I want to talk about a word that tends to get a lot of mixed initial reactions from guys, especially those who are single and dating…because the original underlying meaning has been lost and obscured with empty cultural trappings.

Bear with me, here…these thoughts are kind of vague and random, but I am going somewhere, honest.

I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the word “husband”…and it’s become a really important key to understanding relationships for me. Now, for this discussion, put out of your mind all ideas of marriage and traditionality, here. Personally, I’d love to be married again someday…but believe me, I’m not the guy to offhandedly support traditional relationship structures. I’m not talking about getting hitched and putting up a white picket fence…I’m talking about basic fundamental aspects of how men and women relate, aspects that I truly feel are mostly lost in today’s society.

I have an ex that’s been going through some problems recently…health issues, financial woes, etc. She’s not the one for me—we split up for valid reasons—but we are close friends, and it actually disturbs me deeply that she doesn’t have a good man in her life.

She has a boyfriend…but he ain’t all that. He’s an okay guy, but he’s really just someone to pass the time with. I don’t blame her…and I’m not jealous…she just doesn’t want to be lonely.

One day, after I’d talked to her, I was passing through my neighborhood and saw a yard with a big fenced-off garden. It looked like something that once was really lush and beautiful and bursting with life…but it had fallen into decay from neglect. Weeds everywhere…brown dried husks where there should have been bright flowers.

I thought how sad it is that there is no one to take care of it, that its potential lies dormant and unrealized…and something sparked in my mind and made me think of my ex.

I thought of how much I wished there were someone to take care of that garden and help it bloom.

The word “husband” etymologically relates to the idea of “animal husbandry”. If you are a farmer, you are quite literally, a husband to your animals. All of the plants and animals under your care…all that life…is entrusted to your keeping, and through your knowledge and care, they flourish to everyone’s benefit.

So, being a husband encompasses the idea of taking stewardship over something living, to help it blossom and flourish, to help it realize a potential that it could never do on its own. But a potential which ultimately, the “husband” can share the fruits of but never claim for his own…he can only stand by and appreciate from the side, because it lies completely outside his realm, as his complementary opposite nature. It’s a precious symbiotic relationship.

There is no more sacred and fertile ground than a woman. Not simply the soil from which human flesh arises, but from which consciousness itself is born. This is an ongoing process, not just when a woman is literally physically pregnant.

What would your relationships be like if you related to women in this way? If you acted as her “husband”…whether your interaction lasts five minutes, or a lifetime…choosing to see her as a fertile ground from which amazing fruits could develop, were they to have the benefit of your masculine presence?