How Practical is it for Women to be Submissive to Their Husbands in Modern Society

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The denial of medical care is not a hypothetical, incidentally. I don’t know what my parents’ decision making process was or whose idea it was, but they did not have medical insurance when we kids were growing up, and we virtually never saw the doctor, even when we kids were sick or injured. I once fell off a horse and couldn’t walk for three days, but never saw the doctor, just my WWII (!) medic grandpa. It also once turned out that my younger sister had 10 cavities, presumably from dental neglect.

I would never tolerate it if my husband wanted us to do the same thing to our kids, because it’s abusive and neglectful.
 
Hello Raven,

Thank you for your comments. However, in my defense, I never meant to imply that marriage is a contract. You correctly point out that it is a covenant. I was simply using an idiomatic expression to make my point.

My brief comment was directly related to the post I was responding to, which I interpreted as an indirect comment regarding abuse.

As I had mentioned in a previous post, submitting to one’s husband does not mean what secular society, and frankly it isn’t what many evangelical protestants think it means either. Secular society has a tendency throw submission out the window, while evangelicals (and frankly some Catholics) may take it to extremes.

With my own mother, I’ve seen what taking submission to an extreme can do. It spoiled my father, and often left my mother upset and hurt.

Husbands and wives are called to be one flesh, which means we are partners. Yes, the husband is the head, but he’s not the boss.

Between my mother and aunt, I’ve see this play out two different ways. My mother was too submissive while my aunt too dominating. My mom and dad are still married (thankfully) and my dad is getting better, though he’s still spoiled and used to getting his way. My aunt on the other hand has always been very dominating and even paid for her husband’s college. He was a quiet guy and she effectively emasculated him… and since he was a military man, I’m sure that was quite hard for him. He eventually left her once the kids graduated high school. 😦

Point is… there is a happy middle, where we Catholics understand the truth to be. And it’s also extremely important that we remember to make sure you find the right fit in the first place. If we don’t properly discern our future spouse, it can make things much more difficult for us in the future.

God Bless
 
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How practical is it? It is very practical.

There is perplexity today on this point, and this causes some people to think that the whole notion of headship is no longer relevant. But this is not the case…the complexity of modern life makes even the family an enterprise in itself, and the more complex a thing is, the more there is a need for a clear leader and authority structure.

For a wife to be subordinate means she should not resist her husband as the “chief” of the family: that is, it is implied that her husband is aware of his position and acting accordingly, making decisions and directing things in the family. Maybe this sounds hard…but I guarantee you that most women who find it hard would find it less so if they were dealing with men who are real men.

Headship in marriage is partly a social mechanism for ensuring that men take responsibility, which is necessary for them to achieve the full stature of manhood. In the absence of a social demand for the husband to be recognized as the head and leader of the family, men are encouraged to move in the direction of effeminacy and thereby never actually achieve manhood.

In fact, the problem we have today I believe has to do primarily with the widespread moral problem of effeminacy in men. Effeminacy is a vice that is contrary to the virtue of perseverance. It exists when a man is weaker, or softer, or more delicate then he should be, and he becomes this way by having too much attachment to pleasure and comfort. He would rather have the comfort of peace in the home then assert his leadership and have the discomfort of an unhappy wife, and so the price he pays for the comfort of peace is that his wife is in charge. But to be a man is to do hard work, to do what is hard. It should be second nature to a man to embrace discomfort, hardship, and pain in the ordinary course of fulfilling his duties. Most women who observe men putting aside pleasure in favor of duty will develop a true respect for them, and this facilitates the wife’s act of submission in marriage. But when a man has been habituated to a life of pleasure and comfort, he tends to neglect duty in favor of ease and comfort, and this is effeminate…it undoes everything that headship is.
 
Very well said, and thank you for clarifying.
I didn’t intend for my whole post to apply just to what you said, either. I apologize that I didn’t make that clear. 🙂
 
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To be honest, I can’t see the need of having a head in the house. People use the examples of companies etc but the dynamics of a family is vastly different from that. I also don’t see why a particular gender would be automatically qualified to be the head today, either gender is incredibly flawed.

It seems necessary in the past and in some cultures today, but Christianity’s focus on gender and its roles seems something rather counter cultural to me even though I’m in a rather ‘tame’ patriarchal culture.

And I also wonder why the Church/Catholics seem to have so many conditions on submission to the point where it looks like an egalitarian relationship, even tho Paul said submit in everything. Tis is confusing to me indeed
 
What if two people just try to love each other the best they can with God’s help and leave the details to God?All of this makes marriage seem so clinical. Love works differently for each couple. Marriage needs love and prayer. It is a covenant not a contract and can’t work as a corporation with a C.E.O… This all sounds so cold and clinical.
 
AdamPeter said:
Where in Catholic wedding vows is there anything about submitting?
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That is an excellent point. From what I see online, the bride and groom are asked if they come freely, they are asked if they will honor each other, and they are asked if they will accept children lovingly from God and bring them up “according to the law of Christ and his Church.”

https://catholicreligionteacher.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/catholic-wedding-vows.pdf

There may be some variants I am unfamiliar with, but the Catholic vows I see online are unisex.

The “love, honor and obey” is a traditional Protestant wedding vow.
 
Lea101 said:
And I also wonder why the Church/Catholics seem to have so many conditions on submission to the point where it looks like an egalitarian relationship, even tho Paul said submit in everything.
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The verse that starts the famous Ephesians 5 passage is “21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Then we get wives submitting to husbands, husbands loving wives, and in Ephesians 6, children obeying parents, fathers not provoking children, slaves obey and serve masters and (and this is WILD!), masters told, “Masters, do the same to them, and forbear threatening.”

What I would argue is that wives submitting is part of the overall system of Ephesians 5/6, which is about mutual submission. The passages that follow about husbands and wives, parents and children and masters and slaves are about the concrete application of “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Especially in the passage about masters, we see that what St. Paul is going after is a leveling and softening of roles. It’s very much related to the Gospels and what Jesus said in Matthew 20:

"“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; 28 even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
 
I think you may have misunderstood. The line you quoted from me was about respect and love even when not submitting.
I said nothing about submission being part of marriage vows.
 
Xantippe said:
What I would argue is that wives submitting is part of the overall system of Ephesians 5/6, which is about mutual submission. The passages that follow about husbands and wives, parents and children and masters and slaves are about the concrete application of “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Especially in the passage about masters, we see that what St. Paul is going after is a leveling and softening of roles. It’s very much related to the Gospels and what Jesus said in Matthew 20:
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I do not believe is not correct to say that the “overall system” of Ephesians 5 and 6 is “mutual submission”. Ephesians 5 is about exhortation to a virtous life, and duties of husbands and wives while Ephesians 6 is about the duties of children and slaves, and the armor of God. And the term “mutual submission” - I assume referring to the words of St. John Paul II - needs clarification since it tends to sound like the removal of any inequality or headship between the spouses, but this is clearly not what St. Paul is saying.

The connection here with the words of Jesus in Matthew 20 is in fact Eph. 5:25-29 on the duty of the husband to love his wife. With verses 22-24 St. Paul is confirming and upholding what everyone at that time already knew, which was that the wife was to be subordinate to the husband. Regarding Matthew 20, there are two kinds of servants: those who obey; and those who rule by taking thought for the needs of all. What we should be recognizing in the words of St. Paul in Eph. 5 on the family, and the words of Jesus in Matthew 20, is the restoration of the proper place and behavior of authority: that the wife is to be a servant to her husband by obeying well and that the husband is to be a servant to his wife by “ruling” well - most notably by loving her, and this was the real innovation of Christianity on this point.
 
vincentleo said:
And the term “mutual submission” - I assume referring to the words of St. John Paul II - needs clarification since it tends to sound like the removal of any inequality or headship between the spouses, but this is clearly not what St. Paul is saying.
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Here’s the beginning of the section of Ephesians 5 and 6 devoted to submission:

“21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord.”

So, when John Paul II uses the term “mutual submission” it’s not coming out of thin air–it’s right there in Ephesians 5:21.
 
Back to the original question: “How Practical is it for Women to be Submissive to Their Husbands in Modern Society”

Very practical, as long as we have reasonable ideas of what submission means, namely that that is what ALL Christians are called to (rather than some sort of special female role), and that it is possible to have an attitude of love and service without necessarily being 100% obedient to every request.

As I said previously, there are a lot of “submits” in the New Testament. There’s an interesting collection here of NT verses involving obedience to authorities:


Romans 13:1-7
“Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.”

Titus 3:1
“Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed”

1 Peter 2:13-14
“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.”

And then we get this from Peter in Acts:

Acts 5:29
“But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.””
 
Mi_Rose said:
I am not submissive by nature and sometimes when I say “Whatever you want” to my husband he can tell by my tone that I don’t mean it. Many times he changes his mind because his job in marriage is to love me as Christ loves his Church. That is a harder task. Men are asked to die for their wives. In a good marriage they do every day by putting her first. Neither one of us is perfect at their job even after 46 years of practice. We are both still growing.
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This is exactly the position of the Church. The husband must be ready to die for his wife. He must put her needs first. If he loves God, he does what God commands him to do. God says, “Love your wife as I love My Church.” Simple as that.
Xantippe said:
Believing that a husband ought to be able to command total obedience of his wife and have no authorities over him is actually an example of that radical individualism. It’s radical individualism for him, but not for her.
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You are straw-manning the Church’s position. Men cannot enslave their wives, as you have suggested. It works similar to any typical authority structure in that there can, and often should be, counsel and (name removed by moderator)ut. Yet there remains a singular final authority. Indeed in order for man to grow in accord with the virtue of prudence he must sometimes seek counsel from his wife.

Ultimately it is man’s responsibility to govern the family and the wife’s responsibility to rear the children, to ensure a tranquil home life, and to submit to the proper authority of her husband.
 
omgriley said:
You are straw-manning the Church’s position. Men cannot enslave their wives, as you have suggested. It works similar to any typical authority structure in that there can, and often should be, counsel and (name removed by moderator)ut. Yet there remains a singular final authority. Indeed in order for man to grow in accord with the virtue of prudence he must sometimes seek counsel from his wife.

Ultimately it is man’s responsibility to govern the family and the wife’s responsibility to rear the children, to ensure a tranquil home life, and to submit to the proper authority of her husband.
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I’m not straw-manning the Church’s position.

What you say is not consistent with the quotes I gave from Casti Connubii–the husband is not the “singular final authority.”
 
Xantippe said:
What you say is not consistent with the quotes I gave from Casti Connubii–the husband is not the “singular final authority.
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Nonsense, my position squares just fine with Casti Connubii.
"Domestic society being confirmed, therefore, by this bond of love, there should flourish in it that “order of love,” as St. Augustine calls it. This order includes both the primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and children, the ready subjection of the wife and her willing obedience, which the Apostle commends in these words: “Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the Church.”(25)
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This subjection, however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs. But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.(29)
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This is exactly what I’ve been saying. The husband is the chief and final authority of the family.
 
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