Wife won't let husband be spritual leader of house?

[LongingSoul]

In a way I feel blessed to have come from a family where long happy marriages are the norm for a very long time. We have defied the modern statistics and blown them out of the ball park. Please God that continues with the next generation who are on the verge of entering that phase of life.

I think that my experience makes me less fearful of the idea of the husbands role as head of the home and ‘spiritual’ leadership. I put ‘spiritual’ in quotes because I don’t tend to think of that being solely related to religious or moral leadership since for some reason many of us women in the family have married non religious men who converted to Catholicism after marriage. Clearly the women in those situations have taken some lead.

To me ‘spiritual’ leadership is related more to the experience of maleness and femaleness ‘father/mother’ and these experiences aren’t strictly the domain of religion yet they are spiritual. It’s marked by a confident sense of what each of us is responsible for and when we are helping each other, having a clear sense of being ‘helpmate’. One of the families in our circle lost husband and father when the boys were young. Mum was left to do all the parenting herself but you could say she didn’t become father to the boys or didn’t take over the role of fatherhood for the boys… however in her role as ‘helpmate’ she picked up the slack and they are fine young men now.

An overwhelming number of people who come for marriage counselling are in already ‘equal’ relationships. The wife in lots of cases works and earns as much as the husband etc. There is a sense of independence in their togetherness. Most marital problems relate not to that sort of disparity but too unmet needs as a man or a woman. Couples often think that achieving equality is the ultimate goal of happy marriage but it isn’t. Men and women have different needs in order to experience themselves as a loved man or a loved woman. Realising that fact in the face of a hopeless relationship is enlightening. That is where the thought of service in marriage based on a model that esteems complimentarity over generic equality, makes more sense and brings far more fullness.

 

[Walking_Home]

petitfleur:

There are people OBSESSED with this topic and write entire blogs on the subject. when I read them I realize these people are really sick and twisted and manipulative and submission is the least of their problems.

:clapping:

---

I second the – :clapping:

 

[Xantippe]

There are people OBSESSED with this topic and write entire blogs on the subject. when I read them I realize these people are really sick and twisted and manipulative and submission is the least of their problems.

Yes.

patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2014/11/quoting-quiverfull-treating-disrespect-with-more-disrespect-is-biblical/

There are a thousand roads to hell via preoccupation with submission.

 

[Xantippe]

Xantippe used the excuse that women are weak, and so we shouldn’t tell women to submit to the husbands authority because then they’ll just be unhappy until they throw out the baby with the bath water and get mad. Not only do you want men who are unwilling to even speak about those differences, but you want husbands who don’t even understand them for your children in marriage.

I’ll give another example.

I was talking to my husband about this thread, and we realized that we had had a huge misunderstanding about submission for many years.

For my part, I had not infrequently done what I thought of as submitting, but I wasn’t saying, “I’m submitting to you right now” when I did so. (Not 100% of the time, but not infrequently, either.) But then if there was some huge important issue where I thought my husband was deeply mistaken and was in danger of harming our family, I would not back down.

However, this looked very different to my husband. My submission to him was invisible to him. What he noticed was the occasions where I did not accept his authority, even when he said, “I am saying this as your husband,” or some similar verbiage (which he’s probably done maybe half a dozen or a dozen times since we’ve been married). He was saddened by the fact that he had something like a 0% success rate when invoking those (to him) magic words.

So, here’s where the misunderstanding lay. My husband believed that we were normally on a very equal equal footing, and that if he asked me to do something, that I was free to say yes or no, and I was free to do the same with him. (Meanwhile, I did not see us as being on an equal footing, so that when my husband asked me to do things for him, I saw it as him selfishly abusing his authority for his own comfort.) He saw there as being a diction between normal times, when we’d be on an equal footing and it would be OK for me to say no, versus the times when he said, “I’m saying this as your husband,” when he thought I ought to submit (but as it happened, I never did). This was news to me. I thought that my (theoretically) my default ought to be to submit to him, and that not doing so should require special reasons, and therefore I thought I’d been frequently submitting all along, but of course I felt quite free to put on the brakes when I felt that his ideas were morally wrong or harmful to the family. (We have general agreement on morals, but it can be tricky to figure out how to apply them to particular situations.)

So, in a sort of O’Henry Gift of the Magi situation, it turned out that I had used up the submission that I had available on what he would have deemed fairly trivial things, whereas he didn’t get submission from me on the things that were actually important to him.
So, I could have argued with him more about minor things without him minding, but what he really wanted is (truth be told) something that I probably can’t give. I can’t do stuff that I think is morally wrong or harmful to the family, no matter how earnestly I am asked to do so.

So, I would really entreat people who are into wifely submission as a model to think and talk hard about this before doing it, because there are so many ways for it to cause misunderstandings and damage to relationships, as well as to the wife’s conscience.

Now, people may say, but you should have communicated! But I think that’s exactly the problem with submission in practice–it encourages the wife to stop communicating and to just smother and squelch her thoughts and feelings and put on a sweet, obedient smile while doing stuff that she does not agree with and that may violate her conscience. It can be like planting a ticking time bomb in your marriage.

 

[Loyalowl]

I see many personal opinions on this issue through these threads. The Holy Spirit has spoken right through the Bible on this issue. Living the way He wants by choosing to live only as His wisdom has spoken or conveniently choosing to interpret and live as we find comfortable can often be the difference between a grace filled holy life (yet filled with suffering and purification ) and a mediocre average christian life of self justification . Living scripture wasn’t easy in Jesus’s time when many disciples left him since they found it repulsive and against their idea, nature and convenience, nor is it now. Yet Jesus didn’t tweak the scripture that they might not leave him. His standards and wisdom aren’t going to be any different for our age either. I guess living what He has said on this issue might have prevented many a divorce and also produced many a saint who while being purified by the suffering of living these scriptures, conquers the other spouse through love, forbearance and gentleness.

 

[LightBound]

I see many personal opinions on this issue through these threads. The Holy Spirit has spoken right through the Bible on this issue. Living the way He wants by choosing to live only as His wisdom has spoken or conveniently choosing to interpret and live as we find comfortable can often be the difference between a grace filled holy life (yet filled with suffering and purification ) and a mediocre average christian life of self justification . Living scripture wasn’t easy in Jesus’s time when many disciples left him since they found it repulsive and against their idea, nature and convenience, nor is it now. Yet Jesus didn’t tweak the scripture that they might not leave him. His standards and wisdom aren’t going to be any different for our age either. I guess living what He has said on this issue might have prevented many a divorce and also produced many a saint who while being purified by the suffering of living these scriptures, conquers the other spouse through love, forbearance and gentleness.

And the Holy Spirit has also given us a Magisterium and a Pope that interpret Scriptures for us, taking into consideration the time and culture at which the author of a particular verse or chapter lived and experienced. Otherwise, we’d still be proclaiming slavery as appropriate and Godly, since St Paul gave instructions on slaves and masters, as they were part of the common culture of his day.

St John Paul ll wrote on mutual submission and the Pontifical Council for the Family address the issue of equal rights in the marriage. You can find this on the Vatican’s official website. As far as “suffering”, no one, man or woman, needs to stay in an abusive marriage: usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/domestic-violence/

 

[Bannan]

Xantippe. You misunderstood all along what wifely submission was supposed to be about, and I think you throwing that ideology out the window is awesome. Praise be to God!

But don’t go from one extreme to the opposite. By what you’ve said I can see you still acknowledge that he has a distinct role from yours in the context of your marriage, still has an authority, and that’s exactly what I was striving for you all to believe when I first started communicating on this thread.

 

[LongingSoul]

Originally Posted by sailor28 View Post

Of course not, mutual submission is important in marriage.

Yes - since mutual submission is the teaching of the Church.

The particular lines in the relevant passage at issue are these…

Eph 22:23-24 “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

So while some are happy to endorse the teaching to ‘submit to one another’… it is the rest of the passage that they want to disregard as dated and past relevance.

I believe that it is possible to contemplate the whole passage in the light of the times without considering it dangerous or making one word defunct. I do think that it is less scary for Catholics because of the place the Church holds in the economy of Christ. The Church is a living organism… the chosen bride … the lover who submits to the gift Christ gives in love for the children born in baptism.

In the other Christian Churchs the concept of Church is more organisation that organism and the idea of a loving communion between the Church, alive in the Holy Spirit, and Christ as Bride and Bridegroom is pretty heretical. Hence other Churchs do not require the same kind of submission to their human hierarchy as we do to the Papacy.

When you consider the practical organic purpose of the Church ie. the propagation of faith and the practical organic purpose of marriage ie. propagation of the species… there can be no other alternative model to that of female submission. It’s nature. That dynamic can not be changed and still result in life.

So I don’t buy into wifely submission as a created dynamic between husband and wife that has to discuss specific scenarios… I just see it as a model or blueprint that shapes the regard that each spouse has for the other as a male or female in accordance with the God given nature of each in the propagation of life.
[/QUOTE]

 

[Bannan]

You can find this on the Vatican’s official website.

You’ve peaked my interest LightBound, and I wanted so badly to fade back out of this thread!!

When I finish reading what JPII said, i’ll come back and share what I find. May take a while, JPII was a really smart guy and with the holidays I’m short on time.

 

[LongingSoul]

You’ve peaked my interest LightBound, and I wanted so badly to fade back out of this thread!!

When I finish reading what JPII said, i’ll come back and share what I find. May take a while, JPII was a really smart guy and with the holidays I’m short on time.

To get a fuller perspective of Pope StJPIIs view of Ephesians 5 you can go to Theology of the Body. Speechs 87 to 103 deal with it extensively.

ewtn.com.au/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TBIND.HTM

 

[Xantippe]

The particular lines in the relevant passage at issue are these…

Eph 22:23-24 “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

So while some are happy to endorse the teaching to ‘submit to one another’… it is the rest of the passage that they want to disregard as dated and past relevance.

Then we get to Ephesians 5:25-33.

“25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

I’ll get to Ephesians 5:25 in a moment, but let’s take a quick look at 32-33. It’s very interesting that after the soaring theology of the previous versus, St. Paul swoops back down to earth with “32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” It’s suddenly much more prosaic and the part about “but I am talking about Christ and the Church” strongly suggests that St. Paul is (as he explicitly says) primarily concerned in this passage with telling us something about Christ. Also, “each of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” is, while demanding, not inhumane, particularly not the respect half.

I can’t help but notice that “each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself” tends to be an orphan verse in submission discussions. People want wives to submit more and more and more and more (and there’s no end to what is asked of women), but the need to love a wife and to care for her as if she were yourself, and to give up your life for your wife is a considerably less popular topic. When it is talked about (particularly in certain Protestant circles), one often gets the impression that lording it over a wife is pretty much all that is necessary in order to fulfill that verse, which is unpleasant, as well as self-serving.

Also, think just how creepy it would be if a wife were to tell her husband, “I’d like you to lay down your life for me. Home Depot has a sale on floor tile. I’d like you to retile the kitchen this weekend. Next weekend, I’d like you to lay down your life for me by refinishing the hardwood floors.” Wouldn’t that be a disgusting and selfish thing to say? And yet, I think a lot of people on this thread would give a husband a free pass for doing the equivalent thing with submission. I personally think St. Paul would be appalled to see people using Ephesians 5 to demand their “rights” from their spouses.

 

[Bannan]

I think the 89th general audience most directly touched on what we are talking about concerning Ephesians 5.

Xantippe, you drive me nuts!! Don’t you realize that by fighting so hard against a husbands role as head, you make the conversation revolve around exactly that topic permanently? It’s not my goal to only talk about wifely submission. I’d love to be done with it! But you keep saying that we should ignore entirely any commentary on wifely submission because its not important enough to be mentioned. You think it causes more damage than good. It shouldn’t warrant any focus in today’s age, at all, and all men ever do is demand submission. Anyone who talks about wifely submission does a dis-service to all women at large, is a misogynist, and causes all women to believe they’ve no right to speak in public, or in private for that matter. Women are so weak, they even believe it!

It’s an over-exaggeration of your small world, at best. I don’t know of any man besides our original poster, this entire year, that was (foolishly) demanding the submission (domination) of his wife. So far, the only woman that’s provided any example of mis-understanding what wifely submission even meant was yourself, and that lady married to a calvinist who decided to blog about it.

I think it still deserves to be understood just as well as the husbands love for the wife understood. We should understand them well enough to teach them to our children, even. Marriage is one of the most important, foundational, and sacred undertakings any person could even hope to perform this side of heaven. Marriage, properly understood, contrasts our culture so violently that Satan has attacked that relentlessly, focusing on it for eons.

You really just want to skim over the differences between male and female in the sacrament of marriage? You think we should end at mutual submission, and teach no further? How strong are you hoping your children’s marriages are going to be, and what world are you shaping for them to even be married in.

 

[petitfleur]

Sailor28 - on page 7, post #104 I provided an example of how I perceived my headship coming into play in my own personal marriage within the last week. I think agapewolf, #163 provided another good example of a husbands leadership role. I can speak to some more personal examples if you want those, or maybe we just need more dialog? I’m not sure, you pick

Walking_Home, mutual submission is never something to be ignored, but its also risky to ignore how the man and woman are supposed to submit to each other.

petitfleur,
Oh I know you took the time personally out of your busy day to give me the “huge side eye”. You also do this to the OP, if you haven’t realized it you should. You have judged me because of what you’ve read on this forum. You think I’m some misogynist pig by what you’ve read. You’re reading this in the context of an extreme background of femenism. Everything I type looks this way because it is in deep contrast to these femenist attitudes.

Earlier in the thread, most of these women were saying that the man and woman were entirely equal in all areas. Some even were speaking about how the husband had no authority at all and the wife was the spiritual leader. Mutual submission was being touted as an excuse to undermine the husbands leadership in it’s entirety, as if it didn’t exist at all. Now, I don’t see that being so actively voiced, and I believe it’s because I was willing to play the part of the “misogynist” man in your eyes.

I know what I sound like when I talk to a bunch of women about being a husband who is a spiritual leader, and I don’t care what you think about me personally. My goal is not to say that I’m a strong man, or a good leader, or even talk about my successes or shortcomings in raising my children. I don’t even want to defend myself. My goal is to not let you women conveniently forget your husbands authority merely because you “feel” there isn’t anything special about it.

Most of you are willing to say that mutual submission is what’s important in your marriages, as if that’s the only line we should pay attention to. As if we should read up to Eph 5:21 and no further. As if the difference between a husband and wife shouldn’t be emphasized because any deeper understanding of this will run the risk of causing more damage than good. Xantippe used the excuse that women are weak, and so we shouldn’t tell women to submit to the husbands authority because then they’ll just be unhappy until they throw out the baby with the bath water and get mad. Not only do you want men who are unwilling to even speak about those differences, but you want husbands who don’t even understand them for your children in marriage.

All the while you women try to convince me you are strong, intelligent, wise. It’s a self defeating argument. Either you women clearly have the capacity to understand the nuances of how God made us and yet still be happy, or you are too weak and us men should never talk to you about them because you are incapable of carrying the truth. We both know which one is true, and so here I am.

Well, the whole men are more rational argument just got blown out of the water.

I would appreciate you not putting words in my mouth I did not say, and assuming things I did not mean. Your last paragraph makes no sense. I do not know which one is true.
BTW if you believe men and women have equal rights you are a feminist. There is nothing extreme about that.

 

[Bannan]

Also, think just how creepy it would be if a wife were to tell her husband, “I’d like you to lay down your life for me. Home Depot has a sale on floor tile. I’d like you to retile the kitchen this weekend. Next weekend, I’d like you to lay down your life for me by refinishing the hardwood floors.” Wouldn’t that be a disgusting and selfish thing to say? And yet, I think a lot of people on this thread would give a husband a free pass for doing the equivalent thing with submission. I personally think St. Paul would be appalled to see people using Ephesians 5 to demand their “rights” from their spouses.

So far I think I’ve been pretty outnumbered. Most people on this thread give their husbands no such free pass, quite the opposite in fact. I don’t personally know of any women that will willing give a free pass anytime their husband demands something form them they didn’t already want for themselves. You blame all males for your perception that women are weak and are mistreated all the time, but you haven’t given any evidence as to males actually causing this behavior.

I would suggest that most times a woman thinks she is supposed to be submissive, and actually ends up domineered, it’s because she never understood what being submissive really even meant in the first place. She wasn’t taught what the real economy of the marriage was, and later after she moves out and marries a guy that isn’t quite as loving as he should be, she’s abused. What if she realized what she was getting into beforehand because she saw the warning signs? Lets teach our children the full truth, so that they may be more equipped to discern for themselves when we are no longer around.

 

[Sarcelle]

But so is ‘rights’ a most abused concept. If something is abused by some, does that mean that it should be abandoned?

There is a saying, ‘Hard cases make bad law.’.

The principle of wifely submission was never intended to demean the wife and the fact that some husbands abuse it does not make the principle any less true.

That being told, I was raised atheist. I have never seen a true Christian marriage up close, so I have no idea of the nuts and bolts of wifely submission or husbandly love.

 

[cena]

There is a saying, ‘Hard cases make bad law.’.

The principle of wifely submission was never intended to demean the wife and the fact that some husbands abuse it does not make the principle any less true.

That being told, I was raised atheist. I have never seen a true Christian marriage up close, so I have no idea of the nuts and bolts of wifely submission or husbandly love.

The husband and wife have equal, but complementary roles. Generally the husband is the leader while the wife would be the nurturer(like with kids)

 

[petitfleur]

So far I think I’ve been pretty outnumbered. Most people on this thread give their husbands no such free pass, quite the opposite in fact. I don’t personally know of any women that will willing give a free pass anytime their husband demands something form them they didn’t already want for themselves. You blame all males for your perception that women are weak and are mistreated all the time, but you haven’t given any evidence as to males actually causing this behavior.

I would suggest that most times a woman thinks she is supposed to be submissive, and actually ends up domineered, it’s because she never understood what being submissive really even meant in the first place. She wasn’t taught what the real economy of the marriage was, and later after she moves out and marries a guy that isn’t quite as loving as he should be, she’s abused. What if she realized what she was getting into beforehand because she saw the warning signs? Lets teach our children the full truth, so that they may be more equipped to discern for themselves when we are no longer around.

You are making all these assumptions and fantasies about what goes on in anonymous strangers marriages. You don’t know what goes on in our homes.
Do you include your own wife in a woman never givong in to her husbands demands unless it suits her best interest. So all women you know are self centered? Your wife does not sacrifice anything g for your happiness? You don’t know ANY woman who sacrifices for thier husband out of love?
I guess you are right about me on that one though. I don’t give into my husbands demands either. If he asks nicely though he usually gets what he wants.

 

[Xantippe]

Xantippe, you drive me nuts!! Don’t you realize that by fighting so hard against a husbands role as head, you make the conversation revolve around exactly that topic permanently?
It’s an over-exaggeration of your small world, at best. I don’t know of any man besides our original poster, this entire year, that was (foolishly) demanding the submission (domination) of his wife. So far, the only woman that’s provided any example of mis-understanding what wifely submission even meant was yourself, and that lady married to a calvinist who decided to blog about it.

**Well, if you spend time in certain parts of the internet, you’ll encounter plenty of stories of families that were damaged by authoritarian views of marriage and also parenthood.

I also previously mentioned this couple’s story, which is interesting as evidence because they are strong pro-submission Protestants:

patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2014/07/quoting-quiverfull-michael-and-debi-pearls-honeymoon/**

The problem is, that a strong view of wifely submission encourages women to keep silent even when they are suffering and even when their husbands are doing wrong. You have to ask yourself, if my wife believed strongly in submission and obeying me no matter how much it hurt her, how would I know if I were doing wrong, how would I know if she were suffering, and how would I know if I were hurting her? The problem is, that 4 times out of 5 you wouldn’t know, because she’d be putting on a brave face and trying to carry on, no matter how much you hurt her.

Is this really a risk that you want to take with a woman that you love?

You really just want to skim over the differences between male and female in the sacrament of marriage? You think we should end at mutual submission, and teach no further? How strong are you hoping your children’s marriages are going to be, and what world are you shaping for them to even be married in.

Children who are raised in abusive religious homes are often hostile to religion for the rest of their lives. Also, marriages that emphasize submission are often surprisingly brittle, even when there is a large family.

patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2014/09/vyckie-garrison-how-playing-good-christian-wife-almost-killed-me/

A submission-centric marriage is no guarantee of a happy home or a happy marriage.

Also, lots of people with more egalitarian ideals of marriage have great marriages and great children.

I believe in all sorts of differences between men and women (on average). That has nothing to do with the question of whether it is spiritually healthy for a husband to be preoccupied with submission.

 

[Xantippe]

I would suggest that most times a woman thinks she is supposed to be submissive, and actually ends up domineered, it’s because she never understood what being submissive really even meant in the first place. She wasn’t taught what the real economy of the marriage was, and later after she moves out and marries a guy that isn’t quite as loving as he should be, she’s abused. What if she realized what she was getting into beforehand because she saw the warning signs? Lets teach our children the full truth, so that they may be more equipped to discern for themselves when we are no longer around.

Look, I’m a reasonably intelligent woman with a very loving, intelligent husband, and we messed it up, just like poor Calvinist Janeway and her husband did. If it’s so easy to screw up (and it is), maybe there should be a lot more roadside flags and traffic cones set out to warn people of the hazards.

Actually, come to think of it, that’s what I’ve been trying to do in this thread–to warn people of the falling rocks and missing guardrail.

 

[Bannan]

petitfleur, I can see you are frustrated, please calm down. I should clarify some things about how I feel, and I don’t want you to be in a state of anger especially.

I do not think feminism is bad, though bad feminism is extreme feminism.

There’s a difference between a woman giving her husband a free pass when he domineers her, and giving in to his demands when she agreed with them. In my mind, a “free-pass” meant to sacrifice without actually second-guessing it.

I’m sorry for the confusion, but this was in response to Xantippe who had painted “all” men as the culprits, and so it was an honest mistake.

All women I know are beautiful creatures who’s minds I won’t pretend to fathom, but your reading my response to Xantippe. I didn’t mean to say that all women were self centered, or never gave anything to their husbands, not even close.

Most especially, I was not pretending to know the dynamics of your marriage, what I’ve been giving lately were negative examples. Those examples were simply demonstrations of how a marriage can go awry when we ignore the dynamics between a man and a woman.

I’m not saying that you you have ignored those dynamics in your marriages, what I’m saying is that you’ve ignored them on this forum. Big difference.