Male Headship at the Home (1): “Situations in Which Women Should Never Submit”

Ephesians 5:22-23 (ESV)

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior . . . let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Robert G. Ingersoll, “The Great Agnostic” of the 19th century, once quipped, “As long as women regard the Bible as the charter of their rights, they will be the slaves of man.” So, should we blame the Bible for this necktie ad from the 1950s that shows a kneeling wife serving her husband breakfast?  This Van Heusen ad presents the wife as a household servant whose purpose in life is to satisfy her husband’s every whim.  No doubt, Ingersoll must have read the above passage and others like it (1 Pet. 3:1, 1 Cor. 11:3) that have the wives submit to their husbands.

So how should submission look like in the 21st century?  Consider the following three biblical couples and ask, “What should the wives have done in accordance to Scripture, whether then or now?”

First Couple:

In Acts 5 (ESV), we meet “a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, [who] sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet” (vv.1-2).  Evidently, Ananias had told the church he was going to give the entire proceeds and then changed his mind; his wife went along with it.  Sadly, because of lying to God, both Ananias and Sapphira died that day (vv.5, 10).

Considering that, answer this question: In cases where a husband asks his wife to be complicit in something sinful and/or illegal, what should she do?  If the wife is a believer, she would sense the Holy Spirit reminding her Ephesians 5:11a that says, “Hav[e] nothing to do with the fruitful deeds of darkness.” Subsequently, the wife would not submit to her husband; instead, she would say something along the lines of what Deborah told a wavering Barak: “Because of the way you are going about this, [God] will not be [with you]” (Judg. 4:9).

Second Couple:

In 1 Samuel 25 (ESV), we meet an odd couple, a husband named Nabal, a “surly and mean” person (3 NIV), and his wife Abigail, described as “discerning” (v.3). One day, she found out to her horror that an armed group of untold men was headed toward her home to kill everyone (vv. 13, 21). It was David’s impulsive payback for the insult Nabal heaped on his men who sought some provisions for a favor rendered to Nabal’s shepherds (vv.15-16).  This situation would be equivalent to a husband’s bad decision putting the whole household at great risk. What should the wife do?  As for Abigail, she “acted quickly” to make a mound of food (“two hundred loaves of bread . . . a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs”) and took them to David; “but she did not tell her husband Nabal” (vv.18-19).  David, upon seeing the food, relented.

Now, does this look like a wife submitting blindly to her husband?  No, but isn’t that against the biblical teaching?  No, her action that went against her husband’s ill-advised decision, which kept a needless bloodshed from occurring and saved her husband’s life, was praised by David as “a good judgment” (v.33).

Third couple:

But the most common problem that couples face is financial.  In Ruth 1, we meet a couple living in Judah, Elimelech and his wife Naomi, who have fallen on hard times because of a famine. With two additional mouths to feed and hardly any food in the pantry, the husband suggests a move to Moab in search of better economic opportunities. But the move to Moab was not out of faith but of sight, since Moab had been Israel’s mortal enemy. It was the Moabite women who whored with the Israelites that resulted in God’s punishment, which left 24,000 dead (Num. 25:1); it was the Moabite King Balak who tried to “put a curse on [Israelites]” (Num. 22:9-11); and most recently, Moab had subjected Israel to “oppression for eighteen years” (Judg. 3:14).
So what should Naomi have done? Instead of blindly submitting to her husband, she should have said, “We live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7) and persuaded him to stay in the Promised Land.  And had Elimelech been wise, he would have “listen[ed] to advice” (Prov. 12:15).  

Convinced?

Ultimately, I am bound to offend people who are chauvinistic about the male headship at home and those at the other end of spectrum who find the male headship archaic and insulting to women. Thus, I will end with how it works at my home.  I trust my wife’s judgment a whole lot more than mine—mainly because she is a God-fearing woman—so I consult with her and then with the Lord before making any decision.  And in my 34+ years of marriage, I have almost always ended up deciding what my wife advises me—but she always lets me have the final say.  One thing she won’t do: be complicit to my sin, like when I talk badly about people who upset me. Thank the Lord for that.