Practical ways that a wife should be submissive to her husband

[EasterJoy]

I guess what I am saying is that, using your parish analogy, my husband and I are co-pastors, with “his” “hers” and “ours” areas of authority. We are co-heads of our household. It works really well.

I agree with you, but let us clarify: Catholic parishes do not have co-pastors. Bishops have auxiliary bishops to help them, but a diocese will not have co-bishops. Monasteries do not have co-abbots or co-abbesses; religious communities do not have co-superiors. Church councils bring together as many as hundreds of bishops, but their decrees are promulgated by the Pope alone.

No one is sent out alone, but there is often a place where the buck stops, and a single person is given the position and burden of being the steward for the Master, the one who is ultimately answerable for the decision. Anyone in that position needs a lot of prayer, because they have a particular burden to imitate Christ, in the self-sacrificial way he commanded the Twelve when he was with them, especially at the Last Supper. A married man is in that position. He may not pretend to abdicate, and when the Master returns at a time no one knows, he had better not be found pleasing himself at anyone else’s expense.

 

[LongingSoul]

Well, “irreconcilable differences” is a box you check on the court filings. “Irreconcilable differences” can mean anything from “we are sick of being married” to abuse, adultery, addiction, mental illness, etc.

Most people do not divorce because of one big disagreement.

The term itself signifies a state of war in marriage that was never recognised until recent times. Divine law doesn’t make allowances for it but neither does natural law. The permanence of marriage even back to ancient times, was seen to serve civilization and the business around procreation and the education of children. It begs a re thinking of how much we value permanent marriage for society again.

 

[LongingSoul]

I’m really suspicious of the motives of online laypeople who interpret Sacred Scripture and Church writing to attempt to persuade others that they’re they’re not doing it right when it comes to being in a Catholic marriage, or any marriage for that matter. It strikes me as incredibly arrogant.

It reminds me a lot of parenting forums. There are always a few who try to tell the others that they’re not parenting right. It rarely ends well.

I’m suspicious of people who try to stop discussion of important societal issues like marriage because they can’t be bothered making a case to contribute.

Ok. Lets talk important forum worthy things. What’s your favourite colour?

 

[Avocadomom]

The term itself signifies a state of war in marriage that was never recognised until recent times. Divine law doesn’t make allowances for it but neither does natural law. The permanence of marriage even back to ancient times, was seen to serve civilization and the business around procreation and the education of children. It begs a re thinking of how much we value permanent marriage for society again.

I think everyone on this thread values lasting marriages. But let us not conflate “lasting” with “healthy” - many people in the past stayed in horrific marital situations because it was so shameful to divorce, or because the woman did not have the status or earning power to be a single parent. I remember my grandmother telling me that, “She couldn’t have left if she wanted to.” Romanticizing the past can be dangerous.

Anyway, there is no “one size fits all” prescription for lasting marriage. The couple should adopt the paradigm that best suits their strengths and personalities. For me, that is an egalitarian relationship. For you, it might be a dominant/submissive one. Whatever leads to the most peace between the spouses is good.

 

[LongingSoul]

I think everyone on this thread values lasting marriages. But let us not conflate “lasting” with “healthy” - many people in the past stayed in horrific marital situations because it was so shameful to divorce, or because the woman did not have the status or earning power to be a single parent. I remember my grandmother telling me that, “She couldn’t have left if she wanted to.” Romanticizing the past can be dangerous.

Allowing for the limitations to divorce due to financial disparity in the old days, marriage as an institution serving society no longer influences the attitudes and consciences of a greater part of society now. It is seen as primarily a personal contract that should not be the business of society other than to legally protect them in divorce.

Anyway, there is no “one size fits all” prescription for lasting marriage. The couple should adopt the paradigm that best suits their strengths and personalities. For me, that is an egalitarian relationship. For you, it might be a dominant/submissive one. Whatever leads to the most peace between the spouses is good.

I haven’t discussed my marriage because my view here is more invested in the health of marriage for society. Yes, I am a believer in the idea of ‘staying together for the childrens sake’ and the need for an authority to lead in the way Christ leads the Church… but not because my marriage is happy or not… because of the overall affect of marriage for society.

 

[EasterJoy]

I think everyone on this thread values lasting marriages. But let us not conflate “lasting” with “healthy” - many people in the past stayed in horrific marital situations because it was so shameful to divorce, or because the woman did not have the status or earning power to be a single parent. I remember my grandmother telling me that, “She couldn’t have left if she wanted to.” Romanticizing the past can be dangerous.

Anyway, there is no “one size fits all” prescription for lasting marriage. The couple should adopt the paradigm that best suits their strengths and personalities. For me, that is an egalitarian relationship. For you, it might be a dominant/submissive one. Whatever leads to the most peace between the spouses is good.

I think the point of Ephesians 5 is that a husband had better realize he will be uniquely answerable before God for the decisions his family makes. His family does not belong to him, after all, but to the Lord. He had better not be found being the steward who, thinking his Master is long in coming, leads so as to please himself. That is not to say a wife will not have to answer before God for failing to exert her own influence to make her family a family that belongs to God, but to say that the husband does bear a particular burden in that regard. I do not know how you read the plain meaning of the Scriptures and get around that. If any fellow knows this and wants to rush forward and say, “I’m in charge in my family, Lord! I’m in charge!”, he’s either courageous in his willingness to self-sacrifice or extremely foolish.

How the actual decision-making is done, that may take a lot of forms, and does. There is nothing wrong with that. It is no one else’s business. Usually, if the couple can keep their counsels just between the two of them, and keep other busybodies out of it, then with a dose of charity they will come to a mutually-agreeable plan of action. If they are pleased and their family is run so as to please God, they will have done their duty.

 

[EasterJoy]

Allowing for the limitations to divorce due to financial disparity in the old days, marriage as an institution serving society no longer influences the attitudes and consciences of a greater part of society now. It is seen as primarily a personal contract that should not be the business of society other than to legally protect them in divorce.

Yes. Short of out-and-out objective abuse, society pretty much stands on the sidelines until the stuff needs to be split up and time with and responsibility for the children is allotted. There is little or no binding societal morality implied, and the bond can be dissolved unilaterally.

 

[severus68]

I’m suspicious of people who try to stop discussion of important societal issues like marriage because they can’t be bothered making a case to contribute.

Ok. Lets talk important forum worthy things. What’s your favourite colour?

I too can’t understand the need to insist that all wives must submit to their husbands.
Sarcasm does not help further your view.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

My point is that there ought not ever be a situation where one party “pulls rank.” Besides, you are right: in very good marriages, there is no sense of this “pull rank” business at all. If a council of two is well-matched and work in mutual charity and mutual self-sacrifice, they may not ever find themselves in a true deadlock. There is more of a sense that, “if we can’t decide, he gets stuck making the call” than any sense that the husband has some ultimate privilege to suit himself that his wife does not have. No! That is not the mind of Christ! If he gets stuck being the leader who must decide for the whole, he is stuck before God with making the decision that puts himself last and makes himself the slave of all, that puts his wife and children in the lifeboat before saving himself.

I totally get what you’re saying, and its actually quite beautiful. However, it would create a permanent stalemate in a secular marriage, at least one in which both partners are completely focused on each other.

He gets to decide, but he must be unselfish. He gives his wife as much as he can, and she lovingly accepts because he is acting as Christ (the unselfish leader) in the marriage. It’s his sacrifice.

My husband is generous to a fault. Getting his way or having anything for him makes him extremely uncomfortable. I very frequently put my foot down and say “No, we ate having your favorite food for dinner”, “No, we are spending this Sunday watching your football team and relaxing with your friends”, “No, we’ve spent a lot on stuff for the home, you need to use this extra money to get yourself ______” and “No, we will cut every corner and scrimp and save so that you can leave this job you hate”. By and large, he accepts it when I get firm on him doing something for himself. But of you told him that he had a divine responsibility to sacrifice for me, I don’t think he would ever buy himself so much as a soda again.

 

[Avocadomom]

I haven’t discussed my marriage because my view here is more invested in the health of marriage for society. Yes, I am a believer in the idea of ‘staying together for the childrens sake’ and the need for an authority to lead in the way Christ leads the Church… but not because my marriage is happy or not… because of the overall affect of marriage for society.

I also believe in staying together “for the children’s sake”, as long as the children are safe and not being subjected to anything that will seriously damage them. The breakup of families is tragic and harmful.

I too agree that a family needs an authority to lead the members toward holiness - I just think that for some families, that authority can be equally shared by the spouses.

 

[EasterJoy]

I also believe in staying together “for the children’s sake”, as long as the children are safe and not being subjected to anything that will seriously damage them. The breakup of families is tragic and harmful.

It is fine to use our duty towards our children to spur us to honor promises that we might otherwise betray. Whatever works, works. Having said that, the let us not imply that the responsibility to keep a marriage together is somehow put onto us by our children, or that harm is not done when a childless marriage breaks up. Honoring our wedding vows is our sacred duty, one we took on before our children were ever born, not some extra responsibility they put on us by blessing us with their presence.

We who make the vows of sacramental marriage are not just bound to refrain from divorce and remarriage. We are bound to stay together and live the common conjugal life for marriage’s sake and for the sake of the promises we made before God, unless infidelity or the threat of harm excuses us. We are no less bound just because we happen to be childless.

 

[Luna_Lovecraft]

I’m suspicious of people who try to stop discussion of important societal issues like marriage because they can’t be bothered making a case to contribute.

Ok. Lets talk important forum worthy things. What’s your favourite colour?

IMO, anonymous posters on an internet forum trying to come up with a treatise on how Catholic wives should behave in their marriages isn’t going to go anywhere for many, many reasons. It’s about a futile an endeavor as trying to anonymously tell people how to parent.

Anyone who’s serious about influencing Catholic marriages should volunteer for pre-cana, become active in a parish marriage ministry, become a leader at a Catholic marriage retreat, anything that’s going to bring them face-to-face with others. That’s the only way to affect meaningful changes. Here, it’s just words on a computer screen, and marriage deserves more than that.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

IMO, anonymous posters on an internet forum trying to come up with a treatise on how Catholic wives should behave in their marriages isn’t going to go anywhere for many, many reasons. It’s about a futile an endeavor as trying to anonymously tell people how to parent.

Anyone who’s serious about influencing Catholic marriages should volunteer for pre-cana, become active in a parish marriage ministry, become a leader at a Catholic marriage retreat, anything that’s going to bring them face-to-face with others. That’s the only way to affect meaningful changes. Here, it’s just words on a computer screen, and marriage deserves more than that.

If I walked into pre-cana and someone told me, “you’re the captain and she’s your first mate” or “you’re both in the army, you’re her superior” I would have walked right out and found a different parish to attend pre-cana in.

 

[HappyCatholic01]

IMO, anonymous posters on an internet forum trying to come up with a treatise on how Catholic wives should behave in their marriages isn’t going to go anywhere for many, many reasons. It’s about a futile an endeavor as trying to anonymously tell people how to parent.

Anyone who’s serious about influencing Catholic marriages should volunteer for pre-cana, become active in a parish marriage ministry, become a leader at a Catholic marriage retreat, anything that’s going to bring them face-to-face with others. That’s the only way to affect meaningful changes. Here, it’s just words on a computer screen, and marriage deserves more than that.

One could make that argument for every topic on this board.

Obviously, many people find the discussions helpful or worthwhile, as they come up a lot. In fact, parenting has its own sub forum.

 

[Xantippe]

As with government, a person who desires absolute power in marriage is very unlikely to be a person who can be trusted with absolute power. Absolute, unfettered power is only attractive to tyrants.

 

[EasterJoy]

If I walked into pre-cana and someone told me, “you’re the captain and she’s your first mate” or “you’re both in the army, you’re her superior” I would have walked right out and found a different parish to attend pre-cana in.

Well, it has to be kept in mind that Our Lord specifically rejected the world’s model of how authority is to be carried, and a husband is bound to lead as Christ leads. If you think that imitation of Christ makes you into a military leader, your reading of the Gospels was cursory, at best.

My sense of the Church’s position is this: The husband has the burden of being “the captain,” and seeing that the right course is followed. If the two of you get where God has tried to lead you, and in harmony, then at least your wife will have done well. If you have not, then as Christians you will both be subject to some questions, for the wife is a helpmate who submits, not a stupid animal in subjection. A husband cannot drag his wife to Heaven by the hair! If you get where God intends in spite of being a husband who wielded his leadership as they do in the world, however, then even if you get there without fighting, because your wife’s generosity made up for your self-centeredness and arrogance, you will be answerable for whether you have carried that leadership as Christ bid you to do it, or if you instead caused scandal by leading as if you had carte blanche to please yourself or by leaving all burden of leadership on your wife alone.

IOW, look at this not in terms of “what are my rights” but rather “what are my duties” and you will do well. The world does not understand how God intends authority to be wielded. Christ did not intend to have all authority abolished, but rather to radically re-make the whole concept of authority according to the model of the Trinity itself! This starts with the Church, His Body, but is also echoed in the domestic Church, which is a holy union modelled after Christ and His Church, for the edification of the world.

A lot of Christian men have a concept of their own authority that is not at all edifying, but which is scandalous, instead. It is no surprise that many Christian women rebel against this warped version of what God ordained. What is sad is that women, imagining that there is no authority save authority as it is known out in the world, reject all idea of authority in their marriage as arbitrary, unnecessary, or somehow demeaning. IMHO, those two mistakes, taken together, undermine the whole lesson and Christian witness about leadership that Christ intended sacramental marriage to teach.

 

[Luna_Lovecraft]

One could make that argument for every topic on this board.

Obviously, many people find the discussions helpful or worthwhile, as they come up a lot. In fact, parenting has its own sub forum.

I think, though, that there’s a big difference between asking for mundane advice like on getting a toddler to eat veggies or picking out a good used car, and trying to tell others how to live out their marriage vows.

Yes, one only has to look at all the flame wars that break out on parenting boards over everything from vaccinations to cloth vs. disposable diapers to see how tetchy people can get when strangers try to convince folks they’re doing it wrong…

 

[HappyCatholic01]

I think, though, that there’s a big difference between asking for mundane advice like on getting a toddler to eat veggies or picking out a good used car, and trying to tell others how to live out their marriage vows.

Yes, one only has to look at all the flame wars that break out on parenting boards over everything from vaccinations to cloth vs. disposable diapers to see how tetchy people can get when strangers try to convince folks they’re doing it wrong…

True, they can be very sensitive issues.

I would always try and say “this is what we do” or “this is what works for us” when discussing issues where the Church has left it to the individuals to address the best way to proceed (spanking is one that comes to mind).

That way, if a person gets offended, it is likely a matter of pride on the receivers part.

 

[yellow8yellowM]

…What remains is the question, “when one of us has to decide for both–since there must be a deciding vote in any council of two–who is given the burden of making the decision and who is given the burden of letting the other one make the decision?”

If you don’t have someone chosen to take each of those burdens before your councils begin, the specter of deadlock always hangs over you. If you do not look at being the one to make that decision as having a burden rather than a privilege, however, in which the greater degree of self-sacrifice falls on the person acting as the head, then you do not have authority as Christ intended it. Christian authority is not an authority of privilege. If that is what you have, you have missed the plainest sense of the message of the Gospels.

The New Testament apportions that burden to the husband and father in the home, like it or not. If there is not resentment “out of principle,” however, in practice this is not onerous on either spouse, because each helps the other and supports the other in decision-making. Where true charity reigns, after all, no one really bears his burden alone.

Thank you. This is the best post so far in my opinion. I think it sums the whole thing up.

 

[SecretCatholic]

Thank you for the MULIERIS DIGNITATEM text from JPII, severus68!

Although I don’t think that’s an infallible declaration, I do think it sheds light on the Church’s stance on this. This is more along the lines of what I was looking for, rather than personal arguments mostly out of emotion.

There’s no “perhaps.” It’s been abused so much that a man who shows excessive interest in wifely submission is very likely an abusive creep. It’s a huge red flag.

It seems that ANY thread about it is “excessive” by some standards. I find THAT to be a “red flag.”

(As to the “weaker sex,” I’d note that one doesn’t need to come up with elaborate spiritual theories on this, as women are on average physically smaller and weaker than men, as well as encumbered with the various physical handicaps that accompany the female side of human reproduction.)

I hope no one will try to disprove that men are, in general, physically stronger than women. Perhaps men should be ashamed at their superior physical strength and hide it away and refuse to even bring it up in a discussion, as if it somehow diminished women, though they also have their areas of superiority over men. It’s as if a total democracy of equality has taken over, where we must deny that men and women have different strengths and gasp! even different roles in marriage.

This idea that men should be dictators of their wives because of passages we are discussing is dangerously mistaken. But the idea that marriage roles should be anything less than equal in every way is so frightening and insulting in post-modern society that some refuse to discuss it at all! The reality is that no real marriage has total “equality” between spouses in roles. That has no bearing in the equal

I do not understand why the personal dynamic of anyone’s marriage but your own is of any concern. And I’m not just speaking to LongingSoul. Marriage is private, sacred, and deeply meaningful.

So is your soul. And yet, we encourage discussion on the soul and what is good- and not good- for the soul. Also, marriage is actually not “private.” It is a public declaration and institution that is more than the sum of the two people involved. At least, that is the Catholic conception of marriage.

To attempt to define the spousal roles for another couple strikes me as dangerous and arrogant.

So its dangerous and arrogant to attempt to describe what our moral behavior should be according to the Church and scriptures?

I’m really suspicious of the motives of online laypeople who interpret Sacred Scripture and Church writing to attempt to persuade others that they’re they’re not doing it right when it comes to being in a Catholic marriage, or any marriage for that matter. It strikes me as incredibly arrogant.

IMO, anonymous posters on an internet forum trying to come up with a treatise on how Catholic wives should behave in their marriages isn’t going to go anywhere for many, many reasons. It’s about a futile an endeavor as trying to anonymously tell people how to parent.

So this thread is suspicious and futile? You are free to contribute or not. I can certainly see its controversial, but finding the truth usually is. I see no reason to avoid discussion because of that!

As with government, a person who desires absolute power in marriage is very unlikely to be a person who can be trusted with absolute power. Absolute, unfettered power is only attractive to tyrants.

I agree with this statement 100% and I don’t think this is what the Church calls for AT ALL.