Who's the Head of My House?
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My telephone rang during dinner last night.
"May I speak to the head of the house, please?"
"That depends," I answered, "on whether you think that's my husband or me."
A short silence followed. Finally the salesman said, "I can talk with you, ma'am."
Gee, thanks.
Being called "ma'am" makes me feel old. But worse than that, I hate the idea that one person in a marriage is automatically considered to be "over" the other. And it's not because I'm what Rush Limbaugh calls a "femi-Nazi," although I am a 40-something woman with a brain, an education, and a job. I cringe when the concept of "male headship" comes up, not because I'm opposed to it, but because so few of my friends understand it.
A lot of people from my generation automatically assume that headship implies some kind of inequality at best and domination at worst. For decades, many of them have heard Christian authorities present a hierarchical understanding of headship that bears little resemblance to the biblical description: "The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church … " (Ephesians 5:23).
If you back me into a corner and make me say it, I'll confess: my husband, David, is the head of our home. Privately, I'm proud of this because my husband is a rare and wonderful man who understands and practices the concept of servant leadership. Instead of concentrating on the verses in Ephesians that call for wives to submit to their husbands, he focuses on the verses that immediately follow them: an injunction to husbands to lay down their lives for their wives, loving them as they love their own bodies. The result is that I hold the utmost respect for his opinions, desires, and plans and have no fear in expressing my own.
Publicly, though, I'd hate to tell a stranger that "David is the head of our home" because I don't think most people would understand the mutual love and sacrifice those words represent. Instead, they might think of my tenderhearted husband as an iron-fisted dictator and me as the meekly obedient wife (boy, would they be mistaken!). Most couples with successful marriages who adopt the label "male-headship" evidence this type of loving mutuality.
Many of my married friends call their marriages "egalitarian." But you know what? I hate that term too. It brings to mind a cold, 50-50 contract. The quickest way to pollute a God-honoring, mutually submissive relationship is to start keeping score. An equal, 50-50 split is an impossibility that leads to constant scrutiny of who is (and isn't) holding up their end of the deal. Who changed more dirty diapers this week? Who put in longer work hours? And which work hours are harder, the ones in the office or the ones at home with our kids? Who's the biggest martyr?
God calls married partners to live like Christ with one another—and that means two people continually looking for the way of unselfish service. Is that hopelessly idealistic? For a Christian married to a non-Christian, it may appear an impossible dream. After all, it could be excruciatingly difficult to submit to someone who chronically abuses his power, and it would be equally difficult to lay down your own desires for a wife who disrespects your leadership. But Christians have to aim for godliness, and we rely on a power bigger than ourselves to enable us to live together with this kind of grace.
Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 1997, Spring
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PF
The Bible nowhere teaches that the man is the head of the household??? What about the very verse this blog post is about? Eph 5:23, "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church." Sounds pretty clear to me. The issue is what "head" means and I think the post captures this well. We are to mutually submit however the greater burden is on the husband as he will be held accountable to God for how he led... a more daunting sacrifice than submission in my opinion. Regardless I prefer the term "complementarian" as we, husband and wife, complement each other. While we are equal in value, we do not have the same roll. We are both incomplete without the other but complement each other to form what God intended when He said, "It is very good".
SM
** adopt "male-headship" **
SM
"Most couples with successful marriages who adopt the label "male-headship" evidence this type of loving mutuality." Most couples who adopt mutuality, reciprocity of sacrifice, agape, deference, respect, have successful marriages whether they adopt the label "male-headship", consent to male authority (right to control, command, direct, or exact obedience), or not.
Christianah
This is thoughtfully right and biblically sound discourse
K
Good article. Like you said, mutually submissive is the most accurate, most Biblically-correct way to describe Christian marriage. Of course, the Bible never says that the husband is the head of the house; that was a cultural norm for the last thousands and thousands of years. Nor does it say that the husband has the final say, but I digress. The whole book of Ephesians is about loving one another and not about an authority structure that people automatically read into it. Like I said, though, good article, good points.
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