Danny's Men's Studies

A friend pointed out that one needed element in a rite of passage is for the mothers to let go of their son, to publically release their son from childhood to manhood with the men taking over the leading roles of turning the son into real man.

As commented in another blog:

A son is a son, until he takes a wife,
but, a daughter is a daughter, for all of her life.

And the Bible points out the original intent of how a married man should live:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Gen 2:24

So a man needs to "cut off" from his parents especially his mother when he gets married. By having the mother release her son in the manhood ceremonies, they allow her to prepare for the complete cutoff needed when he becomes married. The last thing a marriage needs is a Mama's boy.

For me, my mother doesn't want to let go completely, but because of my strongly held beliefs about Christianity (where we disagree in some areas) and home education (which we disagree completely), I am able to stand up to her -- yet honor them in all other areas we can agree on. If I wasn't the one insisting on home education, then I myself might have been a passive mama's boy....