Wifely Submission
Are wives really commanded to submit? In any and all situations? What about husbands?
In my last post, Women Not Permitted, we looked at 1 Timothy 2:8-15 and 1 Timothy 3:1-13, the two key passages that advocates of patriarchy in church claim as proof that God doesn’t want women teaching men or in leadership roles in the church.
I think we did a pretty good job of demolishing that view, and showed that the overall biblical message and spirit of its meta-narrative is full gender and racial equality, which also includes women in leadership roles.
However, complementarians also believe that the so-called hierarchy of male leadership in church government extends into the home and marriage. For complementarians, one of the key markers of a Christian marriage is male authority and leadership in the home, ‘complemented’ by female submission.
Wifely Submission and the ‘Household Codes’
They claim biblical support for their views, and there are three passages that are their go-to prooftexts: Ephesians 5:22-33, Colossians 3:18-19, 1 Peter 3:1-7. Collectively, these three passages are commonly known as the ‘household codes.’
The first thing we must take note of is that these passages are directed specifically at married men and women, and so have nothing to say to the unmarried, and that they address only the personal relationship between husband and wife. Therefore nothing in these passages can be used to preclude women from leadership in general, and certainly have nothing to say to single women.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. On the surface of it, a plain reading of these passages appears to provide solid support for complementarians. Ephesians 5:22 exhorts “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.” In Colossians 3:18 we read, “Wives, submit to your husbands,” and in 1 Peter 3:1 we again read “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands.”
My discussion of wifely submission and the household codes will center mostly on Ephesians 5:22-6:9 for a couple of reasons: the passage in Ephesians discusses all the household roles more thoroughly than the other two passages. Not just wives, but also husbands, children, slaves and masters are covered, whereas 1 Peter addresses only wives and husbands. We’ll see why this is important to the discussion shortly. Colossians 3:18-19 is very similar to Ephesians 5, so the conclusions we draw from Ephesians can be safely applied to Colossians without the need to repeat. And 1 Peter also calls upon wives to “be subject” to their husbands, so our discussion of submission will also apply.
The text in Ephesians calling wives to submit to their husbands (v.22-24) is organically part of a long passage addressed to the entire household, addressing husbands (v.25-33), children (6:1-3), fathers (6:4), household servants (6:5-8) and finally masters (6:9).
Wives are to be submissive and respectful to their husbands, and husbands are to love their wives. Children are to obey and honor their parents, while fathers are not to provoke their children needlessly to anger. Slaves are to obey their masters and masters are “to do the same” and treat slaves decently, and are reminded that they also have a master in heaven. We will focus on v.22-24, but the verses concerning wives must be understood within the context of this wider passage to the entire household.
In v.22-24 married women are called upon to submit to their husbands. There really does seem to be a distinction between men and women in their marital roles. Married women appear to be singled out in this requirement to submit, and complementarians see this as proof that God has ordained a hierarchy between men and women within marriage.
For the complementarian understanding of this passage to have any merit, the wifely submission of verse 22 can only work one-way. In their view, because wives are mentioned in v.22, then only wives, and not husbands, are required to be submissive. It has to be so, otherwise what’s the point? If husbands are also to be submissive to their wives, then there is no real hierarchy of male headship.
And this is precisely where the complementarian argument breaks down. Immediately following “wives, submit to your husbands,” we read “husbands, love their wives.” We need to ask if these exhortations were intended exclusively, to work only the one way. Are we going to argue that because husbands are mentioned in verse 25, that only husbands need love their wives? Wives do not need to love their husbands? Are we to infer from this that women are exempt from loving their husbands?
If we interpret v. 22 as applying exclusively to women, because only women are cited, then by the same logic v. 25 should apply only to men because only men are referenced. Women are therefore exempt from loving their husbands. It is hard to imagine that was Paul’s intention.
If we admit that wives are also to love their husbands in return, then we should also admit that husbands are to submit to their wives. I see no way around this for the complementarian. If they are going to insist on a wifely submission within a hierarchy – that it works only one way and that only wives are required to submit – then I don’t see how they can avoid the same conclusion regarding the requirement to love your spouse: only husbands need to love their wives, and wives need not return that affection.
These verses go together and should be interpreted consistently. To argue that husbands are exempt from submission because only wives are mentioned in v.22, but of course wives are to love their husbands; that v. 22 only works in one direction, but v. 25 works both ways, strikes me as special pleading, not to mention inconsistent. So we must ask ourselves how much hierarchy in marriage we can legitimately infer from this passage. I would argue that the requirement to be submissive doesn’t work just one way, any more than the requirement to love.
We also need to consider just how exclusive the use of gender references in any particular passage is intended to be. The use of a gendered noun or pronoun here, as in any passage of the New Testament, isn’t necessarily exclusive to that gender. Throughout the New Testament there are passages that make use of gender references that we know are intended for both genders. We looked at a few examples above, but there are too many such passages in the New Testament to list.
So the use of gender references in v. 22-25 does not mean it’s intended as a universal rule only for that gender. This is perhaps easier to see in v.25, “husbands, love your wives”, because it is easier for us to grasp that both men and women should love their spouses; but I would argue the same applies to “wives, submit to your husbands”, and so I don’t think we can use this passage to enforce a rigid male dominated hierarchy.
It gets even worse for the complementarian position. Our understanding of any single verse or passage must take into account the rest of scripture, and the household codes are no exception to this hermeneutic rule. They need to be understood within the context of the entire New Testament, the meta-narrative of the gospel, in which Christians, both men and women, are exhorted to love, to be respectful, to be at peace, to treat others as we wish to be treated, to be humble and place others first, to lay down our very lives for each other.
In verse 21, the verse immediately prior to this passage, all men and women in the church are called to mutual submission. Married men are not excluded from this. So while we find in verse 22 a specific call for wives to submit to their husbands, we also find that Christians in general, everywhere, are called to submit to “one another” (v. 21).
Over and against the three passages complementarians focus on for wifely submission, there are, as Peppiatt notes, fifty-nine “one another” passages exhorting all Christians to love one another,[1] to submit to one another, to be humble towards each other, to be forgiving, to live in peace. This also includes married couples.
Verse 25 says: “Husbands, love your wives.” And what is love, if it is not also humble and carries with it a submissive attitude. According to the classic passage read at so many weddings, 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that love is patient, love is kind, love is not arrogant or proud, love does not seek its own, but seeks what is best for others, it does not insist on getting its own way. A better definition of a humble and submissive attitude is difficult to find.
1 Corinthians 13 is just one passage. Peppiatt also points to 1 Corinthians 7:3-4, saying:
“It is interesting (and not a bit disturbing), that so many men choose a few verses in Ephesians in order to attempt to demonstrate that a Christian husband has authority over his wife, who in turn, they say, should be submissive and subordinate to her husband, but then completely ignore 1 Corinthians 7. In 1 Corinthians 7 we find the only reference to authority, and it is here that Paul tells the Corinthian wives that just as their husbands have authority over their bodies, they too have authority over their husbands’ bodies. So, where Paul actually uses the word authority, which does not occur in any of the other passages on marriage, the authority he speaks of is entirely mutual and in relation to sex.”[2]
Peppiatt points out the revolutionary subversion in Paul’s words that’s easy for modern readers to miss: “…the idea that a wife would have any authority over her husband in sexual matters was unheard of in Paul’s time.”[3] The Christian revolution works by subverting oppressive structures of society, which brings us to our next point.
The Subversion of Hierarchy
If wives are also to love their husbands, and husbands are also to be submissive, then why would Paul intentionally reference wives and husbands in vv. 22-25?
“…it appears that there is some disparity between the role of the wife and the role of the husband, where wives are exhorted to submit to their husbands and husbands to love or respect their wives. Modern readers sometimes make much of the disparity, and hierarchicalists focus almost exclusively on wifely submission and male headship as the mark of Christian marriage. But whereas we might react to the disparity with disdain or confusion…, it appears that ancient readers would have heard a different emphasis and experienced the shock of a new order.”[4]
I don’t think Paul’s intention in this passage was to underwrite male patriarchy. He certainly didn’t need to. It was already well established in Roman society. I think he was doing just the opposite: subverting it and leveling the hierarchical playing field between men and women.
The entire passage from verses 5:21-6:9 is an organic whole addressing the typical Roman household, which often included “slaves” (household servants). Roman society and households were extremely patriarchal, and Paul was referencing the key relationships within the typical Roman home: husbands, wives, children, servants, and masters. It is difficult for the modern reader to pickup on the subtleties of this passage because we are so far removed from that culture, but Paul was not endorsing male hierarchy, he was undermining it.
The subversive element of this text is found in its address to the men, rulers of the Roman household. Paul tells them to love their wives, to treat their slaves decently, and – shockingly – after outlining how servants are to behave, tells the male patriarchs to “do likewise.” The men are to behave like the slaves.
This would effectively, as the new paradigm takes hold, overturn the oppressive societal structures of slavery and hierarchy. I believe the same “cultural” argument that complementarians (as all Christians) make for “slaves, obey” (Eph.6:5) also applies to “wives, submit,” (Eph.5:22) and thus, far from an endorsement of these institutions, when properly read in their historical context, this passage overturns slavery and hierarchy.
The shock to the system these words must have conveyed to Roman men of the time is difficult for us to appreciate today. Roman men were at the top of society, slaves at the very bottom. Slaves were barely people, had no status, and were certainly not worth noticing. And here Paul is telling masters, immediately after outlining the duties of slaves, that they are to “do likewise”. Men can no longer simply do whatever they wanted with other people (as Roman law and custom allowed). They were now expected to behave within boundaries of love and decency towards all other people. Men and masters were being brought down a few notches, women and slaves elevated, bringing a clear shift towards full equality across all lines of gender, race and social status as expressed in Galatians 3:28.
Peppiatt summarizes the revolutionary impact of this passage: “For an ancient reader, there would have been no surprise in the instruction to a wife to submit to her husband. This would have been a standard pattern…however, the instruction to the husbands, read aloud for all to hear, would have caused considerable ripples throughout the household because they and those around them would now know that this behavior is also expected of him, and here is where we find the Christian revolution.”[5]
Roman men had the legal power of life and death over everyone in their household, not just their slaves, but their wives and children. Into this atmosphere of extreme patriarchy Paul calls upon men to love their wives as they love themselves, to cherish them as they cherish their own bodies. He reminds the masters (again usually the same male heads of households) that they have a master in heaven and that God is not partial to them, that God looks upon slave and master the same, a revolutionary idea that would have shocked people at the time.
When Paul tells men that they are to love their wives as Christ loves the church, he is reminding them what love means. It is self-sacrificial. It is not about dominance and control, but self-sacrifice and giving. This love puts others ahead of itself, it regards the welfare of others as more important than its own welfare. It seeks the good of others, not its own good. Whereas complementarians harp exclusively on a couple of passages to argue for gender-based control, the message of love, self-sacrifice, humility and mutual submission is infused throughout the entire New Testament like sugar and cinnamon is baked into sweet rolls.
This is the Christian revolution, which changes society from the inside out and the bottom up. By changing hearts and the way we view our fellow humans. By seeing all people, regardless of gender, race, age, class, net worth or social status, as human beings fully worthy of dignity and respect.
Christ reminds us that God loves the poor and lower classes as much as the wealthy and powerful. This is the heart of the Christian message when we are being true to the words of Christ and the New Testament. To regard others ahead of ourselves. How could the institution of slavery or hierarchy, of any system that oppresses and subjugates others, survive in such an atmosphere?
Ephesians 5:22-6:9 isn’t a biblical endorsement for a universal, never ending male hierarchy. Rather, it contains within it the seeds that bring it to an end. Despite Paul’s specific reference to woman in 5:22 to be submissive, we cannot read into this an endorsement of a gender hierarchy anymore than we should see within 6:5 a biblical support for slavery. It is curious that complementarians will see hierarchy in this passage, but not slavery. They will allow for a cultural understanding of “slaves, obey your masters” but not for “wives, obey your husbands.”
As I argued in Chapter 4, this passage and passages like it, along with the entire New Testament in general, contain within it the seeds of a new society that would eventually sprout, take root and grow to destroy slavery as an institution. The same thing is happening here for patriarchy. Which is exactly what happened as Christianity grew in influence and spread through the Roman Empire. We must not read into this passage a biblical endorsement of patriarchy anymore than we should read into it an endorsement for slavery.
The Limited Scope of Ephesians 5
Some of my best friends are complementarians, and I have no wish to intrude on the private relationship between a husband and wife. How they wish to arrange their personal relationship and home is entirely their business.
Which brings us to the salient fact of this passage that must not be ignored – its extremely limited scope. The text about submission addresses only married women in relationship to their husbands. It has nothing to say to unmarried women, whether widowed, divorced or never married. It says nothing about church leadership or other roles, and says only that those wives are to be submissive to their own husbands. There is nothing in this passage that can be used to exclude any woman, especially single women, from leadership roles. There is no hint of hierarchy outside the marriage bond.
For arguments sake let’s allow, for the moment, the complementarian reading of the household codes. Even taken literally at face value, they can at the very most only be used to regulate the relationship between husband and wife within the private sphere of their home and marriage.
It has nothing to say about women in leadership roles, and certainly cannot be taken to mean women in general are to have submissive attitudes towards men in general. They do not preclude an unmarried woman from leadership. Paul is clearly limiting his address to married Christians and their personal relationship within their marriage. Married women are certainly not being asked in this passage to adopt a submissive attitude towards any other man but her husband. What complementarians cannot do is infer from these passages a general hierarchy between men and women, nor can it be used to keep women from leadership.
(This post has been adapted from my book, Jesus and Captain Kirk, chapter 5.)
[1] Lucy Peppiatt, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women, p. 90.
[2] Lucy Peppiatt, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women, p. 95.
[3] Lucy Peppiatt, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women, p. 95.
[4] Lucy Peppiatt, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women, p. 92.
[5] Lucy Peppiatt, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women, p.93.