Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
The verse plainly requires a wife to submit herself to her own husband in the same spirit as she submits to the Lord. Her submission follows the pattern of the church's subjection to Christ, with the husband as head of the wife even as Christ is head and Saviour of the church. It is joined to the husband's duty to love, nourish and cherish his wife even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself to make it holy and without blemish. That submission is to be rendered only as is fitting in the Lord and in the fear of God, not as blind and entire submission in all things, for such entire submission belongs to Christ alone. It gives no warrant for dictatorial rule, for compelling obedience, or for erasing the wife's will, conscience and individuality, and a husband who will not himself live under Christ's rule cannot rightly claim the headship the verse describes.
Words and Setting
The command is stated in language as plain as can be expressed: a wife is to yield herself to her own husband as she would to the Lord. The church's subjection to Christ is the pattern for this relation, in which the husband stands as the wife's head and as protector of the family. Yielding in this way means being a blessing and comfort to her husband rather than dragging him down and embittering his life, treating him with respect and reverence rather than ruling him with a strong, stubborn, and rebellious spirit.
The verse opens Paul's teaching on the mutual duties of husbands and wives to one another, with the earthly marriage relation illustrated and reinforced by Christ's relation to the church. It concerns marital conduct and does not define who the bride is in the marriage of the Lamb. The duty it enjoins begins with marriage, which is a union for life and a symbol of the union between Christ and His church. Belonging to that lifelong faithfulness, it reveals self-sacrifice leading to the truest happiness and the highest perfection of character and glorifies God in the united life. The spirit Christ manifests toward the church is therefore the spirit husband and wife are to manifest toward each other, with the husband cherishing his wife as Christ cherishes the church and the wife respecting and loving her husband, both putting on kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering and love, determined never to grieve or injure each other and making no plea for rulership. The husband in this lifelong union serves as houseband of the family and priest of his home, loving and cherishing his wife.
The command stands within the call to submit to one another in the fear of God and contains lessons for the guidance of every married man and every married woman, requiring careful study and searching of the heart as with a lighted candle. It is part of household instruction for practicing the Word in family life and keeping order in the home under God's authority. That order calls for parents to exercise control and for children to be trained in right habits, and neglect of these duties weakens the family's example and dims its witness. The chapter containing the verse is to be read together with chapters 4 and 6:10-18 as instruction for holding fast without moving pin or pillar from the building of faith when every effort is made to tear up its foundation.
Christ Church Pattern
The church's subjection to Christ is the model for a wife's relation to her own husband as to the Lord, for the husband is her head even as Christ is head of the church. That headship is a charge to protect the family and bind it together after Christ's headship, joined to the husband's call to love sacrificially and cherish his wife as his own body, so that together these duties make married life pure and elevated, guarded and garrisoned by holy love. As the church is subject to Christ in everything, so wives are to be subject to their own husbands in everything, because the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is head and Saviour of the body, the church.
Marriage represents the sacred union between Christ and His people, and marriage as a union for life is a symbol of the union between Christ and His church, symbolized by the unity of Christ and the church which the husband as house-band is to bind the family into. The spirit Christ manifests toward the church is therefore the spirit husband and wife are to manifest toward each other. Submission belongs with submitting to one another in the fear of God, walking circumspectly as wise, redeeming the time, understanding the will of the Lord, being filled with the Spirit, singing with melody in the heart to the Lord, and giving thanks always for all things. This life is the only way husband and wife can glorify God in their united life.
Submission to God and obedience to His law protect the marriage from strife, divided interests, and alienation, as the Christian wife shares her husband's interest in their home as his companion and recognizes him as the household's head.
Mutual Duties in Marriage
The wife's submission is paired with the husband's duty to love his wife even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, to sanctify and cleanse it and to present it to Himself glorious and holy and without spot or blemish. That self-sacrificing love forbids degrading her or treating her as a servant to uncontrolled passion, and few put these instructions for family life into practice. The spirit Christ manifests toward the church is the spirit husband and wife are to manifest toward each other, for marriage as a union for life symbolizes the union between Christ and His church. This belongs with submitting to one another in the fear of God, walking wisely, redeeming the time, understanding the Lord's will, being filled with the Spirit, singing with melody in the heart, and giving thanks always, which is the only way husband and wife can glorify God in their united life.
Men ought to love their wives as their own bodies, and he that loves his wife loves himself, nourishing and cherishing her even as the Lord cherishes the church, for believers are members of His body. For this cause a man leaves father and mother to be joined to his wife as one flesh, a great mystery concerning Christ and the church, with every husband to love his wife as himself and the wife to reverence her husband. God ordained perfect love and perfect harmony in marriage, with the wife to respect, reverence, and love her husband and the husband to love and cherish his wife. Bride and bridegroom pledge before the heavenly universe to love one another as God ordained, with no draught of unkindness chilling the home, and divine love does not destroy human love but includes it, refined and purified, elevated and ennobled heavenward, so that true friendship and married love becomes a foretaste of heaven. The wife shares her husband's interest in the home as his companion and promises to love and obey him, and submission to God and obedience to His law protect the marriage from strife, divided interests, and alienation.
Neither husband nor wife is to make a plea for rulership, and neither is to try to compel the other to do as wished, for compulsion cannot retain love. Both have strong will power that can be a great blessing through kindness or a curse through yielding to self, so both are to put on kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering and love, cherish kindness, and be determined never to grieve or injure each other. Husband and wife are to respect each other's rights and individuality and cultivate a grateful, submissive spirit, with their mutual love, courtesy, self-denial, and self-sacrifice reflecting Christ's relationship with the church. The husband in particular must be patient, kind and forbearing, never domineering or using his will to force his wife, remembering she has a will of her own and may wish to have her way as much as he wishes to have his.
The wife is to yield her wishes, will, and way to her husband and submit to his judgment even when it conflicts with her feelings, and his judgment receives preference as head of the family after the pattern of Christ's headship of the church. Yielding to the husband she chose as counselor, adviser, and protector does not lessen her dignity, while he is to maintain his position with meekness and decision, and both spouses should be yielding. When his requirements seem unreasonable, she should consider the matter calmly and give his view the fairest interpretation in the most favorable light, which can prevent unhappiness for both and bring victory over temptation. Where judgment, views, and reasonings do not agree, preference is given to the husband as head and the wife yields to the head, except where conscience is at stake; apart from a matter of conscience his preference governs. Her judgment, views, and reasoning should agree with his when possible, and she should speak to him with respect.
Limits to Submission
Submission is owed only as is fitting in the Lord and in the fear of God, not as blind and entire surrender in all things, for entire submission belongs to Christ alone. It belongs together with submitting to one another in reverent fear, living wisely, redeeming the time, understanding the Lord's will, being filled with the Spirit, singing with melody in the heart, and giving thanks always, which is the only way husband and wife can glorify God in their united life. It gives no warrant for a dictatorial, tyrannical or domineering spirit, for ruling over one another, or for demanding obedience to every whim. The wife keeps her own will, conscience and individuality and is not to be erased into a slave of caprice and passion.
A husband has no right to exact submission in everything while he himself refuses to submit to Christ. He must live under Christ's rule so that his relation to his wife represents Christ's relation to the church. A coarse, harsh, selfish or overbearing man who does not so live cannot rightly claim headship as ground for submission and is not acting as a husband in its true sense. Submission does not cancel the wife's responsibility to God nor her belonging to the Lord who purchased her at infinite price, and the marriage vow does not sanction bodily abuse. It authorizes no control or abuse of her body, no indulging of sexual passion without restraint, no gratifying of selfish passions, no degrading her as a servant to uncontrolled passion, and no harm to her, but the husband's love must be kind, affectionate, compassionate, faithful and attentive to her good.
She must not obey when she knows obedience would injure her ransomed body and spirit, because her Redeemer stands higher than her husband. To demand complete subjection that leaves her no voice or will in the family violates the design of marriage and exercises an arbitrary rule that is not the husband's prerogative. Submission is not slavery. A wife with the Spirit of Christ remains a companion rather than a bond slave, controlling her words and spirit, while a husband who serves God will not lord it over her or treat her arbitrarily or exactingly, and Christ dwelling in both enables agreement, tenderness and forbearance when either errs.
Application in Home Life
When the instruction is heeded the home life becomes pure and elevated, guarded and garrisoned by holy love. That life belongs to lifelong faithfulness in marriage and reveals self-sacrifice leading to the truest happiness and the highest perfection of character and glorifies God in united life. God ordained perfect love and perfect harmony in marriage, with the wife to respect, reverence and love her husband and the husband to love and cherish his wife. Divine love does not destroy human love but includes it, refined and purified, elevated and ennobled heavenward, so that true friendship and the love binding husband and wife becomes a foretaste of heaven, with no draught of unkindness chilling the home. Bride and bridegroom pledge before the heavenly universe to love one another as God ordained, and Jesus wants happy marriages and happy firesides.
The family relation is sanctifying, and the Christian home conducted on God's plan helps form Christian character as a symbol of the great family above. The wife is sustained by her husband's large affections, and the husband as priest of the household binds wife and children to his heart and cooperates with her afterward in wisely, tenderly, lovingly educating them. Parents and children uniting in loving service to God keeps human love pure and noble. The husband meets God's purpose for headship by being houseband to bind the family together into the unity symbolized by the unity of Christ and the church, and priest in his religious service in his home. That responsibility moves him to fulfill his duty, withstand temptation, watch and pray, keep his soul in communion with God and stay under the molding influence of the Holy Spirit so he can mold his children's temperaments into characters the Lord can approve, whether rich or poor, high or low.
The father is to regard the mother of his children as deserving all kindness, tenderness and sympathy, sharing the care and training of the children especially in their dependent early years, speaking no word of censure or disrespect about each other in the hearing of the children, and mutually sharing responsibility, so their influence and example before their children is most sacred amid increasing wickedness. If instead of binding the family together he breaks every tie of affection, the members of the family will be scattered, filled with bitterness and hatred toward one another, and if the wife has the same mold of character woe will come to the children and the whole family will be a blot upon the earth. The wife is to be a blessing and comfort to her husband, not drag him down and embitter his life, treating him with respect and reverence rather than ruling him with a strong, stubborn and rebellious spirit. Serving God with the whole heart with the eye single to His glory does not wean the wife from her husband but draws her closer to him, causing her to leave father, mother, sisters, brothers and friends to cleave to her husband, loving him better than anyone on earth, making his wishes her wishes, and living in harmony and happiness as companion sharing his interest in the home.
Submission means being tender, yielding and careful with words, not wounding him by idle talk or teasing and fretting him into impatience, but comforting him, sympathizing with him, cheering and encouraging him and holding up his hands by kind, sympathizing words and prayers, especially when he returns home weary from his work for God, rather than burdening him or expecting him to hold her up. It means laboring with him for God by keeping him free, laying not even a feather in his way, which God notices and rewards, with full consecration and devotion in preparation for Christ's coming. When his requirements seem unreasonable, she should consider the matter calmly and give his view the fairest interpretation, and doing so can prevent unhappiness for both and bring victory over temptation. When husband and wife are under the rule of Christ, the wife in deep love leans upon her husband, loving, respecting and counseling with him as queen of the home in a hallowed union whose pure, clean, holy affections are a testimony to the world of happy Christian homes.
A wife has definite duties belonging to her position, with an obligation to love and obey her own husband as yielding to the authority of God under God. True love and self-control belong to that submission, and lack of education in them leaves a wife with no sense of her duties and disqualifies her for her place, creating danger and difficulty for her husband. A wife who utterly refuses to keep that vowed place and duty to respect and obey becomes more and more the sport of temptation. Until she learns her place and duties as a wife it is best for him not to be connected with her in any way if staying would only torture his soul, wear out his life, discourage him and unfit him for service while robbing God of his talents and influence and ruining him spiritually.
The verse plainly requires a wife to submit herself to her own husband in the same spirit as she submits to the Lord. Her submission follows the pattern of the church's subjection to Christ, with the husband as head of the wife even as Christ is head and Saviour of the church. It is joined to the husband's duty to love, nourish and cherish his wife even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself to make it holy and without blemish. That submission is to be rendered only as is fitting in the Lord and in the fear of God, not as blind and entire submission in all things, for such entire submission belongs to Christ alone. It gives no warrant for dictatorial rule, for compelling obedience, or for erasing the wife's will, conscience and individuality, and a husband who will not himself live under Christ's rule cannot rightly claim the headship the verse describes.
Words and Setting
The command is stated in language as plain as can be expressed: a wife is to yield herself to her own husband as she would to the Lord. The church's subjection to Christ is the pattern for this relation, in which the husband stands as the wife's head and as protector of the family. Yielding in this way means being a blessing and comfort to her husband rather than dragging him down and embittering his life, treating him with respect and reverence rather than ruling him with a strong, stubborn, and rebellious spirit.
The verse opens Paul's teaching on the mutual duties of husbands and wives to one another, with the earthly marriage relation illustrated and reinforced by Christ's relation to the church. It concerns marital conduct and does not define who the bride is in the marriage of the Lamb. The duty it enjoins begins with marriage, which is a union for life and a symbol of the union between Christ and His church. Belonging to that lifelong faithfulness, it reveals self-sacrifice leading to the truest happiness and the highest perfection of character and glorifies God in the united life. The spirit Christ manifests toward the church is therefore the spirit husband and wife are to manifest toward each other, with the husband cherishing his wife as Christ cherishes the church and the wife respecting and loving her husband, both putting on kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering and love, determined never to grieve or injure each other and making no plea for rulership. The husband in this lifelong union serves as houseband of the family and priest of his home, loving and cherishing his wife.
The command stands within the call to submit to one another in the fear of God and contains lessons for the guidance of every married man and every married woman, requiring careful study and searching of the heart as with a lighted candle. It is part of household instruction for practicing the Word in family life and keeping order in the home under God's authority. That order calls for parents to exercise control and for children to be trained in right habits, and neglect of these duties weakens the family's example and dims its witness. The chapter containing the verse is to be read together with chapters 4 and 6:10-18 as instruction for holding fast without moving pin or pillar from the building of faith when every effort is made to tear up its foundation.
Christ Church Pattern
The church's subjection to Christ is the model for a wife's relation to her own husband as to the Lord, for the husband is her head even as Christ is head of the church. That headship is a charge to protect the family and bind it together after Christ's headship, joined to the husband's call to love sacrificially and cherish his wife as his own body, so that together these duties make married life pure and elevated, guarded and garrisoned by holy love. As the church is subject to Christ in everything, so wives are to be subject to their own husbands in everything, because the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is head and Saviour of the body, the church.
Marriage represents the sacred union between Christ and His people, and marriage as a union for life is a symbol of the union between Christ and His church, symbolized by the unity of Christ and the church which the husband as house-band is to bind the family into. The spirit Christ manifests toward the church is therefore the spirit husband and wife are to manifest toward each other. Submission belongs with submitting to one another in the fear of God, walking circumspectly as wise, redeeming the time, understanding the will of the Lord, being filled with the Spirit, singing with melody in the heart to the Lord, and giving thanks always for all things. This life is the only way husband and wife can glorify God in their united life.
Submission to God and obedience to His law protect the marriage from strife, divided interests, and alienation, as the Christian wife shares her husband's interest in their home as his companion and recognizes him as the household's head.
Mutual Duties in Marriage
The wife's submission is paired with the husband's duty to love his wife even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, to sanctify and cleanse it and to present it to Himself glorious and holy and without spot or blemish. That self-sacrificing love forbids degrading her or treating her as a servant to uncontrolled passion, and few put these instructions for family life into practice. The spirit Christ manifests toward the church is the spirit husband and wife are to manifest toward each other, for marriage as a union for life symbolizes the union between Christ and His church. This belongs with submitting to one another in the fear of God, walking wisely, redeeming the time, understanding the Lord's will, being filled with the Spirit, singing with melody in the heart, and giving thanks always, which is the only way husband and wife can glorify God in their united life.
Men ought to love their wives as their own bodies, and he that loves his wife loves himself, nourishing and cherishing her even as the Lord cherishes the church, for believers are members of His body. For this cause a man leaves father and mother to be joined to his wife as one flesh, a great mystery concerning Christ and the church, with every husband to love his wife as himself and the wife to reverence her husband. God ordained perfect love and perfect harmony in marriage, with the wife to respect, reverence, and love her husband and the husband to love and cherish his wife. Bride and bridegroom pledge before the heavenly universe to love one another as God ordained, with no draught of unkindness chilling the home, and divine love does not destroy human love but includes it, refined and purified, elevated and ennobled heavenward, so that true friendship and married love becomes a foretaste of heaven. The wife shares her husband's interest in the home as his companion and promises to love and obey him, and submission to God and obedience to His law protect the marriage from strife, divided interests, and alienation.
Neither husband nor wife is to make a plea for rulership, and neither is to try to compel the other to do as wished, for compulsion cannot retain love. Both have strong will power that can be a great blessing through kindness or a curse through yielding to self, so both are to put on kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering and love, cherish kindness, and be determined never to grieve or injure each other. Husband and wife are to respect each other's rights and individuality and cultivate a grateful, submissive spirit, with their mutual love, courtesy, self-denial, and self-sacrifice reflecting Christ's relationship with the church. The husband in particular must be patient, kind and forbearing, never domineering or using his will to force his wife, remembering she has a will of her own and may wish to have her way as much as he wishes to have his.
The wife is to yield her wishes, will, and way to her husband and submit to his judgment even when it conflicts with her feelings, and his judgment receives preference as head of the family after the pattern of Christ's headship of the church. Yielding to the husband she chose as counselor, adviser, and protector does not lessen her dignity, while he is to maintain his position with meekness and decision, and both spouses should be yielding. When his requirements seem unreasonable, she should consider the matter calmly and give his view the fairest interpretation in the most favorable light, which can prevent unhappiness for both and bring victory over temptation. Where judgment, views, and reasonings do not agree, preference is given to the husband as head and the wife yields to the head, except where conscience is at stake; apart from a matter of conscience his preference governs. Her judgment, views, and reasoning should agree with his when possible, and she should speak to him with respect.
Limits to Submission
Submission is owed only as is fitting in the Lord and in the fear of God, not as blind and entire surrender in all things, for entire submission belongs to Christ alone. It belongs together with submitting to one another in reverent fear, living wisely, redeeming the time, understanding the Lord's will, being filled with the Spirit, singing with melody in the heart, and giving thanks always, which is the only way husband and wife can glorify God in their united life. It gives no warrant for a dictatorial, tyrannical or domineering spirit, for ruling over one another, or for demanding obedience to every whim. The wife keeps her own will, conscience and individuality and is not to be erased into a slave of caprice and passion.
A husband has no right to exact submission in everything while he himself refuses to submit to Christ. He must live under Christ's rule so that his relation to his wife represents Christ's relation to the church. A coarse, harsh, selfish or overbearing man who does not so live cannot rightly claim headship as ground for submission and is not acting as a husband in its true sense. Submission does not cancel the wife's responsibility to God nor her belonging to the Lord who purchased her at infinite price, and the marriage vow does not sanction bodily abuse. It authorizes no control or abuse of her body, no indulging of sexual passion without restraint, no gratifying of selfish passions, no degrading her as a servant to uncontrolled passion, and no harm to her, but the husband's love must be kind, affectionate, compassionate, faithful and attentive to her good.
She must not obey when she knows obedience would injure her ransomed body and spirit, because her Redeemer stands higher than her husband. To demand complete subjection that leaves her no voice or will in the family violates the design of marriage and exercises an arbitrary rule that is not the husband's prerogative. Submission is not slavery. A wife with the Spirit of Christ remains a companion rather than a bond slave, controlling her words and spirit, while a husband who serves God will not lord it over her or treat her arbitrarily or exactingly, and Christ dwelling in both enables agreement, tenderness and forbearance when either errs.
Application in Home Life
When the instruction is heeded the home life becomes pure and elevated, guarded and garrisoned by holy love. That life belongs to lifelong faithfulness in marriage and reveals self-sacrifice leading to the truest happiness and the highest perfection of character and glorifies God in united life. God ordained perfect love and perfect harmony in marriage, with the wife to respect, reverence and love her husband and the husband to love and cherish his wife. Divine love does not destroy human love but includes it, refined and purified, elevated and ennobled heavenward, so that true friendship and the love binding husband and wife becomes a foretaste of heaven, with no draught of unkindness chilling the home. Bride and bridegroom pledge before the heavenly universe to love one another as God ordained, and Jesus wants happy marriages and happy firesides.
The family relation is sanctifying, and the Christian home conducted on God's plan helps form Christian character as a symbol of the great family above. The wife is sustained by her husband's large affections, and the husband as priest of the household binds wife and children to his heart and cooperates with her afterward in wisely, tenderly, lovingly educating them. Parents and children uniting in loving service to God keeps human love pure and noble. The husband meets God's purpose for headship by being houseband to bind the family together into the unity symbolized by the unity of Christ and the church, and priest in his religious service in his home. That responsibility moves him to fulfill his duty, withstand temptation, watch and pray, keep his soul in communion with God and stay under the molding influence of the Holy Spirit so he can mold his children's temperaments into characters the Lord can approve, whether rich or poor, high or low.
The father is to regard the mother of his children as deserving all kindness, tenderness and sympathy, sharing the care and training of the children especially in their dependent early years, speaking no word of censure or disrespect about each other in the hearing of the children, and mutually sharing responsibility, so their influence and example before their children is most sacred amid increasing wickedness. If instead of binding the family together he breaks every tie of affection, the members of the family will be scattered, filled with bitterness and hatred toward one another, and if the wife has the same mold of character woe will come to the children and the whole family will be a blot upon the earth. The wife is to be a blessing and comfort to her husband, not drag him down and embitter his life, treating him with respect and reverence rather than ruling him with a strong, stubborn and rebellious spirit. Serving God with the whole heart with the eye single to His glory does not wean the wife from her husband but draws her closer to him, causing her to leave father, mother, sisters, brothers and friends to cleave to her husband, loving him better than anyone on earth, making his wishes her wishes, and living in harmony and happiness as companion sharing his interest in the home.
Submission means being tender, yielding and careful with words, not wounding him by idle talk or teasing and fretting him into impatience, but comforting him, sympathizing with him, cheering and encouraging him and holding up his hands by kind, sympathizing words and prayers, especially when he returns home weary from his work for God, rather than burdening him or expecting him to hold her up. It means laboring with him for God by keeping him free, laying not even a feather in his way, which God notices and rewards, with full consecration and devotion in preparation for Christ's coming. When his requirements seem unreasonable, she should consider the matter calmly and give his view the fairest interpretation, and doing so can prevent unhappiness for both and bring victory over temptation. When husband and wife are under the rule of Christ, the wife in deep love leans upon her husband, loving, respecting and counseling with him as queen of the home in a hallowed union whose pure, clean, holy affections are a testimony to the world of happy Christian homes.
A wife has definite duties belonging to her position, with an obligation to love and obey her own husband as yielding to the authority of God under God. True love and self-control belong to that submission, and lack of education in them leaves a wife with no sense of her duties and disqualifies her for her place, creating danger and difficulty for her husband. A wife who utterly refuses to keep that vowed place and duty to respect and obey becomes more and more the sport of temptation. Until she learns her place and duties as a wife it is best for him not to be connected with her in any way if staying would only torture his soul, wear out his life, discourage him and unfit him for service while robbing God of his talents and influence and ruining him spiritually.