Authority: Is It Really the Biblical Counterpart to Marital Submission?
By Rachel Shubin
The other day my photographer husband, George, burst into the room with his camera in hand and shooed me out to the neighboring field of tall grass. He'd been wanting to take a “golden hour” shot using his umbrella flash modifier for fill light, and twilight shots are always a race against the setting sun.
After seeing the final image, my mom commented about my sneezing the rest of the night; but I'm not allergic to grass. And I've been taking meds faithfully this summer because pollen counts in our area are terrible and I am allergic to cottonwood. So, what if George had asked me to go stand in front of the cottonwood tree for a picture made in May when the tree is blowing its cotton? Would I have done it?
The Litmus Test
While this is an extremely mild example, this type of question comes up constantly when I talk to people about complementarian/egalitarian issues. When I say I think the Bible talks about husbands and wives each submitting to and loving one another as opposed to husbands leading and wives submitting, they often respond with a question like this: "If your husband asked you to do {insert some utterly ridiculous/offensive/painful/horrible/dangerous thing here}, would you do it?"
I'm not talking about everyday things on the scale of standing in front of a tree; the hypothetical question always involves some entirely unreasonable request that the inquirer assumes would get an automatic "no" under any other circumstances. The question is a ringer, a Catch-22, and the intent is to trap me into saying the expected "no" so they can then point out that I'm not for submitting after all, mutual or otherwise.
Love — the True Counterpart to Marital Submission
Here's the problem. That entire line of reasoning is predicated on the idea that the marital counterpart to submission is oppositional, interlocking authority. When I read my Bible, I don't see that at all. I believe Ephesians 5:22-24 talks about the wife submitting to her husband in the way that a body is joined to its head. The usage of "head" throughout the entire passage is as a body part, not an authority. There is a Greek word for authority, but Paul doesn't use it once in this passage and, when he talks to the wives, he never refers to the husband as an authority but as a head. A head to a body.
In the verses immediately following, Ephesians 5:25-31, Paul switches from wives to husbands and talks about the husband loving his wife in the way that a head is joined to its body. Paul never once tells the husband to be the authority nor does he explain what that should look like. What he does tell the husband to do is to love his wife and talks about what that should look like.
When I read this passage and the others like it, what I see is not authority and submission as oppositional forces tied together, but love and submission as cooperative forces tied together. Love, not authority, is the Biblical counterpart to marital submission. When I think about how that would play out in real life, the two start looking extraordinarily close to the same.
Metaphorical Usage
Since the same "submit" word is used elsewhere in the New Testament in relation to governing authorities, many people lump that meaning in with marital passages. (Rom. 13:1-6 uses the word for “authority,” not “head,” to describe the government). In Ephesians, three verses are spent on wifely submission while the following seven are spent on husbandly love. Three verses compare a husband to a body's head and seven connect a wife to that head's body.
Do you spend a lot of time thinking about how your physical body should submit better to your head or how your head should love your body better? The overriding image seems to be one of unity, not hierarchy.
This extended metaphor doesn't show up with passages on governmental structures; nor do those passages have counterpart exhortations in their sections for the government to love its subjects. (Although the parts of the Bible written to rulers definitely require that in the forms of justice and mercy.)However, Paul does use the same type of body metaphor in I Corinthians 12:15-27 to explain relationships within the church, and then it is always recognized as a metaphor for unity.
The teaching of love (not authority) and submission as the operating structure within the body of Christ is everywhere in the New Testament. With that backdrop in mind, the problem with that question, "If your husband asked you to do xxx?" becomes clearer.
Bad Presuppositions
"Would you do xxx?" is the wrong question. Not only is it the wrong question, but it is asked of the wrong person. If a wife comes into the pastor's office or if she elsewhere complains that her husband is asking her to do things that are not loving toward her, the response should not be to ask her why she isn't doing them. The question should be put to the husband, asking why he would request or require such a thing of her in the first place.
When you see the marriage dichotomy as authority/submission, the "If your husband…" question makes sense because any refusal is a challenge to his perceived authority. When you see the marriage dichotomy as love/submission, the question makes no sense since love would never ask someone to do such things in the first place and it would certainly never require compliance if the question were posed. The questionee is not the problem; the questioner misunderstands both his own duty to love and how beneficial authority works in general and in what situations it applies.
My Answer to the Question
So, if George asked me stand in front of the cottonwood so he could take my picture, would I do it? The first and arguably the most important point is that he wouldn't ask me to because George loves me. If he did ask me, I would say, "Umm, George, my eyes will swell up and I'll be sneezing for days if I stand there." At that point he would say, "Oh! Sorry, I forgot. Let's do it in the field instead."
If later he still wanted a shot by the tree, he would just find someone else to use for the shot. There is no power struggle over who is not exercising their authority correctly or who isn't submitting properly because the issue is not one of authority. It is an issue of love.
Final note: If George suddenly became other than who he is and insisted upon my standing in front of the allergy tree after I reminded him that it would make me sick, I would tell him "no." For us, this would be a complete rarity; however, if your spouse (male or female) consistently asks you to do unreasonable things that put you in danger or show blatant disregard for your personhood in mind or body, please consider reading through a screening for abuse and getting help if necessary.
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