Every man grows up to marry his own mother

[YCGP]

"Every man grows up to marry his own mother."

Is there any truth to this? I did a quick Google search and did not find any scripture related results.

Feel free to express what this saying means to you or how you feel about it.

 

[seeking.IAM]

I have to say the adage doesn't hold true for me. I set out to marry the antithesis of my mother. My mother, God love her, was the classic dependent housewife who couldn't make a decision on her own if her life depended upon it. I married a fiercely independent career woman with no shortage of her own opinions. I'd have it no other way...but be careful what you ask for. LOL.

 

[Basil the Great]

I discussed this with a friend recently. There is some truth to this, but it is an overstatement to say that every man grows up to marry his own mother.

 

[Winken]

"Every man grows up to marry his own mother."

Is there any truth to this? I did a quick Google search and did not find any scripture related results.

Feel free to express what this saying means to you or how you feel about it.

Who said that? Freud?

 

[~Anastasia~]

I think who a man's mother is can very likely have an effect on who he marries. It may indeed be that "wife/mother" in what he seeks in a woman is very like his own. But he may also rather not have a home like his childhood home, so it may be that he uses his mother as a model of who NOT to marry.

Either way, I'd say it's not a huge influence. So many other factors and dynamics are more important.

 

[Ygrene Imref]

Some truth to the statement, although it is at best a broad generalization.

I think it is more appropriate to say that a good son - raised by a good mother - looks for the same qualities as his matriarch in his wife. This can be thought of as basic biological response to an evolution of events and stimuli: the human is alive (and, allegedly well if we assume he is a "good" son,) and therefore *what worked,* as he sees it, was the quality of his mother. This creates a desire to seek out similar qualities in the mate.

There is nobility in the broadness of the saying, but there is also an implication of demerit for the man. Particularly, if a man expects a woman to wait on him, and cater to him without reciprocation, then he has likely fetishized the relationship of his mother, and projected it onto future mates.

There is nothing wrong with "subservience" if both do it - and the relationship works. God said that a woman should do "x, y, and z" for a man - that particular thing is often brought up. But God demanded that His men live up to a certain standard of service to his compliment - in order to get the blessing of a wife.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

My mom—-white, no siblings, stay-at home mom, pet-lover, neat, no college, loves to be silly.

My wife—-Asian, a million siblings, career-minded with two Bachelor’s degrees, about to start Masters for Nurse Practitioner, not an animal-lover really, generally serious.

 

[Basil the Great]

There is some evidence, weak probably, that some guys marry women who resemble their mothers in looks. Others might marry women who remind them of their mothers in other ways. However, probably more than half of the men who marry do not end up marrying a woman who reminds them of their mother.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I would say on the whole no, but the mom is the first woman who generally and ideally shows how a woman should treat a man, and how a woman should be treated by a man.

 

[archer75]

I assume the OP was looking for Orthodox perspectives on this?

 

[JIMINZ]

What I believe to be more true.

A woman grows up to marry her Father.

How many women marry Abusers, Drunks, Overbearing, Cheaters, Domineering, because there Fathers treated their Mothers that way and the Mother took it, setting the pattern for the woman to emulate herself, on how a woman was to be treated by her Father.....Husband.

A Christian man should set an example on how a Wife is to be treated, so when she begins looking for a Husband, she then feels secure in finding the man which fits the model her Father set for her to look for.

The Christian Mother should do the same for her son.

The Natural affinity is for the Mother by the Son, as is the affinity for the Father by the Daughter.

The Christian Parents should take advantage of this, and protect their children in future relationships, and eventual Marriage.

Here is another saying.

The hand that rocks the cradle RULES the world.

If Mothers only realized, they are the ones which have the power to eradicate all Abuse, Harassment, and Rape, by teaching their Sons the correct way to treat women.

My Mother was a great woman, but when I looked for a wife, she was not the model I looked for, because of the influence of my Father.

 

[buzuxi02]

Orthodoxy probably does not believe in such a thing, never heard a teaching that is parallel to the OP. I think it maybe a different way of saying the apple doesnt roll to far from the tree

 

[archer75]

Before judging whether it's so, I'd like to know what it means.

A woman who bears a passing resemblance to his mother? A woman who behaves in some way like her? A woman who has her most obvious virtues or faults?