Practical ways that a wife should be submissive to her husband

[LongingSoul]

RicoS said:

“Submission is the act of yielding to another’s authority or will. “Laying ones life down” is simply a sacrifice…it doesn’t necessarily mean yielding to another’s will. Not really close to the same thing IMO.”

I think the relationship between the two is that “submission” is a subset or a variety of “laying one’s life down.” Submission is a kind of laying down one’s life–there can’t be submission without sacrifice.

They are complimentary acts of love but not of the same nature or interchangeable. No one else could have died on the Cross and saved us because only Jesus was the Son who could effect that. He was submitting to the Father for the sake of His people whereas we submit to Him for the sake of God. The words indicate an hierarchy in themselves.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Submission is the act of yielding to another’s authority or will. “Laying ones life down” is simply a sacrifice…it doesn’t necessarily mean yielding to another’s will. Not really close to the same thing IMO.

But from what I have read in this thread, the “catholic” definitions of submission, head, etc seem to have evolved to a point as to have little resemblance to the actual words definitions. Which is sort of funny since the biblical translations still use those words. One would think that if the intention of the verse wasn’t “submission” as defined by the English language, then “submission” shouldn’t be used.

The Greek word used in the Bible for “submit” is “hupotassomai”. It’s a military term, originally, meaning “to arrange oneself underneath”. The fact that it is usually put in the middle voice means that it is something you choose for yourself, not something that is chosen for you. This is an EXTREMELY important point.

Husbands are **not **told to make their wives submit to them, in the Scriptures. That is false teaching.

Husbands and wives are told to submit to each other, in Scripture, when all Christians are told to “submit to one another out of love”.

But wives are specifically instructed to submit to their husbands. There must be a reason Paul emphasizes this case. I won’t speculate what that reason might be, but it probably has something to do with the natural tendencies of the sexes.

But back to the key point here: Paul is telling women to freely choose to place themselves under their husband’s authority. He is not saying that a man can boss his wife around, or that decisions should be made by the man. He is saying that something beautiful and godly will happen when a woman chooses to follow her husband, instead of trying to lead him. (Of course, there’s a paradox, because if the husband is submitting too, the husband and wife will both be seeking the **other’s **good, and not their own.)

 

[CB_Catholic]

The Greek word used in the Bible for “submit” is “hupotassomai”. It’s a military term, originally, meaning “to arrange oneself underneath”. The fact that it is usually put in the middle voice means that it is something you choose for yourself, not something that is chosen for you. This is an EXTREMELY important point.

Husbands are **not **told to make their wives submit to them, in the Scriptures. That is false teaching.

Husbands and wives are told to submit to each other, in Scripture, when all Christians are told to “submit to one another out of love”.

But wives are specifically instructed to submit to their husbands. There must be a reason Paul emphasizes this case. I won’t speculate what that reason might be, but it probably has something to do with the natural tendencies of the sexes.

But back to the key point here: Paul is telling women to freely choose to place themselves under their husband’s authority. He is not saying that a man can boss his wife around, or that decisions should be made by the man. He is saying that something beautiful and godly will happen when a woman chooses to follow her husband, instead of trying to lead him. (Of course, there’s a paradox, because if the husband is submitting too, the husband and wife will both be seeking the **other’s **good, and not their own.)

Well, I will relate something that happened in my marriage. My husband was making a bad decision, and I, after un successfully trying to convince him otherwise, decided to submit to the decision because of reading this scripture passage and hearing Christians interpreting it as wives should submit, even if the husband was wrong. The result was near-bankruptcy for us, and years of unnecessary struggling. I will never again allow my husband to make such a bad decision for “Biblical” reasons. This literal interpretation nearly destroyed our marriage, and to all you who say a woman should submit even if it is a bad decision–you are dead wrong. God gave women brains and common sense, too, and they should be respected as much as a man’s. I learned that God expects me to use them and not give in when something is clearly wrong, even if it is not immoral, but just plain wrong and foolish. I will never do that again.
Amen.

 

[LongingSoul]

Well, I will relate something that happened in my marriage. My husband was making a bad decision, and I, after un successfully trying to convince him otherwise, decided to submit to the decision because of reading this scripture passage and hearing Christians interpreting it as wives should submit, even if the husband was wrong. The result was near-bankruptcy for us, and years of unnecessary struggling. I will never again allow my husband to make such a bad decision for “Biblical” reasons. This literal interpretation nearly destroyed our marriage, and to all you who say a woman should submit even if it is a bad decision–you are dead wrong. God gave women brains and common sense, too, and they should be respected as much as a man’s. I learned that God expects me to use them and not give in when something is clearly wrong, even if it is not immoral, but just plain wrong and foolish. I will never do that again.
Amen.

The thing is that if you cook an omelette with a rotten egg, that is not a sign that omelettes are disgusting.

 

[Xantippe]

CB Catholic said:

“My husband was making a bad decision, and I, after un successfully trying to convince him otherwise, decided to submit to the decision because of reading this scripture passage and hearing Christians interpreting it as wives should submit, even if the husband was wrong. The result was near-bankruptcy for us, and years of unnecessary struggling. I will never again allow my husband to make such a bad decision for “Biblical” reasons. This literal interpretation nearly destroyed our marriage, and to all you who say a woman should submit even if it is a bad decision–you are dead wrong. God gave women brains and common sense, too, and they should be respected as much as a man’s. I learned that God expects me to use them and not give in when something is clearly wrong, even if it is not immoral, but just plain wrong and foolish. I will never do that again.”

I listen to a lot of Dave Ramsey (the radio personal finance guy), and that situation comes up over and over again–the financially out-of-control spouse. When that spouse is the husband and the couple has a strong “headship” model and there is no family model of requiring agreement for major decisions, disaster looms. (In an emergency, of course major decisions will need to be made without prolonged discussion.)

There have to be reasonable parameters for when a wife needs to put her food down and say, “No, honey. I’m not going along with that. It’s going to harm our family and I cannot participate in this.” Both husband and wife need to have a clear idea of where husbandly authority stops. (And every form of earthly authority does have limits–we have to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.)

I was thinking of a less dire (but still serious) example from a book on how to be successfully married to an Asperger (i.e. mildly autistic) spouse (the book is entitled “Alone Together: Making an Asperger Marriage Work”). Anyway, one of the more memorable episodes in there involves the Swiss author and her Australian husband’s flight back to Australia after getting married in Switzerland after a whirlwind romance. They have a long layover in Jakarta.

“After a while I desperately needed to go to the toilet. I went to the rest room and discovered that I needed change to get in. Gavin was carrying all the cash, so I went back and asked for some money. He refused to give me any! ‘Wait until we get on the plane,’ he said. ‘I can’t,’ was my answer. ‘If I have to wait for another four hours I’ll wet myself.’”

Fortunately, she was able to prevail on her new husband to give her toilet money, but this was the beginning of what would prove to be a very, very difficult marriage for quite a number of years.

The problem is, it’s no good coming up with a model of marriage that works only for marriages where the husband is invariably sensible, prudent and kind. A universal model for marriage has to also work for situations where the husband is imprudent, selfish, mentally impaired in some way, impulsive, or prone to getting sucked into get-rich-quick schemes.

 

[Xantippe]

LongingSoul said:

“The thing is that if you cook an omelette with a rotten egg, that is not a sign that omelettes are disgusting”

So, we agree that there are some circumstances where wives should not submit. Right?

I think that’s a very important caveat to this discussion–there are always limitations to obedience to legitimate authority.

It’s a good idea to figure out what exactly those limitations are.

 

[LongingSoul]

LongingSoul said:

“The thing is that if you cook an omelette with a rotten egg, that is not a sign that omelettes are disgusting”

So, we agree that there are some circumstances where wives should not submit. Right?

I think that’s a very important caveat to this discussion–there are always limitations to obedience to legitimate authority.

It’s a good idea to figure out what exactly those limitations are.

You seem to keep thinking of husbands and wives in a childish sort of way. A wife is not like a child submitting to her daddy. These are two adult people taking a role. Husband and wife are serious vocations. The husband himself is not ‘the rotten egg’ in my analogy. His bad decision is. The husband and wife are adults who discuss and discern together as the equal adults they are, without having to bury the natural dynamic altogether.

As I’ve said lots of times before, the marital hierarchy is perfectly and wonderfully natural in the first place. It’s natures way… not for deciding the day to day of family life, but for the big picture.

When we stop recognising and conforming to the natural and divine models of men and women… it will show up in things like women being drafted to war with equal obligation to men and other highly important things where vocations matter.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Well, I will relate something that happened in my marriage. My husband was making a bad decision, and I, after un successfully trying to convince him otherwise, decided to submit to the decision because of reading this scripture passage and hearing Christians interpreting it as wives should submit, even if the husband was wrong. The result was near-bankruptcy for us, and years of unnecessary struggling. I will never again allow my husband to make such a bad decision for “Biblical” reasons. This literal interpretation nearly destroyed our marriage, and to all you who say a woman should submit even if it is a bad decision–you are dead wrong. God gave women brains and common sense, too, and they should be respected as much as a man’s. I learned that God expects me to use them and not give in when something is clearly wrong, even if it is not immoral, but just plain wrong and foolish. I will never do that again.
Amen.

I don’t understand what your comments have to do with mine. I specifically said that Paul “is not saying that a man can boss his wife around, or that decisions should be made by the man.” The people who were telling you that you should just roll over and let your husband make the decision were not interpreting Scripture properly.

To be more specific, if a husband is proposing to do something immoral – and bankrupting a family is immoral! – then the wife would be wrong to allow him to do this thing. By opposing him she is submitting to him, because she is placing his best interests first.

But take another case. Suppose a husband wants to spend time playing soccer after work, and his wife knows that soccer is a good break for him, but she really wanted to have him home so they could spend some quality time together. The wife thinks that soccer would be better for him, but that quality time would be better for her. In this case, a wife who submits would freely choose to let him play soccer.

In contrast, if the husband were acting rightly in this situation, he would choose to go home and spend quality time with his wife.

You see, submission is mutual. And submission does not involve allowing for immoral activity. But a marriage without submission is not a Christian marriage.

 

[Xantippe]

Prodigal Son said:

“By opposing him she is submitting to him, because she is placing his best interests first.”

Now we’re getting someplace.

LongingSoul said:

“You seem to keep thinking of husbands and wives in a childish sort of way. A wife is not like a child submitting to her daddy. These are two adult people taking a role. Husband and wife are serious vocations. The husband himself is not ‘the rotten egg’ in my analogy. His bad decision is. The husband and wife are adults who discuss and discern together as the equal adults they are, without having to bury the natural dynamic altogether. As I’ve said lots of times before, the marital hierarchy is perfectly and wonderfully natural in the first place. It’s natures way… not for deciding the day to day of family life, but for the big picture.”

When submission/headship is abused or misunderstood, it can be childish, unedifying, destructive, abusive and/or toxic, as for instance in CBCatholic’s story of her family’s near bankruptcy.

It is very important to acknowledge that in any discussion of submission and headship, and I’m very happy to see some consensus forming around that.

(Another marital anecdote: My mother’s best friend’s husband at some point stopped paying their property taxes, stopped contributing to family expenses, and started building a collection of motorcycles and other toys. They divorced, of course.)

 

[CB_Catholic]

I don’t understand what your comments have to do with mine. I specifically said that Paul “is not saying that a man can boss his wife around, or that decisions should be made by the man.” The people who were telling you that you should just roll over and let your husband make the decision were not interpreting Scripture properly.

To be more specific, if a husband is proposing to do something immoral – and bankrupting a family is immoral! – then the wife would be wrong to allow him to do this thing. By opposing him she is submitting to him, because she is placing his best interests first.

But take another case. Suppose a husband wants to spend time playing soccer after work, and his wife knows that soccer is a good break for him, but she really wanted to have him home so they could spend some quality time together. The wife thinks that soccer would be better for him, but that quality time would be better for her. In this case, a wife who submits would freely choose to let him play soccer.

In contrast, if the husband were acting rightly in this situation, he would choose to go home and spend quality time with his wife.

You see, submission is mutual. And submission does not involve allowing for immoral activity. But a marriage without submission is not a Christian marriage.

I was commenting because I thought you made sense in realizing that it is not always prudent for women to submit, even if someone is wrong (as someone stated), and giving an example of what can happen when one takes such a literal approach, as I did all those years ago. I was not criticizing your post.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I was commenting because I thought you made sense in realizing that it is not always prudent for women to submit, even if someone is wrong (as someone stated), and giving an example of what can happen when one takes such a literal approach, as I did all those years ago. I was not criticizing your post.

Ooops! My bad.

 

[LongingSoul]

Prodigal Son said:

“By opposing him she is submitting to him, because she is placing his best interests first.”

Now we’re getting someplace.

LongingSoul said:

“You seem to keep thinking of husbands and wives in a childish sort of way. A wife is not like a child submitting to her daddy. These are two adult people taking a role. Husband and wife are serious vocations. The husband himself is not ‘the rotten egg’ in my analogy. His bad decision is. The husband and wife are adults who discuss and discern together as the equal adults they are, without having to bury the natural dynamic altogether. As I’ve said lots of times before, the marital hierarchy is perfectly and wonderfully natural in the first place. It’s natures way… not for deciding the day to day of family life, but for the big picture.”

When submission/headship is abused or misunderstood, it can be childish, unedifying, destructive, abusive and/or toxic, as for instance in CBCatholic’s story of her family’s near bankruptcy.

It is very important to acknowledge that in any discussion of submission and headship, and I’m very happy to see some consensus forming around that.

(Another marital anecdote: My mother’s best friend’s husband at some point stopped paying their property taxes, stopped contributing to family expenses, and started building a collection of motorcycles and other toys. They divorced, of course.)

But isn’t what you are saying the given due to basic common sense? A boss is entitled to higher pay than his employees but if he defrauds them of their wages it doesn’t mean that he is not entitled to set the pay rates… it means he is not entitled to defraud them.

A parent has an obligation to discipline their child but if they violently abuse them that doesn’t mean that they aren’t entitled to discipline thier children… it means they aren’t entitled to abuse them.

The natural hierarchy is not the problem… it is the abuse of position that is the problem.

 

[severus68]

What did I write that is untrue?

I made it clear that this hypothetical couple would never be a headship, wifely submission and it was clearly not true of this couple to say their actions were contrary to this.

 

[Rico_S]

The Greek word used in the Bible for “submit” is “hupotassomai”. It’s a military term, originally, meaning “to arrange oneself underneath”. The fact that it is usually put in the middle voice means that it is something you choose for yourself, not something that is chosen for you. This is an EXTREMELY important point.

Husbands are **not **told to make their wives submit to them, in the Scriptures. That is false teaching.

Well, you are clearly more learned than I, but really, I am not sure that it is “extremely” important. There is nothing about modern/current understanding or common definition of submission that requires it be forced. To yield to anothers will or authority seems to imply a choice to me. So imho, it really isn’t an important distinction to make, or a distinction that dramatically changes the understanding of “submit” as used here.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Well, you are clearly more learned than I, but really, I am not sure that it is “extremely” important. There is nothing about modern/current understanding or common definition of submission that requires it be forced. To yield to anothers will or authority seems to imply a choice to me. So imho, it really isn’t an important distinction to make, or a distinction that dramatically changes the understanding of “submit” as used here.

I suppose. But lots of men who believe in wifely submission act like their wives must obey them – and that is not biblical, so far as I know. The Bible teaches that the wife should freely submit, and does not mention any “recourse” a man might have if his wife doesn’t submit.

 

[Rico_S]

RicoS said:

“Submission is the act of yielding to another’s authority or will. “Laying ones life down” is simply a sacrifice…it doesn’t necessarily mean yielding to another’s will. Not really close to the same thing IMO.”

I think the relationship between the two is that “submission” is a subset or a variety of “laying one’s life down.” Submission is a kind of laying down one’s life–there can’t be submission without sacrifice.

I agree to a point…Submission is a type of sacrifice…a sacrifice of one’s own will. But just b/c submission requires sacrifice, and laying down ones life is a sacrifice, doesn’t mean that the 2 are synonymous. . It really feels like word games to me…trying to de-emphasize the “submit” part.

 

[Starrsmother]

I read part of this to my husband and (after he laughed) he said that we are a perfect example of a marriage where the husband has “headship” and the wife submits. I made all the insignificant decisions like where our kids went to school, where we went on vacation and what house we bought. However he made all the really big, significant decisions such as whether we dropped a nuclear bomb on Russia or whether we wore coats outside when it snowed! I told him that the wearing of coats in winter really needs to become a joint decision but I certainly will continue to defer and submit to him on Russia.

 

[Xantippe]

LongingSoul said:

“But isn’t what you are saying the given due to basic common sense? A boss is entitled to higher pay than his employees but if he defrauds them of their wages it doesn’t mean that he is not entitled to set the pay rates… it means he is not entitled to defraud them.
A parent has an obligation to discipline their child but if they violently abuse them that doesn’t mean that they aren’t entitled to discipline thier children… it means they aren’t entitled to abuse them.The natural hierarchy is not the problem… it is the abuse of position that is the problem.”

Bear in mind that an employee can just leave an abusive employer and a child can generally just grow up and leave, but that marriage is a lifelong relationship and that the wife (especially an SAHM) is often economically dependent on the husband. Hence, I don’t think that the relationships are quite analogous and I think that it is very important for the husband to be especially scrupulous about not abusing his position. The husband of a SAHM has so much economic power over his wife that adding a quasi-fundamentalist view of Biblical headship to the picture is really gilding the lily.

There is some much abuse (literal abuse, unfortunately) in this area that it really cannot be left to “basic common sense.” I believe we have to say explicitly that a wife is not required to cooperate in her husband’s immoral, imprudent or otherwise destructive activities.

 

[Bookcat]

It is good to note that there is the truth on the level of the truth, the teaching itself.

“the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church”

~ Ephesians 5:23 RSVCE

(and what that teaching does* not* mean…)

*And then there is the contingent practical ways that can vary in living according to that truth in the various different circumstances and cultures and persons. *

These ways can often vary greatly as the cultures etc vary. (In this “kind of teaching” -not in say do not murder…etc there are teachings that do not admit of such contingent aspects and differing legit ways of living them out).

Often the discussion of -the debating of this teaching - can circle around the “contingent details” of one family or place or culture that (can often) differ from one another.

The truth of the teaching (in its authentic meaning as taught by Sacred Scripture and the Church) is one thing - the legit differing application in various ways in various families, cultures etc is another (and there can even be exceptions to this particular teaching in practice -say where the husband is not able to fulfill his role here or there etc).

Lets keep this in mind in discussing these things.

Endless going into various possible examples…are likely going to be rather contingent on a particular couple and place and time etc *(though one of course think of examples where this or that was *not *a proper way to live this).

 

[Rico_S]

By opposing him she is submitting to him, because she is placing his best interests first.

Surely you can see how this might confuse someone…or that people may find this nonsensical. I mean, when one opposes his/her spouse, whatever the reason, is it not b/c he/she thinks that her decision is in the best interests of the family? Sure, we can bring in ridiculous examples of selfishness, but in the typical family dymanic where there is disagreement…I would say it is normal that both think their way is in the best interest of the other spouse and family in general. Then what? Where does that leave us?