Man and woman natures are incomprehensible to one another. Your failure to comprehend DOES NOT MAKE THE REALITY OF THE OTHER GO AWAY. The other will not think, feel and act like you do. Each is tied to the other. You share one soul. You each are an organ. You are, together, a full human being. Building closeness and familiarity is holiness. The differences should CAUSE union, NEVER DAMAGE union. G-d designed the nature of man and woman for their bond. They complete each other and G-d matches a destined couple since their conception to be a totality in life together. Each must know the other's inner personality, aspirations, happiness, worries, emotions, what happens to and what effects the other, the other's secrets (except those for which there is no gain to know such as a crime or sin that one did as a youth, and which was righted while still a youth) when it achieves a constructive purpose, such as union and bondedness.

If one disparages gender-based differences or characteristics, it cheapens the other and wounds feelings. These wounds can be stabbing and enduring, especially in a woman. It is important to be supportive, pay attention to each other, give consideration and encouragement, and to be consistent and constructive at all times. This builds shlaimus (completeness as a human being, which if you'll recall from Chapter one, is related to shalom, the central theme in marriage: peace). A complete human being is a married couple consisting of a complete man-portion and a complete woman-portion.

Although some people who know nothing of the subject sometimes say so, there is no disparagement of the Jewish women anywhere in Judaism. In my lectures, I emphasize over and over how often and uniformly Jewish law talks about love, honor and appreciation by a Jewish husband for a Jewish wife. The Torah writes (Genesis 2:24) that a man leaves his mother and father to attach to his wife to be one flesh.