Masculinity and Femininity

"Creation has as one of its fundamental themes the pattern of rule and submission.  Power and passivity, ebb and flow, generativity and receptivity are but a few of the ways that these paired polarities have been described.  The Chinese called them yin and yang and made the symbol of their religion a graphic representation of their interaction.  Even the physical realm is founded on and held together by the positive and negative attraction of atomic particles.  Everywhere the universe displays its division into pairs of interlocking opposites...

We know that this order of rule and submission is descended from the nature of God Himself.  Within the Godhead there is both the just and legitimate authority of the Father and the willing and joyful submission of the Son.  From the union of the Father and the Son proceeds a third personality, the Holy Spirit.  He proceeds from them not as a child proceeds from the union of a man and a woman, but rather as the personality of a marriage proceeds from the one flesh which is established from the union of two separate personalities.

Here, in the reflection of the nature of the Trinity in the institution of marriage is the key to the definition of masculinity and femininity.  The image of God could not be fully reflected without the elements of rule, submission, and union."

Kathy Kristy (taken from Elizabeth Elliot's book, Let Me Be a Woman)