Guest Post: Why I Submit to My Husband
This is a cross-post from Danielle at from two to one. Danielle is a twenty-something newlywed who writes about the intersection of marriage, faith, and feminism at from two to one. Connect with her via Facebook, Twitter, and her blog.
Not long ago, Relevant posted a provocative article entitled “Who Submits to Whom?” First, I give props to the author for using correct grammar. But more importantly, it’s something that M and I have wrestled with, discussed at great length, and investigated deeply through Bible studies, books, talking with other couples and pastors and friends, and prayer.
This is not about the ongoing theological debate surrounding such hotly-contested hermeneutical gymnastics about what “head” means (source? provider? protector? boss?) or even about whether Ephesians 5:21 is a segue for a related, but highly differentiated set of guidelines for husbands and wives, or whether it’s establishing a context for the mysterious verses that follow. M and I havelooked deeply into the two camps — popularly delineated as complementarianism and egalitarianism — during our dating relationship, engagement, and continually throughout our ever-strengthening marriage.
In raw honesty, we do not feel comfortable in either camp. It’s a similar feeling as being the most conservative people in liberal circles and the most liberal in conservative circles; it’s a lose-lose situation when discussing it as strict either/or. Either you are a good feminist and don’t submit to your husband or you are a bad Christian wife and disrespect your beloved. Either you are a good Christian and submit dutifully to your spouse or you are a bad feminist for even uttering the dirty s-word. So let me just say it.
I submit to my husband. My husband submits to me. We mutually submit to one another. For those who will pray for our souls given our “radical feminist interpretation” of these difficult verses to swallow, so be it. We do not see this as a salvation issue, and we do consider this to be an incredibly complicated, personal matter for husbands and wives to respectfully decide together. And yet, we find comfort in knowing that Paul even realizes that this is a profound mystery.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31-32 NIV)
Sometimes I submit first. Sometimes M submits first. But the goal is not to keep tabs or follow some preset decision-making protocol such as the husband being the tie-breaker and Final Decision Maker, but to love one another and grow more into the woman and man God calls us to be. At this juncture, I usually hear people respond with something like, “Then why did Paul give separate instructions to wives and husbands? It only says for the wives to submit to their husbands.” Yes, and it admonishes husbands to “love their wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…and to love their wives as their own bodies.” (Ephesians 5:25, 28 NIV). For Paul to instruct wives to submit to their husbands in the first century AD was not a revolutionary idea; women had no legal, social, or political status. But telling husbands that they were to basically die to self, sacrifice themselves for the good of their wives, and not treat them as property (which women have been considered for almost all of history)? Now that is rocking the boat.
We feel like we are traveling on uncharted territory as we journey from two to one. During the first few months of marriage, we experienced quite a few growing pains in our adjustment to living together for the first time (let alone living in the same city for more than a month at a time!). As husband and wife, we also got to experience a lot of newness — from the day-to-day to the sacred to the sexy. We struggled to understand how to be married. For those who aspire and adhere to traditional gender roles, the “stuff” of marriage — the decision-making, domestic division of labor, work priorities, and hobbies — is seemingly easier to manage because there is a set path laid out before you. But as we’ve demonstrated previously, we both, as our parents frequently say, “think too much.” We seek to test everything and understand a why for each what.
The result of this “thinking too much” is that we reject patriarchy and its seemingly all-encompassing hold on faith, justice, women, and marriage—precisely the topics I write about here. As someone who grew up in the Catholic Church and still holds steadfast to the faith despite outrageous bureaucratic shenanigans like this, it literally took years for me to realize that I am a product of patriarchy and its subsequent structures and norms. Every day, I am uncovering new patriarchal bargains, or as blogger extraordinaire Balancing Jane explains, “Trying to untangle the mess of recognizing the patriarchal system while still being a part of it—a balance that I think we all have to do at some point (if we ever even get to the point of recognition to begin with), and a balance I empathize with as I’m going through it myself in some ways.”
As a Christian, white, cisgender, able-bodied, married, middle-class, educated, generally attractive American woman, I am undoubtedly and unfathomably privileged. Not as privileged as my husband, but privileged nonetheless. As part of our faith and our feminism, M and I are committed to understanding (note: not ignoring or denying or feeling guilty about) our privilege in order to better understand how we can be the change we want to see in the world.
Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women. (Ashley Judd’s awesome smackdown via The Daily Beast)
And yet, we conform to traditional gender norms in many ways. The other day, I screeched and squirmed as I batted the window and pleaded with M to get the moth out of our car. “Babe, you scared me! I thought something was seriously wrong!” Something was seriously wrong. I needed that bug out of my space and I needed it out now. M was the guy to do the job. Not necessarily because he was the only man around, but because I’ve seen him catch a fly with his bare fingers to the dismay and utter shock of my family — even my adult brothers. A few months ago, I wrote a guest post at ForbesWoman about how I wanted to learn how to sew and how Pinterest and mommy blogs are influencing twenty- and thirty-something women in rebirthing domestic arts and duties. And daily, I even wear dresses or skirts (especially vintage) because I like the feminine feel and basically because I am more comfortable in them over pants.
But we analyze why we inhabit these roles given our feminist values. We acknowledge and value the differences between men and women. We accept that there are certain things that we both have been socialized toward based on our gender that we genuinely enjoy. Yet, that doesn’t mean that we need to wholeheartedly reformulate our marriage based on these norms. That doesn’t mean that we can’t challenge patriarchal notions of power and authority. That doesn’t mean we can’t account for personality and practicality when deciding how to live our lives as husband and wife.
Too often in our culture, women and girls are pressured to submit to men, as a category. This is the reason so many women, even feminist women, are consumed with what men, in general, think of them. This is the reason a woman’s value in our society, too often, is defined in terms of sexual attractiveness and availability. Is it any wonder that so many of our girls and women are destroyed by a predatory patriarchy that demeans the dignity and glory of what it means to be a woman?
(Dr. Russel Moore, author and Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice-President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary via his blog.
I submit to my husband and he submits to me. We do a delicate dance as we take small steps in unison, sometimes M taking the lead, sometimes me gently guiding, but we do so as a team, as lovers, and as devoted followers of Christ, who is the only true Leader in this relationship.
Photo Credit: epSos.de