Redressing the Balance

A Mutualist View of Marriage

BEFORE CONSIDERING THE SPECIFIC TEACHINGS on marriage, I will situate them in their wider context of the household codes. I imagine that most modern Western readers coming across the household codes for the first time will experience them as archaic, and this because they are rooted in a context where men and women held different places in the household, where the man was in charge, where slaves were a normal part of everyday life, and where men, women, slaves, and children knew their place in a hierarchical order. Not so long ago, however, the structures described in the New Testament household codes (especially if we substituted servants for slaves) would have described the normative structuring of society in many parts of the world. Indeed, there are still parts of the world where this will be so. In terms of male and female relations, we currently live in a divided world with regard to a man and a woman’s place in the home. In many cultures and societies, it is normal for the men to take an equal share in domestic and child-rearing duties, while the women share in bringing in the household income. And yet there are also places where this would be unthinkable and where only the women take part in domestic and child-rearing duties, while men, if they are able, work outside the home to bring in money. (For the most part, in rural and agrarian economies, men and women take an equal part in tending the livestock and the land, and it seems they have always done so.) Clearly then the New Testament household codes will have a different impact on readers depending on their context.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CHRISTIAN LIVING

We tend to think about these codes in terms of how the Bible gives Christians a framework for living as Christians in society, but it may be that for many they are simply irrelevant because they bear no resemblance to their own living situations. If a person lives alone, is a single parent, or lives with a community of friends, as is so often the case in the West, then the household codes will add nothing to their community living. In addition to this, we presume that Christians will not have slaves. Thus there will be no slaves and may be no husband, no wife, or no children. There may be only men or only women in the household as, of course, has been the case in monastic communities for centuries. In these contexts, Christian living will be shaped not by the household codes but by the plethora of “one another” sayings in the New Testament—fifty-nine in all—exhorting Christians primarily to “love one another” but also to forgive, to encourage, to live at peace, to bear with one another, to submit to one another, to pray for one another, to share all they have, not to hate, slander, lie, bite, or devour one another. The married Christian and the Christian parent is also bound by these “one another” sayings and must be shaped first and foremost by the exhortation to “love one another.”

Paul gives this a concrete, Christlike shape in 1 Corinthians 13, where we discover that

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (vv. 4-8)

Any discussion on the shape of a Christian household should begin and find its completion here.

Unfortunately a particular reading of the three household codes that we have in the New Testament appear to dominate some people’s thinking in relation to husbands and wives, and even in relation to all men and all women, where it is assumed that the primary concept for shaping our relationships is not love but authority and submission. So as we have seen previously in the Kellers’ quote, even Christian love is defined in terms of loving authority and loving submission. I and others do not believe that this was the intention of the New Testament writers, so let us turn to their words to see how they might have been heard at the time and then to imagine what they might be saying to us today.

MARKS OF A HOUSEHOLD CODE

Scot McKnight makes the point that the Christian household regulations had a purpose. They “were shaped to promote socially respectable behaviors as a platform for social security, apologetics and evangelism (seen especially in 1 Peter 2:13–3:7, esp. 2:12, 14; 3:2).”1 Designed to have a stabilizing influence on the fledgling Christian communities, they had some similarities to other ancient household codes, but were not identical. Karen Jobes notes that although Peter and Paul both conform to certain expectations of order and hierarchy within Greco-Roman culture, “neither simply affirms Greco-Roman expectations.”2 We see elements of subversion in the bucking of the trends, most notably the fact that subordinates are directly addressed in the letters, a distinctively Christian innovation, “apparently unique in an ancient setting.”3 The writers of the New Testament household codes address women, slaves, and children alongside their husbands, masters, and fathers, acting as a clear indication that the writer acknowledges both the agency and dignity of the former. Hurtado writes, “We should not discount too hastily what this, even this modest conferral of dignity, could have meant in that ancient setting to those who were otherwise unable to change their situations.”4 What we are reading, then, not initially obvious to the modern reader, is that Christian household codes view subordinate parties as moral agents “capable and responsible to respond to exhortations to them.”5

Remember, whole households were worshiping together, and letters would be read aloud to the gathered community. Significantly, the entire community would have heard each other’s instructions in fairly intimate settings. Lower orders heard the instruction to their superiors and vice versa. As Hurtado points out, “To emphasize the point, the setting of early Christian exhortation is certainly different from a circle of elite male students gathered with a teacher/philosopher discussing how best to order their individual lives.”6 This is really the key to why the Christian household codes were subversive; they contain within them the overturning of accepted positions accorded to men, women, slaves, and children, and the expectations placed upon them.

I often notice in my reading and listening to different Christian views on marriage that a certain type of evangelical always begins the discussion with a focus on wives and their need to submit to their husbands. I even notice this with people who then go on to try to reframe the submission of wives. It’s as if everyone feels obliged to begin with this point. I presume this is because the New Testament household codes begin with an address to the wives. However, the people who receive the most radical and challenging instructions are the men. Thus, we will begin the discussion with this.

MASTERS AND HUSBANDS

We have three passages relating to husbands and wives in the New Testament: Ephesians 5:21-33, Colossians 3:18-19, and 1 Peter 3:1-7. In each case, wives are addressed along with husbands. In each case also, wives are called to “submit” to or “respect” their husbands, and it appears that there is some disparity between the role of the wife and the role of the husband, where wives are exhorted to submit to their husbands and husbands to love or respect their wives. Modern readers sometimes make much of the disparity, and hierarchicalists focus almost exclusively on wifely submission and male headship as the mark of Christian marriage. But whereas we might react to the disparity either with disdain or confusion (why does the Bible treat men and women differently) or with happy acceptance (men are in charge), it appears that ancient readers would have heard a different emphasis and experienced the shock of a new order.

For an ancient reader there would have been no surprise in the instruction to a wife to submit to her husband. This would have been a standard pattern. I have heard some people try to explain that the submission in question is not really submission in the sense of placing oneself under another but instead is meant to convey a strong supportive role similar to the meaning of ‘ezer kenegdo (see chap. 3). It is difficult to argue that the Greek word hypotassō in this context is anything other than submission as we would normally understand it. All Christians are called to submit to one another, and this appears to be a yielding, self-effacing stance, where one person places the other before him- or herself. It is the opposite of assertion, self-centeredness, and self-promotion. There would be nothing new for a Christian wife to hear that this was what was expected of her. I imagine, however, that the instruction to the husbands, read out for all to hear, would have caused considerable ripples throughout the household because they and those around them would now know that this behavior is also expected of him, and here is where we find the Christian revolution.

PATRIA POTESTAS

Patria potestas is literally “paternal power,” the authority that a father has over his children by law. Under Roman family law, the power that a father had over his charges was absolute and extended to his offspring, his descendants through the male line, and his slaves.

This power meant originally not only that he had control over his children, amounting even to a right to inflict capital punishment, but that he alone had any rights in private law. Thus, acquisitions of a child became the property of the father. The father might allow a child (as he might a slave) certain property to treat as his own, but in the eye of the law it continued to belong to the father.7

A woman who married might come out from under the power of her father and under the manus (power) of her husband. (In time, it became more common for wives to marry sine manu, where the wife remained under the legal control of her father and could inherit from her own family without handing everything over to her husband. Interestingly, the idea that a wife remains with her own kin aligns with Genesis 2:24, where it is the man and not the wife who leaves his family.)

On the question of the role of the man in ancient society, Tom Holland, a British historian of the ancient world, makes these observations, “The sexual economy [of the ancient world] is founded on the absolute right of free Roman males to have sex with anyone they want any way that they like.” He goes on to say in relation to the general behavior of the men in power, “in almost every way this is a world that is unspeakably cruel to our way of thinking.” Into this world, Holland sees Paul’s letters and thinking as arriving with huge impact, specifically disrupting the dominant male world. Although not a Christian himself, Holland sees Paul’s letters, along with the four Gospels as “the most influential, the most impactful and the most revolutionary writings that have emerged from the ancient world.” He makes the astonishing claim that Paul is “a depth charge deep beneath the foundations of the classical world,” adding, “essentially what Paul’s significance is, is that he sets up ripple effects of revolution throughout Western history.”8 This is not necessarily, however, a surprising claim to Pauline scholars. Hurtado writes,

Paul’s male-oriented exhortations were, thus, very likely intended specifically to project a very different standard of male sexual behavior in particular among Christian husbands. This involved the unusual move of positing the same standards of “holiness and honor” that were expected of women, especially wives, in that culture more generally, thereby challenging the dominant “double standard” morality of the time.9

Christian males were expected to conform to the “same sort of behavioral requirements that in the larger cultural setting were expected of ‘honorable’ women.”10 We see this most starkly in 1 Corinthians 7.

PAUL’S VIEWS ON MARRIAGE IN 1 CORINTHIANS 7

In 1 Corinthians 7:3-4, Paul says,

The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise [also] the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way [likewise also], the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. (NIV)

It is interesting (and not a bit disturbing), that so many men choose a few verses in Ephesians in order to attempt to demonstrate that a Christian husband has authority over his wife, who in turn, they say, should be submissive and subordinate to her husband, but then completely ignore 1 Corinthians 7. In 1 Corinthians 7 we find the only reference to “authority,” and it is here that Paul tells the Corinthian wives that just as their husbands have authority over their bodies, they too have authority over their husbands’ bodies. So where Paul actually uses the word authority, which does not occur in any of the other passages on marriage, the authority he speaks of is entirely mutual and in relation to sex. This seems to resonate with the idea that the man and woman, the first couple, are flesh of flesh and bone of bone. They are equals. However, the idea that a wife would have any authority over her husband in sexual matters was unheard of in Paul’s time. Thus the emphasis on mutuality here is particularly arresting.

Richard Hays writes this about 1 Corinthians 7:4: “In contrast to a patriarchal culture that would assume a one-way hierarchical ordering of the husband’s authority over the wife, Paul carefully prescribes mutual submission. Neither marriage partner controls his or her own body: in the marriage covenant, one surrenders authority over one’s own body to the spouse.”11 Gilbert Bilezikian claims that the “importance of this verse for a biblical perspective on male-female relations cannot be overestimated.”12 He emphasizes what he calls the power of the “explosive newness” of Paul’s teaching.13 The key innovation here is the symmetrical nature of the “reciprocal obligations” where we find a “perfect balance of terms linked together by the strongest word available in the Greek language to convey the concept of equivalency and translated by ‘likewise.’ The addition of the seemingly redundant adverbial conjunction also emphasizes the complete correspondence between the two propositions.”14 (I have inserted the words in 1 Corinthians 7:3-4, quoted earlier, as they appear in the Greek to demonstrate this.) In the other passages, what strikes the reader is the apparent asymmetry of the injunctions, but here this is not the case. However, what looks like an equally weighted scale to us here would in fact be a radically new imbalance for the married couple in the ancient world. The scales that had been weighted in favor of the husband are now tipped to an equal balance. The result is that the wife is elevated.

THE HOUSEHOLD CODE IN COLOSSIANS 3

In Colossians 3:18-19 Paul begins with the instruction to wives to submit to their husbands, but then turns to the husbands and writes, “Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.” One of the rules of finding meaning in a text is to note both what is left unsaid as well as what is said. McKnight writes that the absence of references to male leadership and power is noteworthy. “Instead of grounding the instruction to the wife in her husband’s authority, power, leadership or status in a hierarchy, the grounding is radically otherwise: it is grounded in the Lord’s way of life.” McKnight highlights the fact that Paul “provides an alternative to the status systems” of his world and that not only the wives would have benefited from this but “this too would have been heard in liberating and protective ways by slave women in the household.”15 So, not only are the wives given a new way of relating to their husbands but also slave women and boys are also protected from an entitled, perhaps even predatory, male in their household.

With regard to the household codes, it is essential to make the point, first, that the submission of wives was normal and, second, that all Christians are told to submit to one another. Submission is not the innovation but was a posture and attitude expected of every Christ-follower. For Christian wives, however, submission now was an attitude shaped by Christ and fitting “in the Lord,” not from any cultural expectation. They also would have known that this was an expectation over the entire church. In this context a husband is called simply to “love” his wife, and we have seen what shape Paul gives love in 1 Corinthians 13. McKnight issues a strong exhortation for Christians, and especially scholars, to place a hermeneutic of love at the heart of how we understand Christian marriage. He writes,

It pains me that so much Christian discussion about our text and about its parallel in Eph 5 is consumed by discussion of the meaning of subordination of wives to their husband, a topic relished by some and embarrassing to others. My contention is that greater attention to “love” will necessarily lead to both a more precise understanding of subordination and a greater focus on what is most needed by the majority who write and read said commentaries. To repeat what has been said already in this commentary, love in the Bible is covenantal commitment to presence, advocacy, and flourishing growth into Christlikeness (cf. Col 1:4, 8, 13; 2:2; 3:12, 14). These four elements can now be said of the husband’s love of his wife: (1) love is a covenant commitment to one’s wife (2) to be with her, (3) to be for her, including providing for, and (4) to pursue Christlikeness together (the focus of Christ’s love in Eph 5:25-26). That is, the direction is redemptive, and all dimensions of the relationship are shaped by Christlike behavior (Christoformity) aimed at fostering Christlikeness in one another.16

It should be obvious now what a different emphasis we are encountering in the Bible in the husbands’ address.

THE HOUSEHOLD CODE IN 1 PETER 3

I turn now to the letter of 1 Peter, which has a slightly different slant, and with its reference to women as “the weaker sex” it most certainly strikes the modern Western reader as archaic and imbalanced, and for many is downright offensive! It is necessary to place this letter in its context to get to the heart of the message. The background to the letter is that Peter is “concerned that in the face of persecution and slander, the Christians do what is right.”17 The tone throughout the letter is that the Christians should acquiesce in order to keep their consciences clear rather than to rebel and be guilty of sin: “It is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil” (1 Peter 3:17). The Christians are to “live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves” (1 Peter 2:16 NIV). Christians were suspected of preaching a subversive message and so were under scrutiny, and as the household was understood “to be the foundational unit of civilization” within Greco-Roman moral philosophy, “the influence of suspect religions on the family was closely observed.”18

This brings us back to McKnight’s point. It was important that despite the subversive elements of Christianity in the heart of Greco-Roman society, there were ways in which Christians could be seen to be adhering to social codes and upholding rather than threatening the fabric of society. Observing standards of household relations and conforming to certain expectations of what a household should look like was one way of ensuring that they maintained “a platform for social security, apologetics and evangelism.”

Jobes writes, “Because of the importance of household relationships for social stability, religions introduced into the empire by foreigners were judged in large part by whether or not they complied with the expectations for household relationships.”19 She goes on to note that one “of the apologetic tasks for a religious group was to show compliance with the important elements of social order, as Josephus does for Judaism,” thus “the household codes of the NT had important apologetic value as the newly formed religion of Christianity took root in Greco-Roman society.”20 It is not possible to fathom the full import of the household codes, therefore, unless we understand that they had sociopolitical meaning and were not simply for private, individual homes.21

Despite the call to acquiescence to some social and governmental structures found in New Testament letters, the household codes contain clear indications that ways of relating among slaves and masters, parents and children, and husbands and wives were being redrawn and redefined. They do this, however, without a total overturning of systems that formed the basis of Greco-Roman society. For example, the New Testament writers do not tackle whole systems of injustice as it were, such as explicitly calling for the wholesale abolition of slavery. I personally experience this as a disappointment, as I think many do. It means that we have to delve deeper into the texts in front of us to find the kind of challenge to the abomination and injustice of slavery, as we know it, that we want to see. When we do this, although we may not see a radical overturning of whole systems of injustice, we do see what R. T. France calls, the “seeds” of revolution. Hence, the Christian Scriptures and the gospel of Christ has led Christians throughout the ages to resist and challenge the dehumanizing of human beings at every level on the grounds that this is anathema to God. One of the key ways the early Christians did this was to target the powerful male at the center of a household. The household codes issue a challenge in the complete redefinition of the husband and the master’s role, and in this lies the “revolutionary depth charge” identified by Tom Holland.

Jobes observes, “While addressing the topic of household management and using a form similar to the Greek moral writers, Peter puts household relationships on an entirely new footing that subverts the moral code as previously taught by the Greek philosophers.”22 She notes also the unexpected address to slaves and women/wives in the vocative (i.e., a direct address). Slaves were the property of their masters, with no rights and no voice. Wives were to be cared for, possibly also educated, thus the Greeks viewed both slaves and women as deficient, although not in the same way. “Aristotle understands the slave to be incapable of deliberative thinking, while the wife has the capability but not commensurate authority. Thus, it is proper to direct all instruction through the man, who has both the capability and authority to reason fully. Moreover, the instruction of the wife should be the object of the husband’s unstinting care.”23 So Jobes writes, “While some modern interpreters consider the NT household codes to be hopelessly chauvinistic, they fail to read the codes against their contemporary literature, which shows that the NT writers actually subverted cultural expectations by elevating the slave and the wife with unparalleled dignity.”24

Not only are slaves and wives addressed but most unusually the suffering of slaves is described as “unjust.” This “implies an unprecedented status for the slave, to whom, according to Aristotle, no true injustice can be done.”25 In other words, simply acknowledging that the suffering of a slave is unjust is communicating the value of his or her life. Jobes also highlights the role of the slave in the letter as a whole, who serves as the paradigm for all believers. This is radical. Slaves, wives, and husbands are united in their fear (deep reverence) of the Lord and in their need to submit to him. Women and slaves, along with the men, are called to be Christlike. As Jobes points out, they have everything to gain.

What is the role of the man in this? Peter says, “Husbands, in the same way, show consideration for your wives in your life together, paying honor to the woman as the weaker sex, since they too are also heirs of the gracious gift of life—so that nothing may hinder your prayers.”

I have to admit that when I first read this, I was so affronted and distracted by the reference to women as the weaker vessel/partner/sex, that I found it hard to get past it to see anything else. For many years I simply ignored it. Studying the passage in more detail, however, as well as studying more church history, has changed my perspective. We will approach the hurdle of the weaker sex, but first note that men are called to treat the women in the household as “fellow heirs of grace.” Here, more than anything, the individual believer’s conformity to and identification with Christ is the focus, and remember that Peter has framed this in terms of a slave. Jobes writes, “The implied assumptions of Peter’s teaching (e.g., directly addressing slaves and wives as heirs of the grace of God in Christ who have moral authority over their own lives, equal to that of free men), if followed to their logical extent by a society committed to such teaching, will indeed restructure that society.”26 Peter cleverly both upholds and subverts the social order. He affirms the role of the husband, encouraging the husband to use his advantages and privilege to elevate his wife/the women, while at the same time giving the wife autonomy in her behavior and issuing a stern warning to the men should they neglect their empowering role and demean the women. We will return to this theme, but before we do, I want to touch on the sensitive theme of women as “weaker.”

Anyone with any sense of the role that women play in society or any knowledge of history will know for certain that women are not “weaker” than men in crucial ways: intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, as well as in terms of physical stamina and pain thresholds. Any Christian of the first three hundred years would have been well aware of this as they watched women as well as men go to their deaths as martyrs. Athanasius notes that boys and girls, men and women “scoff at death,” facing their suffering with great courage.27 Stories of the bravery of women like Perpetua and Felicity, early Christian martyrs of the third century, would have circulated among the early church, inspiring others to face persecution and death with equal courage.

There are ways, however, that women are weaker than men, often generally physically but most especially if they have been weakened or disempowered by a system or set of beliefs. Although there are some notable examples of powerful women in the ancient world, on the whole, women were socially, economically, politically, and educationally disadvantaged in comparison to men. This cannot be emphasized enough. In this context, the teaching we find in the Bible directed at men calls them to fidelity, honor, attentiveness, and the necessity of elevating women to their level. It gives us a picture of the redemptive power of sacrifice that men had the potential to implement. What of today? Are there any parallels now?

In some societies and cultures today men retain the power at the expense of women, and in some, this is even enshrined in law.28 We would hope that where men convert to Christianity within those cultures they would hear this message as it was spoken then and act on it. For many of us, however, power structures between men and women are more subtle, and it is not always true to say that men have all the power. Equally, however, even in societies where equality is enshrined in law, there are still instances where we find that women are weakened or disadvantaged by structures beyond their control.

When I was younger, it was common for feminists to deny a woman’s weakness in any shape or form. There was outrage at the suggestion. Women were strong, capable, and equal to a man, and women were tangibly defensive at the hint of anything different. This stance represents a particular battle women felt they had to fight at the time. On the one hand women felt the need to fight the general demeaning and belittling of women and their accomplishments. On the other it mattered that women weren’t patronized or infantilized. Calling women “weaker” seemed to feed into one or other or both of those attitudes. Women fight other battles, though, and sometimes denial of the weakened position does not help to win those battles. The increased awareness of domestic abuse and prevalence of sexual abuse and harassment for nearly all women raises other concerns about women in a weakened and disempowered position and how to combat this. In addition to this, women are almost universally at the mercy of a man’s physical strength and in most cultures of the world at the mercy of men’s economic and political strength.

I saw a marked shift recently and a different perspective expressed by a well-known British feminist author, Caitlin Moran, that highlighted to me how times have changed since the 1980s. Writing out of a growing sense of fear for her teenage girls and what they might face in the world, Moran writes,

Here are the two big things that men truly don’t understand about women. The two things that, if you knew them—if you truly understood—would change the way you act, and raise your sons to act, overnight. The first is: we’re scared of you. Not all of you. Probably not most of you. We feel safe with our fathers—unless we have been unlucky; and our husbands—unless we have been unlucky; and our friends and brothers—again, unless we have been unlucky. But we are scared. Of what you can do. Try to imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to live on a planet where half the people on it are just . . . bigger than you. We are smaller, softer, and we cannot run as fast as men. We know you can grab us, and we would struggle to get away. We know if you hit us, we’ll go down. We know if you decide to kill us, there’s not much we can do.29

Perhaps, then, it is not so offensive to find that the Bible recognizes certain disadvantages that women face and exhorts men to make every effort to redress the balance. Think back to Holland’s comment about a world where cruelty, led by men, was normalized. Into this setting Peter warns the men that the women are their co-heirs—they inherit the riches of Christ and the kingdom in equal measure. More than this, he “teaches that men whose authority runs roughshod over their women, even with society’s full approval, will not be heard by God.”30 I do not for a second think this reference was intended to convey that women were weaker intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually, as the rest of the Bible never implies that. I also do not find these verses patronizing or infantilizing but believe they communicated to the women in the household at that time that they were equal to the men they lived with, that they were entitled to be known as real people, and that they were assigned equal honor to men as their co-heirs and sisters in Christ.

This has been further brought home to me by reading about the radical impact of Christian ethics on women in the ancient world. Stark notes that the prohibitions on abortion, female infanticide, incest, and polygamy along with the disapproval of divorce and remarriage for widows all converged to offer greater protection for women. Women benefitted from the Christian ethical standards as death rates from dangerous abortions were high. It was unusual to have a family with more than one daughter, and widows would lose their wealth to new husbands if forced to marry again. In addition to this, poor widows were cared for by the church so they did not have to remarry.31

The fact that the Bible exhorts men in the ancient world to guard and honor women and to treat them as equals should be a cause for celebration and is sadly still so needed in today’s culture. On the topic of weakness, however, I want to finish on one important point. It would be a benefit to women, if men would be aware of the possible fear than can be engendered in women, sometimes just by a man’s presence. However, this can be countered simply with awareness and respectful behavior. It is that simple. There is no need to take this and to extrapolate from it that men need to be the protectors and women the protected. Why? Women resist the idea that we are “weaker” so we will not be patronized and infantilized. Women are not children. That is one reason. The other is that it does not benefit either men or women for them to imagine that the role of protector lies only with one sex or that this is anything like what the Bible depicts.

There are many numerous examples of protective, courageous, and even warrior women in the Old Testament: Sarah, Miriam, Zipporah, Deborah, Manoah’s wife, Ruth, Hannah, Abigail, the Wise Woman of Tekoa, the Shunammite Woman, Huldah, and Esther are just some examples. And as we have seen, the women patrons of Jesus would have played a protective role in his life; his female disciples stood by him through his death. There is no reason they would not have imagined that the same execution might happen to them one day, and of course for so many Christian men and women around the world it does.

All human beings, men and women, suffer vulnerability and supposed “weakness” at different times. Not only do we learn through Christ that weakness is not what it seems, but is, in fact, a route to strength, but men and women alike know that being able to give and receive care and compassion forms us into Christlike creatures. In sum, this little but powerful phrase in 1 Peter is not a comprehensive statement on male-female relations, and the household code in this letter as a whole stands as an example of how the Bible in this particular instance subverts male dominance and exhorts the powerful to share and even renounce their power with and for those who have none.

CHRIST AND THE CHURCH IN EPHESIANS 5

I have saved Ephesians 5 until last because this passage is so often used to uphold the idea of headship as authority that lies with the husband and the submission or subordination of the wife. I think I have laid enough ground now with our study of kephalē and the other household codes to be able to imagine that Paul is telling a different story from that of the authoritative husband and the submissive wife, but a close study of Paul’s reference to the headship of Christ in Ephesians and also in Colossians will complete this picture.

Paul begins this teaching on the church (which is primarily teaching on the church and not marriage) in the context of his instruction to the whole church at Ephesus that they should “Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ” (Ephesians 5:21 NIV). He goes on to use the concept of Christ as the head of the church and draws an analogy with a marriage relation. If 1 Corinthians 11:3 is a parallel passage to this, which it seems most likely, then Paul is almost certainly also referring there to husbands and wives and not to all men and all women in 1 Corinthians.

When Jesus is described as the head in the Gospels, it is in the context of the “head stone” or the head stone of the “corner,” referring to a quotation from Psalm 118:22.32 “The stone that the builders rejected / has become the [head] cornerstone” (see Matthew 21:42; Luke 20:17; Mark 12:10). This then should be a key concept in our interpretation of Paul’s use of the term. A headstone or cornerstone is usually of immense size and holds a whole building together. It acts as a foundation upon which all the other stones will be set. All the other stones in the building are set in reference to this one stone, and thus it determines the position of the entire structure. We find this reference in 1 Peter 2:4-7.

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:

“See, I am laying in Zion a stone,

a cornerstone chosen and precious;

and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected

has become the very head of the corner.”

Similarly, we find references to Christ as the head in Colossians 1:18 and 2:10, where we read that believers are made complete in Christ, who is head over every ruler (or power) and authority. If we then turn to Ephesians, where Paul employs this concept in relation to Christ and the church, we find a pretty direct application of head in this sense. Christ as the head of the church is the one in whom all things hold together and through whom all the saints are being built up and raised up to become a holy temple and dwelling place for God. To have Christ as our head is the route to the bestowal and sharing of his glory and gives us access to his boundless riches and power that become our inheritance in him. He alone is the foundation, and the structure is built in him and through the Spirit (see Ephesians 1:10; 2:19-22; 4:15).33

Christ as the head means that he is the organizing center. He knits the whole structure together, he ensures all the parts work in harmony and unity, and through being connected to him the church is raised up to share in his glory and to reign with him. Here is the church founded upon him, indissolubly united with him, and seated with him in the heavenly realms. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians brings out the idea that submission to Christ is the means to the pouring out of love, grace, riches, power, and untold blessing from God. Moreover, crucially in this letter, the mystery that has been revealed to Paul is that God is not just God of the Jews but also of the Gentiles and that they have an equal and unqualified share in the riches of his grace (Ephesians 2:11–3:6). In Christ, we become one new humanity. Christ, as the head of the body, breaks down all the dividing walls of hostility, causing all people within the church to become one new person in him as we grow up in him to maturity. What might this mean when used in relation to husband and wife and why?

THE CHRISTLIKE HUSBAND

Paul chooses only one particular role in the Christian body—the role of a Christian husband—to illustrate the way in which Christ relates to his church. As we have seen already, he has radical ideas about how a Christian husband should behave in his household and with his family, and here we get a deeper perspective on how Paul sees Christ’s relation to the church and what he thinks of the spiritual role of the husband. The Ephesians 5 husband sacrifices his life to the point of death for his wife, giving up everything for her and her salvation and flourishing. It appears that in an ancient context, Paul is doing the equivalent of dropping a bombshell on the listening husbands, effectively denying them the rights and powers that society assumes are theirs. Instead, for these Christian husbands, their lot is to be identified with a crucified Savior, who gave himself up for the ones he adored, and to give up their lives for their wives.

The wives, in turn, are identified with the church. It is hard for us to understand the impact of this, but it appears that this analogy may well have struck the women as a status of privilege. It strikes us as odd as we encounter the same inequality and imbalance that we encountered in 1 Peter 3. However, the effect on the first hearers is that the male role is redefined, and the wives are elevated out of their lower position. Christian marriage is framed in terms of a spiritual, mystical, holy union, where love, faithfulness, and covenant form the heart of the unity of a husband and wife. My conclusions from Ephesians 5 are the following.

In a culture where wives were often regarded as both chattel and easily expendable, Paul redefines a husband’s responsibilities toward his wife in terms of enduring covenant faithfulness, monogamy, and self-sacrifice.

In a culture where women and girls were largely uneducated and where mostly men would have held all the power and education, Paul tasks Christian husbands with building up their wives into spiritual maturity, nourishing and nurturing them as ones who are equal heirs of the riches of grace poured out on them by Christ.

The husband as the head of the wife does not replace Christ as her head because Christ is the head of all believers.

This leads me to believe that Paul is making a deeper point about how he understands Christ’s love for the church (which is what he says) and at the same time offering husbands a way of understanding their role in new, Christian terms.

This then makes sense of the idea of head as the cornerstone or foundation upon which a structure is built up and through which all things hold together, and this concept of head as cornerstone also works quite well for God-Christ, Christ-husband, and husband-wife relations.

WHAT IS LEFT OF MALE HEADSHIP?

Paul frames the role of the husband in Ephesians 5:25-33 through a metaphor of head as the cornerstone, which runs through the whole of this letter. First, the Christian husband is called into a startlingly new way of relating to his wife, which involves laying down his own life for her sake in order to contribute to her sanctification and maturity in Christ. In a world where there was radical inequality between most men and women, and an accepted norm of treating women as one’s property, this is extremely unusual. Second, Paul describes a role for the Christian husband as one who nourishes, nurtures, and cherishes, but it appears to be with specific reference to empowering and bringing to maturity. In other words, I don’t think that his view of the man’s role was infantilizing or overly protective but precisely the opposite. Christian women as well as men were being exhorted to reach maturity in Christ and to be prepared for possible persecution.

Christ’s role in the church is to build up the church—he pours out his abundant love and the riches of his grace to elevate and raise up the church to its God-given status. Second, the verbs Paul chooses in relation to the husband’s role have this meaning. The first is ektrephō, meaning “to nourish” and “nurture,” but also “to bring to maturity,” “to rear,” “to raise,” and “to train up.” This is important. In a world of largely disempowered women and wives, the husband’s role is to raise and train them up. The second word he uses, thalpō, has similar but very much tenderer overtones. It is to nourish and cherish in the sense of keeping someone warm or warming them up. I personally find this a particularly moving concept. Paul also uses the word in 1 Thessalonians to remind the church that Paul and his fellow ministers were gentle among them, like a nursing mother “cherishing” (thalpō) her children. Paul often uses traditionally female images to describe his role as a pastor, so it is no surprise here that he uses a mothering term to describe a husband’s role.

Here again, we have to acknowledge that there is an inequality in the depiction of the husband and wife’s roles, but we must remember that Paul and Peter were speaking into already unequal societies and power structures. The man is exhorted to use his privilege, status, power, and education to empower, educate, and nourish. He is called to exercise sexual restraint, to acknowledge those under him as equal before God, and to protect the women in his household. The wife’s role is left largely undefined in the household codes, apart from the idea that she is defined in Christlike terms and in relation to the church itself. This in itself, however, was revolutionary. I am also struck by how close to a classic or traditional mothering role the role of the Christian husband appears. Furthermore, it must be remembered that everyone was aware that Christ, and Christ alone, is the head of the entire church that is made up of men, women, and children. There is only one head of the church. The rest of us make up the body. All men, together with all women and all children, are the body of Christ and we all have one head—Christ.

A MARRIAGE OF EQUALS AMONG UNEQUALS

The New Testament writers were radically redefining the role of the man in Christian marriage in order to restore dignity, status, and protection to the woman in a harsh and unequal world. Significantly, Paul cites from Genesis 2:24 in Ephesians 5, a verse that Jesus also cites in Matthew 19:4-6 when questioned over the treatment of wives: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” It seems completely lost on so many modern writers that this ancient verse describes a matriarchate where women retained rights and property and where men joined the women’s kin. This has huge implications for what we understand as a biblical pattern of marriage. It appears that this was what God had intended all along, but men had rewritten the rules of marriage to suit their selfish ends. Jesus and Paul were both calling the church back to God’s original plan.

Husbands are called into a one-flesh union with their wives where they are to renounce their own family ties and are to love their wives as they love their own bodies. Christian men have wives who are members with them of one body in which Christ is the head of all. In a context where authority, ownership, hierarchy, and an imbalance of power was the norm, the Christian church redefined the role of the Christian husband in relation to his wife, enjoining him to take seriously the responsibility that he has to nurture, cherish, protect, and empower her in the faith. Christian marriage was intended to be a position for women of ultimate security and dignity. If the husband is the head in an analogous sense to Christ as the head, he lays down his life in order to raise his wife up. He behaves to her as Christ behaves to her, as the one who confers love, loyalty, dignity, status, honor, and power; he is the lifter of her head. It is not a head that needs to be covered for fear of shame.

A woman, finding herself married to a Christian man in one of Paul’s churches, like a Gentile, or a slave, should have had the disorientating experience of being treated as an equal. Not only this but unlike many of the pagan husbands around them, she would find that her husband had committed himself to be faithful, binding himself to her for life in covenant love, loving her as he loves his own body, recognizing her gifts and potential as a co-heir of the grace of life, and working to see all of that fulfilled in an analogous fashion to the way we are nurtured and empowered by Christ, who above all is our Savior.

A CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE TODAY

I began this chapter by making the point that there are people for whom the household codes are irrelevant because there is no resemblance between their own households and family relations and the ones of the biblical era. There is no way of applying what we find in the Bible regarding households to many Christians. Similarly, for the most part, marriages today just do not look like marriages in antiquity. Marriages in the West are more often than not between equals when it comes to education, spiritual maturity, and earning potential. There are times when the Bible speaks into contexts where there is gross inequality, and we have seen how radically it addresses that. But for many of us, the Bible is not addressing a fundamental preexisting inequality. We know that one partner will often bear more responsibility than the other in one sphere: childcare, finances, household management, or provision of income. But we also know that for the most part, when one flags because of exhaustion, sickness, overbusyness, the other picks up, and these roles are often not set in stone. In most of the marriages we know that this is the case. Decision-making is shared, prayerful, and respectful of the other’s needs. Decisions are arrived at when both the husband and the wife are at peace, and when children are older, this mostly includes the children as well. In other words, on no account does either party have the last say. Responsibilities, childcare, financial burdens, and family commitments are all shared. This is how it should be.

Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we are living with those who are less privileged than us. If and when we do find ourselves with those who are less privileged than us, less able, less advantaged, less empowered, then applying the patterns we find in the household codes will mean that our task is to lay down our lives as Christ laid down his with the specific intent of empowering others. In the West, more often than not this role is occupied by a white, middle-class male, but certainly not exclusively on a global scale. Depending on the circumstances, this privileged position could be held by almost anyone, including women. For those of us in that position, and for anyone facing the joys and challenges of covenant life with others, the key to Christian living is simply found in the example of Christ. How can we be as Christ to one another? My own view is that this sums up the heart of the household codes.

A FINAL WORD

I encourage all Christian married couples to break away from and reject any expectation that the husband should occupy an authoritative role and the wife a submissive one. I don’t believe that it’s either a biblical or a healthy pattern for marriage, and I think it places an unfair and unnecessary burden of responsibility on the man and a crushing, diminishing role on the woman. Statistically, many of us women will be widowed in our lives, and how will it serve us then if we have been conditioned all our lives to depend on a man for everything and to abdicate responsibility? Similarly, men should be able to run a home, should know how to serve, and to be able to care for the domestic needs of others in a household. I feel sure that even though there are so many of us encouraging young men and women to see a marriage in terms of shared responsibilities in all spheres, there will still be Christian husbands and wives who wish to adopt roles of authority and submission. I cannot change that, and that will be their choice. Having done all the work that we have now done on the household codes, my one plea is that they are not coerced into this pattern on the basis that this is “biblical.”