The Shadow King

he power that these women feel at work or in the world dissolves when they come home and walk through the door. They are tigers at work and children at home. This striking change is due, at least in part, to the Inner Patriarch’s rules about the woman’s role in relationship.

He never did give me much credit for childrearing and always saw it as a bit of a vacation from “real life.” He admitted that I was behaving like a good, responsible, thoughtful mother at home, but he truly admired me only during the hours I was professionally active

To do otherwise, to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, has been viewed as a sin and, in previous decades, has been written into our laws as illegal. In the interests of protecting the new life of the fetus, the woman’s choice in this matter, her own needs, and her own life have been overlooked. It is my feeling that her awesome—yes, truly awesome—ability to create and destroy life is something that has felt dangerous to her, something that the patriarchal society has needed to control. The knowledge that this is true power is something that the Inner Patriarch denies to women

However, it is the women who have disobeyed this law and who have moved away from these distinctively female gifts of relating and caretaking who are most likely to meet with outer success

Times have changed, and now we have moved over to the opposite point of view. In our current social and political climate, the woman who longs for a monogamous primary relationship—in the past, we called this “a marriage”—often feels uncomfortable. She wonders if she is lacking something within herself when she feels a need for someone else to share her life. This attitude is an indication that the Inner Patriarch is working in the shadows of the unconscious. There is a “Catch-22,” however. Although he still requires a “real” woman to be married, the Inner Patriarch basically sees the yearning for relationship as womanly and, therefore, evidence of weakness. He has no idea that this need for relationship, the desire to be partnered, might be a gift.

I have spoken to many intelligent and competent women in their thirties and forties who feel ashamed and weak because they are actively seeking a husband. They are uncomfortable because their Inner Patriarchs judge this quest as a sign of inferiority, and the goal of marriage as a womanly pursuit rather than a manly one.

There also seems to be a separation between motherhood and power. There is not a similar split between fatherhood and power. There are many tales of wise, benevolent, handsome, and powerful kings, or even gods, who are also fathers, but never a story of a mature woman, a benevolent, wise, sensual, beautiful, and powerful queen, who is also a mother. Queens, particularly those who are mothers, are more often obstructions or problems than great leaders. The “evil queen” is almost as common an image as the “good king.

We are not taught how to honor and develop these traditionally feminine gifts as true sources of power; they are devalued. We are also not shown how to include the aspects of ourselves that are more traditionally masculine in nature in our overall development. As girls growing into womanhood, we have had few, if any, popular myths or mature heroines to guide us. We have almost no examples of women who have developed both their feminine nature and their power. In our culture, there is a split between what is female and what is powerful. When we see a woman who is beautiful, loving, and sensual, we automatically assume that she does not have great wisdom or power. The opposite is also true; we rarely think of a woman of wisdom and power as loving and sensual (even if she should happen to be).

This Inner Patriarch was different from the Inner Critic, a self that I had met many times before. I feel that it is important for you to see the distinction between these two selves. The Inner Critic is the critical voice within each of us that comments constantly upon who we are and what we do. However, the Inner Critic does not care whether you are a man or a woman. It just likes to criticize; that is its job in life. The Inner Critic is a much more individualized and personal voice than the Inner Patriarch and it, too, has a great impact upon our lives

A young, talented, and very intelligent Dutch woman named Mara volunteered to let me talk to the part of her, the self, that thought so little of women. It was an amazing experience for both of us! Mara was beautiful, charming, and very feminine. Mara’s Inner Patriarch was not. He was masculine, extremely powerful, humorless, and judgmental. He was her Shadow King, the Inner Patriarch who operated in the shadows of her unconscious and determined much of her behavior. My search was over; this was the mysterious voice I had been looking for.

When Mara’s Inner Patriarch spoke, he was stern and compelling; you could almost see his long, flowing biblical robes. His authority commanded respect. It would be impossible to ignore him. His views were his views, and there was no way to change him, to placate him, or reason with him. He was absolutely sure that he knew exactly what the world was like and how it should be run. This meant that it should be run by men and that women should accept their naturally inferior statu

Our lives are dominated by the selves we call “primary selves.” These are the selves that determine who we are and what we do. They are who we think we are. One of my primary selves has been my Pusher. On the opposite side we have what we call our “disowned selves,” the ones that we have discarded or repressed. In this case, the disowned self would be my Beach Bum. The primary selves judge and fear these disowned selves. My Pusher fears my Beach Bum; she fears that if I allow myself to relax for too long, I will forget how to work and that I will become useless. Being a useless person is totally unacceptable to the Pushers of the world