Is "worshipping your wife" code for "female-dominated" marriage?

The techniques and practices advocated in Worshipping Your Wife are designed to recreate “passionate courtship.” As such, they emphatically do not require a “dominant” wife on the receiving end, or a “submissive” husband to perform them. I do use terms like “solicitous” and “devoted,” which describe an ardent suitor’s behavior to his beloved, or, in an earlier day, a Knight’s behavior to his Lady (as an idealized model of romantic courtship). Let the husband strive to be his wife’s champion, I say, not her wimp!

It has been pointed out, however, that some of the courtship behaviors described here are also characteristic of what are variously called female-dominated marriages, role-reversal marriages, “D/s” marriages (for “Dominance/submission”), matriarchal marriages, even female-supremacist marriages.

Apparently, in such consensual, female-led relationships (whether marital or not), the man is typically expected to be chaste (masturbation being forbidden), and sex occurs only at the woman’s initiation and in the way she prefers. Further, the woman’s pleasure and orgasm are considered to be the primary objectives of sex—and the focus of all his efforts. His ejaculation is secondary, at her discretion--and, in practice, is often denied, which, of course, serves to maintain him in a state of rampant desire!

Other male “perpetual courtship” behaviors put forth in these Web pages—pampering of the female, gift-giving, doing household chores and personal errands, being attentive and understanding and avoiding domestic arguments—all these (and many more) are, apparently, also the rule in “femdom”-coupled lifestyles.

The most obvious “wife-worship” parallel, of course, is the idea of worship itself. In some female-supremacist organizations, males literally worship females; and in coupled relationships, literally worship their partners (by whatever agreed-upon exalted title). In some instances, there are even religious trappings—thrones and altars and confessions and so forth.

This is not whatWorshipping Your Wife advocates! It is not about literal worship (goddess or otherwise), idolatry or anything even remotely sacrilegious. It is about respecting and honoring, revering and protecting, adoring and cherishing.

As to what goes on in the bedroom or boudoir of a wife-worshipping marriage, the consensual rituals of intimacy they may choose to practice, who can say? All that is far beyond the precincts of these articles. I can say, however, that wife worship, as conceived here, has nothing to do with punishment, humiliation and various bizarre practices apparently embraced by many adherents to the femdom lifestyle.

Where parallels do seem to exist between a wife-worshipping marriage and a female-dominated one, I suspect the reason is not that there is anything kinky or offbeat about wife worship. Far more likely, I think, is that, underlying many femdom relationships, there are romantic and courtly (and perhaps misunderstood) yearnings gone somehow astray.

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Postscript:

Shortly after writing the paragraph above, I came across this quote from a well-known “dominatrix,” Dianna Vesta: “Men are fascinated with a woman's body. They want to be a part of it and to understand it. Often sex is a type of adoration and respect for woman, especially in the case of a submissive man... He longs for her [the ’domme’] to teach him about the great mystery of woman.” An admirable sentiment, and one to which I can wholeheartedly subscribe.
                                                                                                                               --M. Remond

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