Obedience to Husbands?

[Pro-Life_Teen]

And are wives morally bound to obedience once the marriage vows are entered into? At this point, does disobedience become actually sinful? Also, what if the husband is being clearly unreasonable (although not asking anything immoral or illegal)? Does the moral obligation to submit and obey- if there is indeed one- still apply?

We * are bound to submit as the Church does for Christ. And the husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. It’s all about love and respect.

Disobedience becoming sinful only seems to become so in matters of, the disobedience would be sinful otherwise [doesn’t matter that it’s disobedient or if you’re just doing it, the action is sinful] or perhaps in refusing sex. But refusing sex for an extended period of time, for either married party, is sinful and so again, falls under a general sin rather than a sin of disobedience.

As I mentioned before, we are talking about husbands here. Men who supposedly want the best for their wives, love and cherish them. If they ask us to do something, it should only be things we’d agree to do it anyways. These aren’t random tyrants that have moved in and make us clean and cook and polish their shoes or else we’re somehow punished. They vowed to love us, and have a great deal of responsibility as the head of the house.

Being unreasonable? Well, then tell them what they’re asking is unreasonable. Offer another suggestion, or ask them to help. Just explain it.

My boyfriend’ll tell me to see a certain movie, or to read a certain book. And as I respect him, and love to read as well, I’ll make a note of it and read the book [usually- I sometimes get the book and never get around to reading it…]. I’m obeying, but not as a slave obeys a master, but as a person taking a suggestion to heart.

I can’t really pitch in about more serious matters like money and such, but I assume it’s similar. If your husband does most of the bills and tells you not to spend more than a hundred dollars on groceries when you go shopping this week, it’s probably because money’s tight, not because he’s bored and wants to see if you’ll obey.

The Church tells us about Christ’s rules and we obey them. All people do. Not because God is a slave driver, but because He knows what is good for us. And He has given men a similar responsibility- to care for their family.*

 

[DebChris]

I am going to use a hypothetical situation is which a wife is not morally bound to be obedient to her husband. The situation is one of personal integrity. While dying your hair is not a sin, it is not something that I have ever done. It was something that I was taught from earliest childhood was not to be done. One summer, my sister developed a blond streak from the sun. She was quick to comb her hair in case my mother thought that she, rather than the sun, had streaked it. If my husband were to ask me to dye my hair, not that he ever would, it is a request that I would refuse. It would be an unreasonable request, from my point of view. It does nothing to enhance the marriage relationship and would be detrimental to my personal integrity.
Everything comes back to the two commandments of loving God with all our mind, heart, and strength and loving neighbor (brother, husband) as yourself. As St. John writes, I cannot love God without first loving my brother. I cannot love my brother, or my husband, if I do not love myself. If I act contrary to who I am as a person than I am not loving myself. Were I to dye my hair, I would not be true to who I am as a person. On the other hand, my husband loved my hair long and he never wanted me to cut it. As a Reservist, I had difficulty keeping it neat according to military regulations. It was a hard decision to cut my hair even with his consent, knowing that he liked it long. While some women would consider a husband’s wanting her to keep her hair long as overly controlling, I never considered that to be the case. I kept it long because I wanted to please him. Again, the only reason it was cut was the conflict with job requirements.
I know there are men on this forum who have written lovingly about their own marriages. It comes to obedience not being a requirement of love, but a response to love. I also like what a local television preacher tells men.“Don’t look at the length of a woman’s hair, but at the length of her prayer.”

 

[Julianna]

Thanks for the discussion, all!

I think some of the replies have gotten too wrapped up in this theoretical situation of the husband giving the wife $5 for a coffee run with friends. If possible I’d like to move away from that back to the OP, and then the questions I had later as well.

And are wives morally bound to obedience once the marriage vows are entered into? At this point, does disobedience become actually sinful? Also, what if the husband is being clearly unreasonable (although not asking anything immoral or illegal)? Does the moral obligation to submit and obey- if there is indeed one- still apply?

For me, no. Claire, the situations I posed are not theorectical, they are very “real”. If I went to my husband and I was a SAHM and said, “My friends Claire and Deb invited me to lunch.” He would say, “Hey, you need some money?” I would say, “Yes” He would hand me a twenty and say, “Have a good time, ladies.”

Sailor Kenshin…the reason he said “no”…was NOT given. She walked away like a wounded dog. We all saw it. That should not be happening. And if you think this women was bound to “obey” …you are really messed up. I would never live with a man who “doled” out money to me like an allowance…or treated me like a “child” and I had to “ask” for everything.

I am so glad I worked…there is no issue now what I can and cannot do.

A womans independence begins with her own money.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

If you don’t know the reason, then you can’t speculate—nor can you speculate how ‘messed up’ I am because I wanted to know why.

Sometimes there is a good reason, sometimes not, and NO ONE knows what goes on behind closed doors.

 

[JRKH]

Thanks for the discussion, all!

I think some of the replies have gotten too wrapped up in this theoretical situation of the husband giving the wife $5 for a coffee run with friends. If possible I’d like to move away from that back to the OP, and then the questions I had later as well.

And are wives morally bound to obedience once the marriage vows are entered into? At this point, does disobedience become actually sinful? Also, what if the husband is being clearly unreasonable (although not asking anything immoral or illegal)? Does the moral obligation to submit and obey- if there is indeed one- still apply?

One thing to keep in mind is that it is extremely difficult to compare strict bible teaching on marriage to today. Back then many marriages were arranged. you did not Choose your husband, your parents did. How does that effect the weight and inference fo the words “obey”.

When we marry, “The two become one flesh” therefore the particular roles should flow, more or less, naturally. There should be no need or desire to be “disobedient” nor should there be any question of what might be “sinful”.

Peace
James

 

[savienu]

If you don’t know the reason, then you can’t speculate—nor can you speculate how ‘messed up’ I am because I wanted to know why.

Sometimes there is a good reason, sometimes not, and NO ONE knows what goes on behind closed doors.

I agree. It’s not fair to the husband to assume why he said no. There may have been a very valid reason. If there wasn’t, then yes, he was controlling. But isn’t it more charitable to give him the benefit of the doubt?

 

[DebChris]

One thing to keep in mind is that it is extremely difficult to compare strict bible teaching on marriage to today. Back then many marriages were arranged. you did not Choose your husband, your parents did. How does that effect the weight and inference fo the words “obey”.

When we marry, “The two become one flesh” therefore the particular roles should flow, more or less, naturally. There should be no need or desire to be “disobedient” nor should there be any question of what might be “sinful”.

Peace
James

Another thoughtful post. Marriage is a lifelong relationship with each partner growing and maturing within that relationship. We don’t know everything when we first enter into the covenant. We enter, open and vulnerable (in a positive sense) to each other. Our desire is to please each other.
I agree that we do not think in terms of obedience or even submission. We learn over the course of the relationship how and when to defer to one another. I like how you mentioned “flow.” It is less a matter of obedience and more a matter of becoming one and reducing the discord of individuals each seeking to have things his/her way. In the process, each becomes the person he/she is meant to be.

 

[ac_claire]

Thanks again all (esp. Deb and James) for your insightful replies.

 

[Marc_Aupiais]

We can learn allot from this forum.

 

[Coder]

I don’t think we should de-emphasize this teaching but I also think that this Scripture does not refer to the day-to-day details of living as though the husband is the boss of the wife. In day-to-day details a wife may very well tell her husband what he needs to be doing.

Look at “sub”-“missive”. The husband has a mission to live as God calls us to and have a holy family life. The wife subordinates to the husband in view of this “mission”. She subordinates to him because he subordinates to Jesus and so the wife is really subordinating to Jesus by working with her husband in support of the mission. If the husband is not subordinating to the Lord, then the wife has no obligation as set forth by this Scripture (IMO). However she should still honor her marriage vows and work to get the husband back on track.

So, the husband may need to sometimes subordinate to the wife in day-to-day living because the wife is subordinating to him in the larger mission.

There is a tendency to relate the real fact of subordination to human dignity, equality, and political power. This may be the same tendency that is related to dissent against male priesthood. We need to be mature enough to see past that to the spiritual truth. We know that only Jesus has true power and Jesus made it clear that He loves us. So we must remember that the husband must submit to Jesus and his wife submits to the him in support of his own submission to Jesus. It’s about love and trust.

 

[adelore]

In the begining, God made woman out of mans rib, he made her to be a “Help mate”. God said, It wasn’t good for man to be alone. Look at Gen.

In the Old Testament there are a lot of verses a person could pick out and say, “hey look at this, back then they did this or that.”

The thing to keep in mind about a lot of “things” that are in the Bible doesn’t always mean that God agreed with what mankind was doing. Yet God allowed it. A lot of “things” are in the Bible, they are lessons to be learned from.

For example, back in the Old Testament, a lot of men had more than one wife, most of us have read about that. Yet, this is not what God had first wanted, (or I believe He would have made more than one woman for Adam.) So some things that we read in the Bible we must be aware that even though “mankind” did these things this was not how God ment for them to be.

A woman is not a slave to her husband, she is not a footstole, nor just the maid.

Yes, men are suppose to be the head of the household, but like the church there are many bodies that make up the church, yet we are all one in Jesus. A woman is part of her husband and therefore the husband without a doubt will respect his wife, she is a gift to him from God.

Remember the two are to become “One Flesh”. Therefore the man is not a Ruler of sorts. He is the “head of the household” but again that means his wifes thoughts and feelings are to be respected also. A man is not a dictator, he is a loving leader of his family.

 

[Coder]

Remember the two are to become “One Flesh”.

Yes, this is a great point! It is important for Scriptures to be understood in light of other Scriptures.

When Jesus spoke about the Eucharist people left him because they were thinking in worldly terms.

 

[DrPiano]

I haven’t read the whole thread, so maybe I’ll be repeating things, but I definitely recommend Father John Riccardo’s talk Marriage: God’s Love Made Visible. I’ve been listening to it over and over and over and praying about it, trying to let it seep into the way I live.

He did his thesis on Ephesians 5 and he has a lot of good things to say.

The basic gist of his talk is that a) The passage is ENTIRELY UNIQUE from any “household code” of its time. It’s NOT simply a “baptizing” of the customs of its culture. b) The only actual command in Greek in the passage is to the husbands to “love their wives as Christ loved the church.” c) The word we translate “submit” is used to describe Christ’s relationship to God. Rather than a command to “obey” its something we willingly do to ourselves. We subordinate ourselves to our husbands, the way we (in the last verse of Ch. 4) all as a church subordinate ourselves to each other (or "submit to each other) and the way the Church subordinates herself to Christ. The exhortation Paul gives to wives would more accurately be “as a person equal in dignity to your husband, willingly choose to place yourself under his loving care and protection.” d) My job is to take care of my part. As the future wife, that means that as long as my husband is loving me the way Christ loves the church (with a self-sacrificing love of service), I need to place myself under his loving care and protection. I know that this will mean (for us) that I’ll often defer to his final say - but that doesn’t mean we won’t talk about things and it CERTAINLY doesn’t mean that I’ll be his doormat, his laundrymat, or his maid. We’ll each serve each other. After all, this is the pattern that Jesus gives us ALL to follow.

And I HIGHLY recommend that talk. Fr. John breaks it down section by section, word by word. He really knows his greek. Its challenging for BOTH genders!

 

[cyberfrogX]

I haven’t read the whole thread, so maybe I’ll be repeating things…

Me too probably.
And I agree. In church our priest gave a sermon on this topic. The command in the New Testament for wives to submit to their husbands was nothing new for the culture at the time, the new part comes after that command, where husbands are told that they should be willing to sacrifice themselves for their wives as Christ sacrificed himself for the church. That they were to love and respect their wives.

It basically boils down to equal submission in a sense. I can see a relationship where the couple equal respect, love, and submit to each other being far healthier than one where one or both parties declare that their word is law.

To me the sacrament of marriage, and especially the “becoming one flesh”, works a lot better with the ideas of unity and equal submission than one-sided tyranny or competitive divergence.

God bless

 

[Coder]

To me the sacrament of marriage, and especially the “becoming one flesh”, works a lot better with the ideas of unity and equal submission than one-sided tyranny or competitive divergence.

Ahh, but it’s not one-sided tyranny. It is a submission based on love and trust and the husband’s responsibility is to live worthily of the love and trust given to him by his wife.

 

[DrPiano]

Ahh, but it’s not one-sided tyranny. It is a submission based on love and trust and the husband’s responsibility is to live worthily of the love and trust given to him by his wife.

I think that’s what Cyberfrog was saying. The whole passage begins with (previous verse) something along the lines of “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (permit the imperfect quotation, I’m going from memory). Then the passages that follow deal with how this looks in individual relationships: husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves. The self-sacrificing love of the husband is the way the husband “submits” to the wife (which, by the way, in Greek is the ONLY command given in the husband-wife passage. The wife isn’t commanded to subordinate herself, she’s merely exhorted to subordinate herself. The husband is commanded to love). This love from the husband then prompts the wife’s self-subordination - she places herself under his loving care.