Eclectic Anecdotes

Regarding Ephesians 5:22 (Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord), Christopher West has written:

If it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, I want to affirm your response. Why? Because you probably think the passage means something like: “Wives are doormats who must surrender to their husbands’ domination.” If that’s what you think it means, then I’d be concerned if it didn’t make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Nevertheless, that’s not what the verse means. When we look at this verse in the context of the whole passage (Eph 5:21-23), the context flips the typical interpretation on its head. Unfortunately, as soon as people hear this one verse, they tune out the rest of what St. Paul says.

While we must admit that some men throughout history have pointed to this Scripture verse to justify their fallen desire to dominate women, St. Paul is in no way justifying such an attitude. He knows it to be a result. Of sin (see Gn 3:16), which is why in this passage he’s actually restoring God’s original plan before sin. He does so by pointing out what marriage was all about in the first place. It was meant to foreshadow the marriage of Christ and the Church. St. Paul simply draws out the implications of this analogy.

He starts by calling both husbands and wives to be subject to one another “out of reverence for Christ” (v. 21)—out of reverence for the “great mystery” that spouses participate in by imaging Christ’s union with the Church. In the analogy, the husband represents Christ, and the wife represents the Church. So, he says, as the Church is subject to Christ, so should wives also be subject to their husbands (see v. 24).

Another translation uses the word “submission.” I like to explain this word as follows. “Sub” means “under,” and “mission” means “to be sent forth with the authority to perform a specific service.” Wives, then, are called to put themselves “under” the “mission” of their husbands.

What’s the mission of the husband? “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up to her” (v. 25). How did Christ love the Church? He died for her. Christ said he came “not to be served but to serve,” and to lay down his life for his Bride (Mt 20:28).

What, then does it mean for a wife to “submit” to her husband? It means let your husband serve you. Put yourself under his mission to love you as Christ loved the Church. As John Paul II says: “The wife’s ‘submission’ to her husband, understood in the context of the entire passage of the letter to the Ephesians, signifies above all the ‘experiencing of love.’ This is true all the more so since this ‘submission’ is related to the image of the submission of the Church to Christ, which certainly consists in experiencing his love.”

What woman would not want to receive this kind of love from her husband? What woman would not want to be subject to her husband if he truly took his mission seriously to love her as Christ loved the Church? So often it’s husbands that want their wives to take this Scripture passage to heart. I think it’s we men who need to take it to heart first.[1]

[1] Christopher West, Good News About Sex & Marriage: Answers to Your Honest Questions about Catholic Teaching (Cincinnati: St. Anthony’s Messenger Press, 2004), 61-63.