Few Bible passages cause people to cringe the way St. Paul’s instructions to husbands and wives do. In our current culture, gender equality receives a lot of attention from the media and politicians. Since women and men are supposedly equal in every way, many reject St. Paul’s teaching that wives must be subject to their husbands as archaic.
However, since St. Paul’s words are Scripture and therefore still applicable today, this article will elucidate his instructions and give the reader the tools necessary to defend his perennial teaching on this important topic. One must not approach St. Paul’s letters, or any other words of Scripture, with a prejudicial eye toward inequality. Rather, we must view his words as promoting spousal complementarity and order in the marital union.
St. Paul’s Instructions to the Ephesians
St. Paul begins his instructions in chapter 5 with the admonition to put away all immorality. Then he says to the men, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise…. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Thus, men are to be holy, wise in the Lord, and understanding of His will. Within this structure, Christian men are to submit themselves to Christ and to one another (vs. 21). By understanding God’s will and submitting themselves to other men wiser in the faith, husbands will gain the knowledge and discipline to lead their families.
Within this context, St. Paul writes,
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22-24).
Since Christ’s headship over the Church, his bride (5:29-32), will never change, husbands are to exercise headship over their wives, and wives are to subject themselves to their husbands. But within what framework are husbands and wives called to this responsibility?
St. Paul continues,
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies (5:25-28).
Husbands are to exercise marital headship as Christ does. A husband must sacrificially love his wife and help her prepare for heaven, “that she might be holy and without blemish.”
Thus, St. Paul calls men to imitate Christ’s love for the Church. Christ gives everything to make His bride holy and ready for heaven. He protects her and gives His entire being for her. In this sense, husbands submit themselves to their wives.
St. Paul completes his instructions with the following verses,
For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body. ‘For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband (5:29-33).
St. Paul tells husbands to love their wives as themselves. If one loves his wife as himself, he treats her as one who is equal. Similarly, Jesus treats His wife (the Church) as an equal in that He loves her, respects her, and gives her the freedom to make her own decisions, while simultaneously providing the knowledge and grace to help her teach and do what is just.
Although husbands cannot confer grace upon their wives, they can behave graciously and pray for God to give them grace. They can take the time to learn God’s will, to share it with their wives, and give them the love they need to grow in Christ. If a husband is contentious about every little thing and behaves hypocritically, he will push is wife away from himself and possibly from God.
St. Paul briefly echoes his teaching in Colossians 3:18-19, 1 Corinthians 11:2-3, and Titus 2:4-5, which is a letter about Church governance and individual behavior. Additionally, our first pope, St. Peter, reiterated St. Paul’s teachings, stating,
Likewise (meaning, as we submit to Christ), you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some [husbands], though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, when they see your reverent and chaste behavior…. Likewise, you husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered (1 Peter 3:1-7).
Refuting Some Common Objections
Attempts to categorize St. Paul’s teaching as either a human custom, such as female head coverings (1 Corinthians 11:7-10), or a mutable divine command is nonsensical. Head coverings and covenantal relationships such as marriage are in completely different categories.
The Church can tell us what to wear when engaged in public worship and when that garment is no longer necessary. Similarly, it can tell us to abstain from meat on Fridays or it can abolish this tradition. But it cannot restructure the marital dynamic.
The Church cannot authoritatively state, for example, that wives are no longer subject to their husbands, or that husbands are to be subject to their wives. This would be tantamount to saying the Church, Jesus’ bride, is no longer subject to Jesus, or that Jesus is subject to the Church.
Wifely subjection has been a divine command from the beginning of human creation. Although God created men and women equally in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27), He made man first and then made a “helper” for him (Genesis 2:18, 22) to tend the Garden of Eden together.
We should pause here and note that a helper should be helped by the one who is responsible for the helper’s well-being. For example, employees help employers, but employers must ensure their employees have all the tools to make their help effective.
Similarly, a husband must give his wife all she needs to help him. Husbands and wives are to help one another in different but complimentary ways. By observing man’s Fall in the Garden of Eden, we see the consequences of Adam’s and Eve’s refusal to live out their complimentary roles.
The Garden
In the Garden, the Fall of man happened for three reasons. First, Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil despite knowing and even reciting God’s command not to eat from it (Genesis 3:1-4). Second, Adam also ate from the Tree. Third, Adam failed to watch over the Garden and to defend his wife from the serpent. His failure resulted in humanity’s loss of moral integrity.
Like Adam, husbands must keep watch over their familial gardens, their households. These are the gardens in which marriages bloom and children grow and blossom. The husband must stand guard against all evils that may threaten his garden and he must protect his wife’s and family’s God-given right to spiritual growth. This requires men to educate themselves in the faith and become disciplined in exercising it.
Rejecting the Husband’s Headship
If one rejects the husband’s headship, one must also reject the husband’s sacrificial love for his wife. One cannot reject part of Paul’s teaching and expect obedience to the other parts of it. Unfortunately, the argument often made is that our culture has changed, and the wife no longer needs to be subject to her husband. Let us test this theory.
Our culture has changed in many ways. Do we, therefore, arbitrarily change other behaviors? For instance, contraception has permeated marital relationships, Western culture, and other cultures throughout the world. Should the Church teach that contraception is now morally licit? Pornography, masturbation, and murdering babies in the womb has also permeated our culture. Should the Church change her teachings on these issues? The answer is no on all counts.
The culture argument is, therefore, completely fallacious. The Church does not modify her teachings because cultures change. Rather, the Church proclaims immutable truths because human nature and, in this case, the sacrament of marriage do not change.
Praxis
Husbands must care for their wives’ and children’s spiritual needs. We must designate daily family prayer time and Scripture reading. We must ensure that our families make it to Mass every Sunday at a minimum and that they rest from unnecessary work on this day. We must make sure our families tithe, give alms, fast, and, if possible, give time to the needy.
We must talk about God in our households and teach wives and children about God’s love, truth, and generosity. Even if our wives are theologians, heads of large companies, or presidents of countries, we are responsible for ensuring that the domestic church gives time to God every day. We must not transfer this responsibility to our wives.
Husbandly headship is about love, order, and sacrifice for the ultimate purpose of getting our families to heaven. Wifely subjection is about accepting his headship out of love for God and allowing him to take the lead in spiritual matters. It is not about mindlessly doing everything her husband arbitrarily tells her to do.
No one says a single woman must be subject to a man or that a single man must sacrifice himself for a woman. But if a woman and man choose to marry, the woman chooses to subject herself to her husband and the man chooses to sacrifice himself for his wife.
Conclusion
St. Paul’s teachings on this matter are tough, but they are not impossible. Husbands and wives must work together, each fulfilling their complimentary roles with love, gratitude, and plenty of prayer. In this manner alone, we can build up the domestic church as an edifice that gives glory to God and life to His children.
22 thoughts on “Another Look at Wives Being Subject to Their Husbands”
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Does his authority include the ability to punish his wife for disobeying him? All other ‘authorities’ in the Bible have the expressed and open ability to inflict physical pain where necessary to punish obedience: God sends sinners to Hell and sends ‘chastisement’ in this life; governments ‘wield the sword’ against evildoers; parents have the right to beat their kids for disobedience; employers and slave masters* have the express right to punish their employees and slaves. It is obvious to me that the Bible condones wife-beating. It is also obvious to me that the Bible teaches that women are in all respects inferior to men, something which the Church fathers often and enthusiastically emphasized. Do you have the courage to admit this?
It all started when Eve was framed. A good lawyer would have righted that wrong.
Thanks Karen! I have the courage to admit anything if its true. So I’ll make this quick. What did St. Paul say? “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her….” Pretty simple.
Nate, you seem to be consistently willing to selectively ignore parts of the bible. There is clearly violence in the bible used as punishment. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and sent the flood to destroy the earth both as punishments. In the new testament, Stephen was put to death by stoning for blasphemy. As Karen says, if the husband is the head, they should logically have the right to discipline. What can a husband do if a wife cheats? Or blasphemes? What discipline should he be able to lay down? The church lays down discipline, and it has been historically very rough at times.
This is where your theory falls apart. Karen made a great point, and it is one that can’t be ignored through a selectively chosen bible verse. This issue is only “simple” if you ignore the realities of what this teaching means for women if implemented.
The Bible says that loving parents spank their kids. What if a man decides that the best way he can love his wife is to keep her in a state of blind terror ‘for her own good?’ What restricts him from deciding how he should show his wife ‘love’ by beating her?
Karen/Kyle – For some reason, you two believe headship equals disciplinarian. I’m well aware of punishment in Scripture, but what does that have to do with St. Paul’s teaching? Absolutely nothing. So, I’ll use Gene’s quote below – “Msgr. Pope said it quite well a few years ago: ‘Thus, in a family, where consensus and compromise may often win the day, there nevertheless must be a head, a final decider to whom all look and submit, in order to resolve conflicts that cannot otherwise be worked out. Scripture assigns this task to the husband and father. Headship just has to be, but remember to shed your worldly notions of it when considering the teaching of Scripture. Headship (authority) is for love and service; it is for unity and preservation not for power, prestige, or superiority.'”
The problem with yours and Kyle’s argument is that you both want to distort St. Paul’s teaching to fit your idea of how marriage should be…according to you and Kyle. But I don’t care what you and Kyle think about St. Paul’s teaching. Your opinion means nothing. The teaching is what it is.
Karen – I don’t know if you’re married, but if you are, then behave as Scripture and the Church tell you to behave.
I love how that the response to me asking questions was to tell me to shut up. This is an excellent illustration of my point: the husband has the right to decide what ‘love’ means entirely to himself, and he has plenty of Scriptural examples to support brutalizing his wife and calling it ‘love’ regardless of what anyone else says. This passage clearly endorses wife-beating when read in context.
“Karen – I don’t know if you’re married, but if you are, then behave as Scripture and the Church tell you to behave.”
Just wow. Nate, I hope you are not married, but if you are, I feel terribly for your wife. I think you also owe Karen an apology.
And you also just illustrated the point of why discipline matters. What if the wife doesn’t believe the same way as the husband and refuses to submit to one of the husband’s edicts? What is the recourse? Part of “headship” involves discipline. In our civil society, judges and the courts have this role. In monarchies, it was the king. If this is how marriage is supposed to work with the man as the head/judge/king/final decision maker, what happens when there is insubordination? Divorce? Separation? I assume that is not your answer. But I surely hope discipline is not your answer either. So what is your answer? Perhaps mutual “submission” and compromise which is what I’ve been supporting all along?
Kyle – What recourse does a married couple have when a spouse refuses to live according to the Church’s teachings? “If your brother sins against you…take it to the Church.” Accordingly, if a husband fails to exercise headship in the way Christ does, his wife can take the matter to the Church. If a wife does not follow her husband’s properly-formed instructions on spiritual matters, he can take it to the Church.
Regardless, you have been completely inept in your attempts to refute St. Paul’s teaching. Since I have given you and Karen plenty of opportunities to refute his and the Church’s teachings, I won’t be responding to anymore of your comments/questions for this article. God bless you both and I hope you stop kicking against the goads (Acts 26:14).
You misspelt complEmentary.
Also, how would a practising Catholic wife allow her husband to take the lead in spiritual matters when he may be nonpractising, or non-Catholic or non-Christian or even atheist?
Thanks for the spell check, Peter, and the question! Clearly a wife could not participate in he husbands evil deeds even if he told her to, and she has a duty to follow Christ. St. Paul addresses your question in 1 Cor 12:17 – “To the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. For God has called us[b] to peace. Wife, how do you know whether you will save your husband? Husband, how do you know whether you will save your wife?”
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Thanks Gene! If Kyle had simply rejected my statement and explained why, like you did, we could have had a rational conversation. However, he completely missed the point and took the statement out of context. Then he proceeded to talk about pork and clothing. My statement, within context, is not saying what Kyle was attempting to make it say; namely, that “equity between the partners” means “a husband’s sacrificial love can’t exist.” Not even close. Rather, if we have license to reject St. Paul’s perspicuous teaching on husbandly headship, we have license to reject his teaching on husbandly sacrifice. Another way say this is that if we reject the teaching that a wife is subject to her husband as the Church is to Christ, then we can reject the teaching that a husband must love his wife as Christ loves the Church, which is sacrificially.
Now, regarding your rephrasing of the statement in question, it seems we are saying the same thing, but you are making a more general statement. The sentence immediately following this statement says, “One cannot reject part of Paul’s teaching and expect obedience to the other parts of it.” The implication is clear.
Question regarding your rewording – Does “the idea that the husband has real duties and responsibilities that come with headship,” include sacrificial love? I’m sure your answer will be yes, so I’ll say this: Whether someone rejects the husband’s sacrificial love or the “idea” of it, they are rejecting St. Paul’s teaching and the teaching handed down by the Church for centuries.
Regarding the Msgr. Pope quote, I completely agree with his statement and the article reflects this under the “Praxis” section.
Nate, not to belabor this discussion, but I was just offering some constructive criticism. The statement “If one rejects the husband’s headship, one must also reject the husband’s sacrificial love for his wife” is simply not true. It is a fallacious argument known as Denying the Antecedent. The words “one must also reject” are the problem. A wife can very easily reject her husband’s headship without rejecting the idea of his sacrificial love for her. Simply put, rejecting A does not mean we must also reject B.
Your rewording of the statement – “Another way [to] say this is that if we reject the teaching that a wife is subject to her husband as the Church is to Christ, then we can reject the teaching that a husband must love his wife as Christ loves the Church, which is sacrificially” is also fallacious. While it is certainly possible to reject both teachings it does not automatically follow that rejecting one means we can reject the other. For example, many (dissident) Catholics reject Church teaching on artificial contraception, but it does not automatically follow that they will reject Church teaching on abortion as well. Some might but not all will.
Thanks Gene! I see your point now. Perhaps I should have written the statement like this: If one rejects the husband’s headship, one is free to reject the husband’s sacrificial love for his wife. “Must” was a poor choice.
“If one rejects the husband’s headship, one must also reject the husband’s sacrificial love for his wife.”
So if a marriage is based on equity between the partners and mutual sacrifice for the greater good of the family, the husband’s sacrificial love can’t exist? There is no way that is true.
This idea of a wife being submissive to their husband is a human custom. And like with other portions of the bible that have been done away with, this needs to go. We eat pork, we wear clothing with multiple types of fabric, we eat shellfish, and shocker here – we let women speak in church. The idea of wifely submission is a human custom that needs to be let go of.
Thank you for your opinion, Kyle. I flatly reject it. Unless you can prove that eating pork and marital order are in the same category, you have no basis for your argument. Also, if you think marital order can be changed, then perhaps Christ should subject Himself to the Church. Obviously, this will never happen.
Nate, I think Kyle does have a point in regard to the sentence “If one rejects the husband’s headship, one must also reject the husband’s sacrificial love for his wife.” It does not necessarily follow that rejecting the husband’s headship means rejecting the husband’s sacrificial love.
Perhaps a better way to have made your point would have been to say “If one rejects the husband’s headship, one also rejects the idea that the husband has real duties and responsibilities that come with headship.”
Msgr. Pope said it quite well a few years ago: “Thus, in a family, where consensus and compromise may often win the day, there nevertheless must be a head, a final decider to whom all look and submit, in order to resolve conflicts that cannot otherwise be worked out. Scripture assigns this task to the husband and father. Headship just has to be, but remember to shed your worldly notions of it when considering the teaching of Scripture. Headship (authority) is for love and service; it is for unity and preservation not for power, prestige, or superiority.”
Hey Gene! I mistakenly responded your comment in the general comments section rather than replying to your specific comment.
Nate – you certainly can reject my opinion that this is a human custom. Because it is an opinion. It is an opinion just like you believing wives must be submissive is an opinion. There is no “proving” either side. But that said, I am very confident this will change in the future. Popes – including JPII and Francis – have already started focusing on the other verses in the bible on marriage that talk about mutual submission (much more healthy in my opinion). This process of doing linguistic gymnastics to change the meanings of words is pretty common in the church as they slowly change teachings. I’ll give you credit for actually sticking by what the words (and the writer) actually meant, but even the popes have already started moving on from this idea.
And to Gene’s point, I disagree that there must be a singular head of any marriage. In my marriage, I would not say that me or my wife is the head. There are things that I care about more or my wife cares about more, and we are each “heads” of those areas. In our family, my wife and I are definitely heads over our children, but my wife and I are more like a board of directors. Even though their may be disagreements within the board, the board is still able to lead the company competently.
Kyle – The proof is laid down in Scripture and has been passed down for nearly 2000 years. JPII’s and Francis’s words have not changed this teaching and your confidence that the Church’s teaching will change on this “in the future” shows that it hasn’t changed. Accordingly, you need to submit to the Church and her teaching.