15 Reasons Why Women Stop Believing in Wife-Only Submission
Recently, on Facebook, I shared my experience with wife-only submission and why my husband and I changed our minds.
I used to believe in women-only submission, and I thought it was a universal Christian practice that women submit to their husbands.
In our marriage, though, my husband and I practiced partnership.
While chatting/supporting other couples, we were surprised to find husbands who took the concept of “wife submission” seriously. “Dude, that’s not right. You work together as a couple,” we’d offer back.
But technically, Dude and us held the same belief: He was just more honest – he practiced what he said.
On the other hand, my husband and I said one thing but practiced another.
What changed our minds:
- Wanting to line up our words with reality.
- Learning about abuse.
- Exploring our larger beliefs (fundamentalism/evangelicalism.)
Why Women Stop Believing in Wife-only Submission
After sharing my experience, I invited my Facebook community to share why they stopped believing in wife-only submission (for those who had.)
The feedback was both beautiful and heartbreaking. And I thought to compress the comments into a short list and share it on the blog today because change can be hard and lonely. And sometimes it helps to see your private journey reflected in another person’s face.
One of the things that stood out to me throughout the comments was the intentionality of everyone. Contrary to popular opinion, most people don’t just wake up in the morning and decide to change important beliefs.
It’s never that quick. It’s never labor-free. Excavating, inspecting, and rethinking a belief system, (not just one belief) costs something.
Many people who changed their minds about wife-only submission studied Scripture.
They read books. They listened to (healthy) teachings. They explored their own lives and larger belief systems. They sat with themselves and listened to what their bodies and experiences were telling them.
So often, in the conservative evangelical world, changing one’s mind comes with some mud on your clothes: Some Christians do really believe that folks did a turn-around on a deeply-held belief system overnight. They don’t see a process.
And so they demonize and ostracize. They label cultivating awareness and engaging curiosity about what one believes “back-sliding,” “rebellion,” and “leaving the true teachings of Jesus.”
They think questioning a faith system that was handed to you is a crime—mindlessly following and never asking a question? More faithful.
I just want to applaud everyone who is doing the work of examining what they believe. It’s not easy. Not being part of the crowd, rocking the boat, having to do new hard things, getting messy..not easy. But you’re doing the work, and I just want you to know I’m proud of you.
15 Reasons Women Stop Believing in Wife-only Submission
(With thanks to my Facebook community.)
1. Personal experience of abuse in a marriage where “wife-only submission” teaching was used to cause harm.
2. Studying the word of God and finding out that marital submission is mutual, not one-sided.
3. Reading helpful books and websites that expanded thinking beyond what an individual thought was truth.
4. Seeing other couples being partners in their marriage.
5. Seeing how Jesus valued and lifted women in the Bible and realizing the message applied today. He couldn’t have blessed women with wholeness and value and then asked them to give it all up once married.
6. The cognitive dissonance of women being told to ignore the voice of the Holy Spirit to “follow their spiritual leader.”
7. Observing the harmful fruit of wife-only submission in marriages.
8. The skewed ways of wife-only submission where a wife works behind the scenes, but the man gets all the credit.
9. Being in a healthy marriage after being in an abusive marriage further clarified why mutuality in marriage is a healthy, honoring thing.
10. Being in a healthy marriage but losing one’s sense of self because pleasing the husband had become central.
11. Realizing that all healthy Complementarianism marriages are egalitarian in practice.
12. Learning that the word “submit” in Ephesians 5:22 is actually inferred from verse 21. (“In the Greek, Ephesians 5:22 … borrows the sense of “submit” from verse 21. There is no verb or participle that means “submit” in verse 22 in some of the oldest surviving Greek manuscripts. It was not unusual for Paul to make verbs and verbal ideas do double duty. Marg Mowczko )
13. Having to choose between staying safe and staying “submitted” to an abusive partner.
14. A parent filing for divorce from an abusive partner.
15. Starting to believe that there must be a happier, healthier quality of life, and God wanted us to have it.
Your turn: What reason resonated with you the most? What would you add?
Additional Resources:
- Bare Marriage picked up the question and continued the conversation on her page. Check it out here. Great convos.
- The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended (aff) by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, Joanna Sawatsky.
- The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth (aff) by Beth Allison Barr
- Marg Mowczko’s excellent summary of Ephesians (read all the linked articles and the rest of her website)
- Systems of Love & Honor: A Guide to Recognizing Safe Relationships by Sarah McDugal
- Article: Does the Complementarian Marriage Model Contradict Itself?
- All my articles on Complementarianism
This is such an incredibly deep and wide topic that the forum of online comments could not do justice. So pardon my long response. There is so much I would love to encourage in conversation on this as I believe not only marriages are suffering from this idea of onesidedness and a misconception of what submission is, but the whole of society suffers from what has become a toxic expression of male dominion in the earth turned to male domination – all from the misapplication of submission – to God, to each other and between a husband and wife.
I think what is highly misunderstood about Ephesians 5:22 is that the concept of wives submitting to their husbands is a matter of wives honoring and respecting their husbands are the assigned head and covering of the household. In one sense that means the mutuality of submission referenced in the previous verse, Ephesians 5:21, carries into the general relationship between two believers in Christ (as it is assumed people would marry within the faith of God through Christ). In addition to that general submission a wife is meant to further recognize that her husband has a level of authority or headship within the marriage that is to be honored and submitted to.
We sometimes forget that the curse that God placed on Eve for original sin is related to her acting of her own accord and will and not seeing the God given command for both her and Adam to hold dominion in the earth as part of their interdependent relationship they had to hold each other accountable to achieve. There is so much that needs to be unpacked in that, but suffice to say that I would encourage people to read what Paul said to wives and husbands within the context of that curse.
In my opinion, Paul’s instructions were a sort of resolve on how to manage that curse so that the original intent of marriage – an interdependent and complimentary holding of dominion in the earth towards fruitfulness and multiplication, could be achieved without the ongoing angst that was historically occurring within marriages. Bearing in mind Paul was also addressing a Hellenistic society where women of faith were exposed to the more dominant power and voice of women in that society at the same time when Christ’s teachings would have woken up women of Hebrew faith to that value of their mutual power and voice (hence the whole women must be silent in the church and learn from their husbands that was a backfire of women finally seeing themselves valued because of Christ’s teachings)
Again, more to unpack there. All said to say this:
The focus of Ephesians 5:22 is about submission to headship.The key words of 5:22 being “as unto the Lord”. This requires the general submission referenced in 5:21 – precisely what is required when people choose to follow God through Christ – acknowledging Christ is the head of the church and that head is in submission to God – just as a husband is meant to be head of his household while submitted to God. (Further bolstered by 5:23-24 stating the husband is the head like Christ)
Similarly, in 5:25-31 husbands are instructed to love like Christ – sacrificially, with understanding of the weakness of women (this, again, I would encourage people to see as related to the curse on Eve – God stating that woman would continue to want to control the man but that he would rule over her – as in retain headship in a marriage)
All that said, in verse 32 Paul advises he is also making an analogy of the relationship of Christ and the church in his instructions to wives and husbands, effectively demonstrating the summary conclusion that in all our relationships with people, and in particular to be reflected in marriage we ought to live with one another like Christ and his relationship with the church.
The problem is mankind has not done so as a whole. And this poor example of submitting to one another and wives often berating the brunt of that poor example makes submitting to headship difficult and the entire concept of submission is reviled.
Interestingly, as God said in Ezekiel 36:22-23 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: yIt is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, wwhich you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 zAnd I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. aAnd the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.
This is echoed by Paul in Romans 2:24 “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
It is incredibly tantamount to the Kingdom of God that the relationship between males and females is healed. This will heal marriages. And that example of love submitted to one another in the fear of the Lord is the love the nations will see and gather to seek God.