This Leap Year there are five Sundays in February. This phenomena will not happen again until 2032. I’m not likely to be alive for the next five-Sunday February, and if I am, I am not likely to know much about it.

Tradition has it that this is the year that it is permissible for the woman to ask the man to marry her. My judgement is that ours is a day when women do pretty much as they please without feeling they need to get permission from tradition and certainly not from us men.

Equalitarian is the term used to describe marriages where each is an equal partner in the marriage. Both husband and wife have shared power. I like to refer to this as a Partnership Marriage. Partnership is preferable to me over the term democratic. Democratic implies all members of the family are equal voting members. My feeling is that power needs to rest firmly in the hands of the parents and that power needs to be shared between husband and wife.

In our day our culture no longer defines roles for husbands and wives such as who is the "economic provider" or even who is the principle "economic provider." Our chosen living standard coupled with our earning power has dictated that most families become two pay check families. Questions of who does what task to make the home function are negotiated. And this negotiation best takes place between two equal partners.

When negotiation takes place from a power-up/power-down position, destructive tendencies result. The partner that is power-up is tempted to try to live "OVER" his/her mate---to dominate, to use, to control, to force. This inevitably leads to contempt. We tend to hold in contempt those we dominate.

The partner that is power-down is tempted to live "UNDER" his/her mate---to belittle himself/herself, to make a god of his/her mate. This inevitably leads to resentment. Sometimes

that resentment smolders for years and gets in the way of sexual fulfillment and emotional growth.

It seems to me that the intent of God in his creation of male and female is that they live "WITH" the other in truth and love. This takes place most likely in a partnership of equals. Genesis 2:18 states, "Then the LORD God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'" The word translated "helper" is used elsewhere in Scripture to designate God as Savior: "...hasten to me, O God! Thou art my help and my deliverer..." Psalm 70:5. Woman was created to save man from his aloneness, not to be his slave. She saves him from his aloneness when they live "WITH" the other in coequality, complementarity, and community.

Rabbinic tradition has a beautiful thought here. It goes something like this. God did not take woman from man's head that she might lord it over him. Neither did He take her from his heel that he might walk on her. He took woman from man's side that they might walk together---close to his heart that he might love her---under his arm that he might protect her.

Leap year---women getting to do the asking---women and men living "with the other"---a partnership of equals---an idea whose time has come!