certain conditions that in practice were rarely, if ever, met. The only legal way to be made a slave was to be taken as a war captive (booty, not POW — the latter was not allowed as all males of fighting age were to be killed once the enemy was vanquished.) The slave was property and could be bought and sold at will, but a man was allowed to take her as his wife, which essentially gave her the same rights as a bondwoman and elevated her out of slavery.

Under biblical law there is no difference between a man’s business and his family. His business is part of his household and his employees whether long-term contract (bond servants) or slaves are his children. Paul, the consumate legal expert and prosecutor until God threw him off his horse on the road to Damascus, tells us in Galatians 3 the heir is no different from a slave while he is a minor; indeed, most of his teachers will be slaves or servants working for his father. This shows us that these matters apply not only to the relationships between men and women but also to the relationships between business partners, and other relationships as well.

Where you use the terms containment and penetration I prefer the biblical terms covering and knowing. These occur at various levels in every relationship of every type, and in our modern world they are almost always out of balance in some way, however, since your post here concerns the relationship between a man and his wife (legal or otherwise).

On a quick aside here, the biblical definition of marriage is intercourse. No ceremony is necessary. Nor is this intercourse necessarily physical. Physical intercourse makes us one flesh (body); a deep knowing of each other on the mental and/or spiritual levels makes us one soul and/or one spirit. So for our purposes here I will refer to the couple in this kind of relationship man and wife where they meet the modern legal definition or not. Lesser relationships are going to be something like parent and child, siblings, friends (in descending order of intimacy) or even less intimate still.

You mentioned Donald and Melania Trump and their behavior at the Inaugural celebrations. What you see here is a classic bond wife relationship. He penetrates her and knows her well, but she is not allowed to penetrate him and know him very well at all. She takes orders but never really knows what he is doing or more importantly why he is doing it. She is not his partner, business or otherwise.

He contained/covered her and the arm candy he was expected to provide for these celebrations

Talyaa!!! I am so happy to see you on the blog. Thank you for sharing about your intimate relationship. I’ve seen and loved so many of your posts, yet I’ve never heard you express all this before. And … for everything I see out in the dating advice world, I don’t see a lot of teachers teaching about creating the container. There’s lots of teaching for penetration for sure, and it becomes toxic when it’s not balanced. Looks like fertile ground for new directions for the massive dating advice industry :)

Culturally, for decades now we women have been encouraged to focus on our masculine traits and energies. Of course this will conflict with the masculine in men and cause many men to feel emasculated. This is what drives the ugly side of PUA culture and results in sexual entitlement, rape, etc. I’m oversimplifying but you get the idea.

Conversely, men have not felt safe developing their inner feminine. This bs starts in infancy – “don’t cry”, “be a man”, calling men “girls” and “pussies” as a putdown, etc. How would a man know how to create a container for a woman if he’s not ever felt safe with his own inner feminine?

We have so much work to do…sigh.

I teach women how to unlock their feminine nature, and that they’ve probably for years been pushing it away because it didn’t feel safe. We also have to create our own safety. When we feel safe, then we can truly allow a man to penetrate us emotionally as well as physically.

Great post, Erika! I really enjoyed it.

Thanks Gary, for your thoughtful comment. Safe, protected, and beautiful – yes I like that.

Yep exactly … it’s the safety and trust that is the foundation for everything else.