- Feb 5, 2002
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Comedian Whitney Cummings recently said, in an interview on the popular secular podcast Modern Wisdom, “What I say to women, is like get to a place where you have nothing to prove, so you can totally submit to your man and it doesn’t feel like you’re like a bad feminist.” To my surprise, host Chris Williamson did not bat an eye or even ask a clarifying question. Instead, the two discussed how strange it was to think it completely normal for a woman to submit to an employer or the demands of a career, but oppressive to submit to a husband or the demands of a family. Touché.
Early in our own marriage, Flannery and I did not have any real sense of what St. Paul might have meant when he instructed wives to submit to their husbands. We were too committed to the authority of Scripture to reject his instruction. But we couldn’t tell you what it meant practically. Surely it could not simply mean that husbands make decisions and wives obey them.
We became familiar, of course, with the importance of interpreting this passage in light of Paul’s earlier comments about mutual submission. We learned about the Roman cultural context. And we knew that Paul’s call to husbands, to love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, was an equally strong injunction, and one that mitigated against the abuse of the passage in question.
But we still had no sense of what the passage could mean in our day-to-day life together. Almost any homilies or other commentary we heard on this passage followed the same basic pattern. We found out what Paul most certainly did not mean, but were left guessing as to what he did.
Continued below.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
Early in our own marriage, Flannery and I did not have any real sense of what St. Paul might have meant when he instructed wives to submit to their husbands. We were too committed to the authority of Scripture to reject his instruction. But we couldn’t tell you what it meant practically. Surely it could not simply mean that husbands make decisions and wives obey them.
We became familiar, of course, with the importance of interpreting this passage in light of Paul’s earlier comments about mutual submission. We learned about the Roman cultural context. And we knew that Paul’s call to husbands, to love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, was an equally strong injunction, and one that mitigated against the abuse of the passage in question.
But we still had no sense of what the passage could mean in our day-to-day life together. Almost any homilies or other commentary we heard on this passage followed the same basic pattern. We found out what Paul most certainly did not mean, but were left guessing as to what he did.
Real but subtle differences
Continued below.
Husbands and wives both submit, but in different ways
Paul called spouses to mutual submission. But what does this look like in a real marriage?
www.oursundayvisitor.com
