QUOTE
WOLFGATE:
In his book Biblical Ethics, he stated clearly "it is difficult from today's vantage point to see how the oppression and subjugation of women could have been universal for so long, often justified on the basis of (miunderstoon) scripture".
He then goes on to directly address three objections to those who challenge the understanding of "scripture as making the husband head of the home" - incorrect interpretation, faulty application to comtemporary society, and some scriptural authors not being reliable guides on cultural issues.
He works through that and ultimately concludes "
The bible assigns the husband the role of loving leader and the wife the role of loyal completer. The root problem in marriage is an unwillingness of each to accept the role for which he was designed...if one chooses to marry in the Lord, he is choosing a specific role."
In fairness, on the purely practical side, Robertson was also impatient with people who tried to misuse their role to their advantage. During one of our retreats, a man almost tried to paint him into the corner about what being head of the household looked like - asking who made the call if husband and wife couldn't agree on something - isn't it the man?
It was interesting that while Robertson was firm in his agreement that would be the case, he also stated there were only a couple of times things got to that point in his marriage - so few he could remember each in detail. In those cases it was where, after much prayer and working hard to really understand the others position, they were at an impasse on an issue where no decision was a decision. (Him going to Columbia Bible was one of those. Muriel felt they were to stay, he felt they were to go. A deadline was in play). So
when they couldn't agree, they did what he believed was right.
He concluded by telling us if that was happening daily, weekly, monthly, even yearly in your marriage, then something was very wrong - and somebody (could be either husband or wife) were failing to correctly fulfill their role.