I did not grow up seeing a marriage that I wanted to one day imitate. Most of the lessons I learned in the home were of the "avoid this" theme. Fortunately, I spent time with married couples who got it right a majority of the time. Unfortunately, I couldn't find myself in the relationship.
Take my grandparents for an example. All the time I can remember them, they have been a team, working together as family and as church members. The problem is, my grandmother is the picture of domesticity. So are many of the women I grew up with, hosting dinner parties or enthusing about house decor. I am not that woman. My bedroom is a bunch of books stacked on top of furniture. There is unmatched artwork on one wall. My bedspread is inside-out and my pillow case has Lion King characters on it. In the kitchen, my standby is egg tacos, because it consists of 1) eggs and 2) tortillas. I eat this at least five times a week. Occasionally I make an actual meal, but the excitement is enough to tide me over for the next month.
The things that I have to offer are my brains, my passion, and my empathy. That's all I've got! So in a culture that exalts meek, mild, submissive wives who follow their husbands instructions, well. I feel like an outsider. I would so much rather be in the thick of things, studying and thinking and deciding, actively participating rather than passively following. (I know many of the women I grew up watching are incredibly intelligent. The thing is, culture is often stronger than example. I internalized the conservative party line.) If I were ever to be in a God-honoring marriage with a man who follows God, I felt like I had to give up who I am and put on someone with an entirely different skill set.
The rationale behind my despair had everything to do with Ephesians 5:21-33, specifically verse 23. The husband is the head of the wife. Oh my word. I hated this. It felt like a death knell: "Give up your personhood. Give up your opinions." Husbands were the loving heads of the home, and wives were to submit to them. I was fed the line that if a husband truly loved his wife as Christ loved the church, then a wife wouldn't mind submitting to him. And while I would much rather submit to someone loving than to someone hateful, I didn't want to give up my ability to make decisions. I like using my brain; I didn't want someone to take that away from me.
But it turns out, that's not what the passage is talking about! I'm reading Sarah Sumner's Men and Women in the Church for a seminary paper. In it, she pointed out that we normally associate the husband's headship with the wife's submission. This is inaccurate, she said. There are three associations made in this passage:
1) the wife's submission/the husband's sacrifice
2) the wife is the body/the husband is the head
3) the wife respects her husband/the husband loves his wife
Let's start with submission/sacrifice. These are two sides of the same coin. For one thing, both are voluntary. Forced submission is not submission. That is slavery. A wife submits when she voluntarily chooses to put her husband's needs or dreams or desires before hers. Sacrifice is also voluntary. A man sacrifices his needs or dreams or desires so that his wife can pursue hers.
"For when the wife comes under [submits to] the husband, thereby lifting him up, he sacrifices himself by giving up his advantage of being over her by exalting her to where he is. In other words, the husband and wife participate together in a dynamic upward spiral of lifting each other up instead of putting each other down."
Now there's a marriage I can get behind, primarily because that rings so true to Christ's character.
But there's still the matter of a husband being the head of his wife. Turns out, the word literally means head, which makes sense if it is paired with the idea of the wife being a body. The key is in verse 31, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This isn't just code for sex. When a man and a woman get married, they are entering into a mystery wherein they become a head and a body, together making up one being. This is why Ephesians tells husbands to care for "their wives as their own bodies", even that "he who loves his wife loves himself." Because he is loving himself; they are one.
Headship isn't about leadership. And it's definitely not being "head of the house." A husband is a head as the wife is a body, and together they are one flesh. Seeing each other as part of themselves, a wife submits to her husband, and a husband sacrifices for his wife.
Oh man, this is just one chapter out of sixteen that I have read thus far. But I cannot describe how wonderful I felt after reading this (and it only gets better: Sumner unpacks how masculinity=less physically vulnerable and femininity=more physically vulnerable. She discovers what the connection is between Christ as head of the church while husbands are heads of the wives while God is head of Christ. And she also interprets 1 Peter 3:7 as a scathing indictment against physical abuse.) Sumner is not a feminist. Throughout the book she honestly and kindly presents the case of complementarians and egalitarians. Then she offers a third option that makes all kinds of sense.
Reading her, I realized that submission doesn't mean I lose everything. I don't have to give up my intellect or my opinions. I realized that a husband being my head doesn't mean he rules over me. I don't have to wait for my husband to do everything. I don't have to cook or clean or decorate. None of that is part of the biblical picture of marriage (I know Proverbs 31, that's another post). Marriage actually looks attractive to me now. Putting my husband's needs before mine, letting him sacrifice those needs for me. Being part of an mutual upward spiral of humility rather than constantly giving everything I have to someone who only takes and takes. Being the body to someone else's head, mystically entering into a union that is two people in one. I don't know. I suddenly get why marriage is so beautiful.
Probably good, since I want to be a marriage counselor.
(Sarah Sumner says this all SO MUCH BETTER. She is a wonderful theologian who shares her story while interpreting Scripture masterfully, humbly, and understandably. I 100% recommend you read her thoughts rather than mine!)
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