The limits of wifely submission

What do “submission” and “obedience” entail for wives? Some Bible verses are quoted to oblige them to submit to and obey their husbands: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22 KJV); “as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Ephesians 5:24 KJV); “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord” (Colossians 3:18 KJV); “The aged women [are to] … teach the young women to be … obedient to their own husbands” (Titus 2:3-5 KJV), and “ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands” (1 Peter 3:1 KJV).

The readers addressed in these passages were expected to interpret them in the same milieu and culture as the New Testament writers, within the context of all Christian literature of the day. What did submission and obedience entail for them? Did the earliest Christian writers really intend automatic subservience and powerless subjugation?

No, they envisaged limits and conditions and allowed wives room for judgment and flexibility. Not only wives but all early Christians, including male Christians, were commanded to submit to others. This article examines how the first Christians understood what submission entailed, how it was meant to be understood and how much leeway and independence of action are permitted to wives.

The ancient sources demanded that all Christians submit to church leaders. A 21st-century woman can learn the proper scope of wifely submission by observing how her husband submits to the minister and other church authorities.

First is Hebrews 13:17: Christians are to obey and submit to those who have rule over us in the church, that their jobs may be easier and happier. Indeed, one of the qualifications for a bishop was “having his children in subjection with all gravity; For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” (1 Timothy 3:4-5).

Written in Rome in the first century A.D., when many apostles were still alive, First Clement addressed a situation where malcontents in the congregation at Corinth had deposed clergy in succession from the apostles and had appointed their own.

Throughout 65 chapters, 1 Clement exhorts obedience to the true leaders. Chapter 57:1 summarizes: “Ye, therefore, who laid the foundation of this sedition, submit yourselves to the presbyters [elders] and receive correction so as to repent, bending the knees of your hearts.”

The main proponent of submission to clergy was Ignatius, a bishop of Antioch martyred around A.D. 107. He praised the Christians at Tralles because “ye are subject to the bishop as to Jesus Christ” and exhorted them to treat the presbyters similarly. To those at Magnesia he wrote, “Be ye subject to the bishop and to one another, as Jesus Christ to the Father, according to the flesh, and the apostles to Christ, and to the Father and to the Spirit.”

One letter tells the Ephesians to “be subject to the bishop and presbyters that you may be sanctified, perfectly joined together, in the same mind and judgment, and that you may all speak the same thing.”

Last of all, Ignatius encouraged Bishop Polycarp of the city of Smyrna to see to it that Polycarp’s parishioners heed him as bishop and be submissive to him and other local clergy.

Polycarp was probably “the angel of the church in Smyrna” addressed in Revelation 2:8. In his own turn, he wrote to young Christian men in Philippi that they must be “subject to the presbyters and deacons, as unto God and Christ.”

About a century later came Origen, the most outstanding preacher and Bible scholar and interpreter of the first half of the third century A.D. Origen preached that various categories of Christians should be subject to those in other categories: children to parents, citizens to secular rulers, laypeople to clergy, and lower church officers to higher office-bearers. Preacher or presbyter must submit to the bishop because God has placed him above them.

Likewise, there must be subjection to presbyters because the Lord set them over laypeople. The rule operates notwithstanding that a particular office-bearer is less worthy or not as intelligent, said Origen, for Jesus subjected himself to Joseph and Mary notwithstanding his true superiority.

In short, a wife need show no more deference and no more enthusiasm in her submission to her husband than he displays toward their pastor.

Christian writers before A.D. 250 stressed submission and obedience to secular governments. Their writings reveal what these words meant in their original context, the same context that promotes submission and obedience by wives. They show this, first, by indicating that the deference a wife is to render her husband need be no greater than what she, he or Christians in general, render to the state, for early authors used the same descriptors for both relationships.

Second, just as there are limits and leeway in Christian compliance with government, so also are there for wives. The fact that Christians enjoy certain freedom of action vis-à-vis state, so the ancient literature implies a degree of freedom of action as wives.

Romans 13:1-7 has been quoted in both ancient and modern times as the rule for church members not to oppose secular authorities. Submission to the head of state “as supreme” is mandated in 1 Peter 2:13 “for the Lord’s sake,” while the following verse extends compliance “unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers.”

Origen stressed that submission and obedience to Caesar must be rendered especially by Christians who possess money, which is stamped with Caesar’s image (now with an American president).

Acts 4:19-20 and Acts 5:29 teach that we must obey God rather than men, thus hinting that there are limitations to obedience and submission. Obedience and submission do not prevent Christians, including Christian husbands, from signing petitions, complaining about politicians, voting against the party in power or running for office themselves.

Because the words “submit” and “submission” are used for both wives and citizens, without the early authors drawing distinctions or differences between duties to the husband or government, it appears they meant wives to exercise a degree of liberty in their submission.

Christians are commanded to submit in a variety of ways to an assortment of other people, which indicates both that wives were not singled out and that there is leeway for independent action and discretion.

First Corinthians 16:16 commands submission not only to local clergy but to every fellow worker that helps and labors in the gospel. First Clement 38:1 mandates, “Let everyone be subject to his neighbor.” More widely, Ephesians 5:21 encourages “submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of God.” First Peter 5:5 says not only “ye younger, submit yourselves to the elder” but also, “Yea, all of you be subject to one another.”

Besides submission to the bishop, Ignatius favored submission “to one another, as Jesus Christ to the Father, according to the flesh, and the apostles to Christ, and to the Father, and to the Spirit.” More concisely, Polycarp exhorted the Philippian Christians, “Be all of you subject to one another.” Neither can anything be more comprehensive than “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake” (1 Peter 2:13).

If everybody is to be subject to everyone else, especially other Christians, are not husbands in some way to submit to their wives? Does not such subjection reduce the rigor and degree of deference demanded when interpreting the passages quoted in the first paragraph of this article?

Neither is marriage one-sided for the husband. Verses near the main ones cited in our first paragraph lay duties on husbands toward their wives. Besides submitting themselves to their wives as another Christian, Paul commanded: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25 KJV); “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies; he that loveth his wife loveth himself” (Ephesians 5:28 KJV); “let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband” (Ephesians 5.33 KJV) and, “Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them” (Colossians 3:19 KJV).

First Peter 3:7 mandates that husbands live considerately with their wives and honor them. Ignatius requested Polycarp “to exhort my brethren, in the name of Jesus Christ, that they love their wives, even as they love the Church.” In the A.D. 190s, Origen’s teacher exhorted, “Let husbands love their wives as Christ also hath loved the church.”

In fact, according to Origen’s teacher, a husband’s trustworthiness, reliability, self-control and love of others that are to characterize a Christian’s relations with outsiders are also to be exhibited to his wife. No loving husband turns his beloved wife into a subservient drudge. Indeed, said Origen, marriage should be the training-ground for developing and practicing love of neighbor.

David W.T. Brattston lives in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.