Part 2: Women’s Roles in the Family
WOMEN’S ROLES IN THE FAMILY
In the first section of this book we examined texts in the Pauline corpus that address women’s roles in public worship. In this section we focus on a text that addresses the role of women as wives in the home, Ephesians 5:22–31. Although the domestic role of women is also addressed in Colossians 3:18, 1 Timothy 5:14, and Titus 2:4–5, our discussion focuses on the most extended passage in Paul’s writings, where Paul has more space to clarify precisely what he means. We have chosen to focus on only one passage because most of the background material relevant to this text also explains what we read in the other passages.
INTERPRETATION ISSUES
In chapter 4 we try to reconstruct the situation that led Paul to emphasize the submission of women. As many scholars have pointed out, members of the Roman elite suspected Christianity, like several other non-Roman religions, of subverting Roman family values. By upholding what was honorable in Roman values, the Christians could try to protect themselves from undue persecution and from misunderstandings of the gospel. Paul’s use of the three-part codes dealing with wives, children, and slaves followed a standard form used in antiquity, sometimes for this very purpose.
In chapter 5 we examine what Paul means by submission, and how his readers would have understood his point. In line with Paul’s concern for an honorable Christian witness in ancient society, he clearly believes that it is right for wives to submit to their husbands. At the same time, he defines the wife’s submission as respect rather than obedience, and he expects husbands to submit to their wives, something virtually unheard of in his day. Paul sometimes summarized only one side of this mutual submission formula, as in Colossians 3:18, probably for the reasons mentioned in chapter 4. But he argues for mutual submission when he explains his position more fully. Although Paul uses the standard form of household code, he significantly qualifies its meaning, earning himself a place among the most progressive of ancient writers.
Nevertheless, in his culture, Paul seems to have assumed that husbands would in some sense lead in the home, though they should submit to their wives’ needs; men and women in his day both seem to have accepted this as the normal arrangement. Thus chapter 5 raises a question more problematic than the question raised in the first half of the book: Is Paul adopting the leadership structures of his day as a transcultural requirement, or does he just call us to live the Christian life within the framework of whatever leadership structures exist in our society?
With regard to the first half of our book, it is easy enough to say that the one passage unambiguously forbidding women to teach addresses a specific situation, since we have plenty of examples of women sharing with Paul in ministry. But it is more difficult to argue that Paul merely recognized husbands’ leadership in his culture, rather than demanding it in all cultures, since the whole New Testament was written in a culture where men usually led in the home.
The case about husbands’ leadership can be argued either way, depending on the assumptions one uses to interpret the passage. Was Paul trying to mandate roles in the home for all cultures or to deal with a pressing issue in his congregations? If, as I believe, he was doing the latter, we must ask whether Paul had even considered the question of cultures where wives could share equally with their husbands in the leadership of their homes. And if Paul had only his own culture in mind, how can we apply his principles in a completely different culture?
We grapple with this question in chapter 6. After Paul has addressed the relationship between wives and husbands in Ephesians 5, he moves on to the relationships between children and parents, and slaves and masters, in Ephesians 6, continuing to give a Christian reinterpretation of the traditional household codes. Probably most of us would be happy to maintain his instructions concerning parents and children, which have general Old Testament precedent. But most of us would also argue that in telling slaves to obey their masters as they would Christ, he is addressing slaves stuck in a less-than-ideal situation, not upholding the institution of slavery. As in the case of Paul’s admonition to wives, his admonitions to slaves are significantly qualified by his corresponding instructions to masters.
Yet if Paul could call on slaves to submit without supporting slavery, we must allow that he could have asked wives to submit without supporting male dominance. The method of interpretation that leads some readers to uphold the husband’s right to rule his family on the basis of Ephesians 5 would most naturally have led to the use of Ephesians 6 to uphold slavery a century and a half ago.
PRACTICAL ISSUES
Mutual submission will be expressed in different ways from one culture to another, since husband and wife roles vary from one culture to another. The question of the nature of submission becomes most problematic in cultures in transition, where gender roles in a marriage are no longer clearly defined and divergent expectations about those roles become the basis for marital conflict. But where the culture leaves those roles undefined, mutual submission calls the wife and husband to communicate openly and to define their roles in dialogue together. Simply imposing the husband’s “final word” does eliminate role confusion, but it may do so at the expense of the equal wisdom and leadership capability of the wife.
I am not saying that it is necessarily wrong for the man to lead in a household; I am suggesting that it is wrong for him to demand the position of leadership without his wife’s consent. Given the educational and vocational status of women in our culture, an egalitarian marriage must be permitted as a viable option. This will require a great deal more communication and much more work in our marriages than a model where the husband’s will is law; consensus requires discussion and ground rules for dialogue.
On the one hand, there are at least two disadvantages to the mutual-consent model of decision making: first, the husband may not agree to it; second, when the husband is definitely right and the wife is wrong, it will be more difficult for the husband to get his right way. On the other hand, the disadvantages of the husband-rules model of decision making are no less serious: first, in our culture, the wife may not agree to it; second, when the wife is definitely right and the husband is wrong, it will be more difficult for the wife to get her right way.
This book is written not to tell any couple which partner, if either, should lead in their home; it is written to argue that those who think they know which partner should always lead on the basis of Scripture have not read Scripture as clearly as they should have. One thing Scripture clearly demands, however, is mutual submission. We need to listen to our spouse and seek to serve him or her, and we need above all else to seek to please God. In marriages where both partners are bending over backward to outdo each other in love and service, the question of a “supreme authority” in the household other than God is surely less of an issue than some writers have made it. Due to the disobedience of one or both partners, not all marriages can attain that ideal; but Paul encourages us each to do our own part to strive for that ideal, to make our marriages a pure reflection of the loving service of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the world may be drawn to him.
EPHESIANS 5:18—6:9: PROCEDURE FOR DISCUSSION
Many marriages today are troubled with the tension of openly conflicting wills. This situation is not necessarily worse than one partner’s always getting his or her way and never realizing that the other partner would disagree if she or he could. But it is still hardly the picture of an ideal marriage. Biblically speaking, an ideal marriage would be one in which both partners cooperate in love, instead of either one seeking his or her own way.
Mutual cooperation seems to be the picture of relationships we find in Ephesians 5:21—6:9. Given the difficulty of loving and serving as radically as this text demands—Paul gives Christ’s death as the standard for love, and our allegiance to Christ as the standard for submission—the context in which Paul places this discussion is significant: this is a kind of life that flows from being filled with Christ’s Spirit (5:18–21).
Because this context is so important to the interpretation of “submission” in 5:21–22, we will survey the teaching of 5:18–21 before we examine 5:21–22. Because the instructions to husbands and wives are part of a larger section of household codes that also addresses father-child and master-slave relationships, we will also examine these texts, which will contribute to our understanding of how to apply what Ephesians teaches on husband-wife roles today. And because the whole passage can best be understood in the light of what was going on at the time, our discussion of Ephesians 5:18—6:9 is prefaced by a survey of the most likely social context of this passage.