St. Paul, the Catholic Church, and Submission in Marriage

By Luke Wadel

The best intentioned people can make mistakes, and mistaken interpretations of St. Paul and the Church's teaching on a wife's subordination in marriage still abound. It is thought by many that St. Paul and the Church teach that God's will is that the husband is simply the final decision maker in everything, and the wife must submit to his every decision.

Let's first examine the primary text of St. Paul on the issue. Later we'll examine the teaching of the Magisterium.

Be subject to one another out of reverence of Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of his Church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Ephesians 5:21-33 (RSV, an Ecumenical Edition)

Five things taken by themselves lead to a misinterpretation and, often, a rejection of St. Paul: (1) the second sentence, about wives submitting to husbands as to Christ, (2) the third sentence, with the husband being the head of the wife, (3) the fourth sentence's "be subject in everything," (4) the contrast between the fifth sentence's command to the husband only to love and the earlier command to the wife to be submissive, and (5)the statement that husbands should spiritually cleanse their wives without the statement that wives should cleanse their husbands.

But we should know by now that taking sentences or passages of Scripture in isolation often leads to misinterpretation. The progression of interpretation in the above paragraph misses three important contexts: it isolates sentences from the rest of the passage, phrases from the rest of their sentences, and Ephesians from the rest of the Jewish Scriptures.

Objections based upon the above five aspects of Paul's text can be answered in turn: (1) It is missed that Paul's third sentence explains what is meant in his second. It is only said there that the husband is head of the wife insofar as he is like "Christ...the head of his Church...and its Savior." If the husband proposes something Christ-like and saving to the wife, then she should submit to it. The third sentence indicates no further occasions for submission. (2) We have just answered the second objection as well: the husband, again, is not simply "the head," only the head when he is Christ-like and saving. (3) There is no contradiction to say that wives are to submit in everything, where "everything" means every Christ-like and saving proposal from the husband. (The third sentence is also the context of the fourth).

(4) There is in fact no contrast between the man's duty and the woman's duty as far as submitting goes. This is most evident from Paul's topic sentence, "be subject to one another," but also evident from a study of Hebrew figure of speech. You can see a repetition of important statements with different words throughout Hebrew Scripture. "God...does great things and unsearchable, marvellous things without number." (Job 5:9) "O Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger, nor chastize me in thy wrath." (Ps 6:1) "O Lord, ...save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me." (Ps 7:1) "I will vent my wrath on my enemies, and avenge myself on my foes." (Is 1:24) Here now is Paul in Ephesians: 'Be subject to one another. Wives be subject to your husbands. Husbands love your wives.' It reads like just another repetition. For 'love' in Christianity is the virtue of serving another for their own sake; it is always a subjection. If one voices a need to their servant, the servant's job is to comply. So again, St. Paul did not single out women for subjection.

But (5) he did emphasize the husband's role in the wife's salvation. In the cultures of Paul's day the men were always better educated; the women relied on the men for educated decisions. The references to husbands getting their wives taught the Word and baptized were therefore fittingly given only to them. The book of Ephesians, after all, was written to the Ephesians of his day and not to the whole world for all time.

Some are tempted to object to another text of St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 11:33-10. It is easily interpreted to put men above women in the spiritual realm in general.

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonours his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonours her head--it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and the glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels.
It is unfortunate that some of Paul's writings are so easily negatively interpreted. Before we get upset at him, let's remember that our interpretation must be governed by the text's topic and context. The references to prayer, head veils, prophesying, and angels, along with Paul's ensuing discussion of the Eucharist indicate that the topic is the liturgy. Statements that we hastily interpret to be universal rules may therefore refer only to liturgical teaching and prayer. For all we know from these verses, women may have as great a primacy in other roles of the spiritual life, just as they have in ordinary marital life. Let's look into it.

In fact St. Paul explicitly says that his statement about women's and men's hierarchical ordering to God (above) applies to this setting but not in general. For he is quick to point out (v. 11): "Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God." To say man is born of woman does not reduce her kind of primacy to physical motherhood, because he is speaking about life "in the Lord." Women are therefore granted a role of spiritual motherhood, on which men depend. And of course a mother is due obedience.

As for the words about the veil, there is no need to interpret him as being against women. He does not say that the woman's hair is dishonourable in itself, only that it dishonourably shown in church among the Corinthians. This may be nothing more than a modesty issue, for in Paul's day, much less of a woman's body was shown in public, and extra modesty is always to be observed in church. I expect, though, that this is deeper than cultural norms of modesty. A holy woman's unique physical beauty points to her more amazing unique spiritual beauty, especially if she is very holy and in prayer. By going to Church in Paul's day women and families risked martyrdom, so their holiness was doubtless much greater than what we see in the average church today. But even today I've seen ladies practically transfigured and glowing while in prayer, so it would be easy to take edification at this spectacle rather than from the priest. Whether spiritual or physical beauty is at issue, a head veil would clearly remove any distraction. There's no need to suppose St. Paul was treating women unfairly.

Another argument for different spiritual roles might be based on the different roles of persons in the Trinity. While it's obvious that men and women are equally endowed with talents of soul and mind in the order of nature, they would reflect the All-perfect Trinity most if they were endowed at the level of grace with different spiritual roles. For in the Trinity, we see that the progression of Persons and the corresponding headship gives rise to different roles. God the Father is a teacher (as it were) to the Son: "God from God, Light from Light," (Nicene Creed) Truth from Truth: "He who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I learned from him...I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me." (John 8:26b-28) In turn, the Father in some sense requires the Son to move his Will: "I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Advocate... [W]hatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you" (John 14:16, 15:16) Otherwise, "You do not have, because you do not ask." (James 4:2) Another way to put this is to say that the Father takes a role subordinate to the Son; the Son has a kind of headship.

St. Paul's words of the progression of woman from man (Eve from Adam) make man like God the Father and woman like God the Son. (A discussion of the Holy Spirit's role corresponding to physical or spiritual children must wait for another article.) So as we might expect, the man is supernaturally graced or given the role of provider (in a sense) of divinity (the Eucharist) and of teaching authority in the Liturgy, as Paul emphasizes elsewhere: "the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak [there], but should be subordinate." But even the perfect Man in some sense had to have the perfect Woman (St. Mary) move his will to begin his public ministry at the wedding of Cana:

The mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her. "Lady...my hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."...This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory...

John 2:3-11

The reference to "my hour" shows that Jesus understood her to be urging him to begin His road to the cross. Nor was this against his will or better judgement, for he did what she suggested. Importantly, Jesus' calling St. Mary "lady" seems confusing if not to signify a relationship between her action here (moving him to good works and public ministry) and her gender.

Getting back to the covering of women's hair, when uncovered it is a show and sign of beauty. The whole female person, soul and body, is a show of beauty unlike the man's. And beauty is what moves the will; another way to put this is to say that beauty has a headship (power) with respect to the will. A person's every action, even the vilest, is motivated by a desire to get a hold of some kind of beauty. Woman has by her unique relation to God the Son a unique role of manifesting spiritual beauty in a special way. The more spiritually beautiful, the more powerful she is, as we see today in the example of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. And the more pleasing are her prayers to God.

Even further, God the Son is "Light from Light." So the Father is also Light, but it is the Son who uniquely manifests It to the world. "In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was God... In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:1,4-5) In being a Light bearer to the world like the God the Son and like St. Mary, woman has a unique divine role that men don't have of manifesting wisdom. Christ saw wisdom in St. Mary's request; she manifested wisdom to him. The model of women, she is praised by the great Doctors of the Church as wiser than all men except Jesus, almost to the point of silliness: "Question 96: Whether the Blessed Virgin knew all the mechanical arts. [Answer: at least in all the mechanical arts she would have interested her perfect mind in.]" (St. Albert Magnus) So must other women develop their wisdom and their talent with the assistance of a grace and a mission that is not given to men.

To conclude, St. Paul (in his writings and in the context of the Gospels) promotes an equality of submission between men and women as perfect, important, spiritual, and dignified as the Father's and the Son's equality, yet as different and unique.

Aside from these Pauline texts, some Christians have other bases of arguments to prove that wives should be submissive in everything to their husbands. One Catholic lady put to me:

In a family, a husband and wife will disagree on some practical matters, no matter how long they discuss them. But clearly, someone simply has to make the ultimate decision. You cannot have two heads on one body. Therefore, since the husband is "head of his wife" (as Paul says), he is the only head of the family.
There are two bases for this argument: prudence and St. Paul. We have examined the text of St. Paul, so we turn to prudence. This solution was proposed to me by a very educated priest:
The traditional understanding is that husbands and wives always have different talents and different fields of expertise. For example, in Western culture until recently, the husband's expertise was generally in the workplace and the outside world, and the wife's expertise was in the home. In issues that fall under the husband's areas of expertise, he should have the final say. In issues that fall under the wife's areas of expertise, she should have the final say.
Regardless of what limits western culture placed on different sexes' areas of expertise, the wisdom of that last maxim is obvious. I.e., it is obvious that the only wise and prudent policy is to give a husband the last say in whatever he's best at, and to give his wife the final decision in whatever she's best at. Further, there is no need to speak about two heads for one body; the husband and wife make two halves to one brain. Each is naturally the head of the other's side of the marital body that is made when "the two become one flesh."

The Catholic Church's official teaching has always involved a repetition of St. Paul. Certainly bishops, priests, and apparently even popes did not always understand St. Paul properly, however, and likely earlier popes would have done well to examine the problem and correct widespread misunderstandings. (This is not to argue against infallibility; infallibility has always been understood to apply only to what is said, not to what was left unsaid. The case of Pope Honorius' condemnation is an example.)

Thus in the writings of three popes we see a progression towards a full expression of St. Paul's teaching. Pope Leo XIII in the 1800s wrote what we should now see not as false but as emphasizing one side of the whole truth without mentioning the other:

The man is the ruler of the family, and the head of the woman; but because she is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, let her be subject and obedient to the man, not as a servant but as a companion, so that nothing be lacking of honor or of dignity in the obedience which she pays. Let divine charity be the constant guide of their mutual relations, both in him who rules and in her who obeys, since each bears the image, the one of Christ, the other of the Church.

Arcanum divinae sapientiae

Pope Piux XI in the early 1900s wrote in his encyclical On Christian Marriage:

24. This mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof.

Since they are perfecting each other, they are bringing God to each other, in which case, as Paul said, the submission between husband and wife should be mutual. Pius does not allow too general an interpretation of the authority of husband over wife:

27. This subjection, however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband's every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs. But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin.
He does not expound at length on what the dignity of the wife entails, except to point out:
28. Again, this subjection of wife to husband in its degree and manner may vary according to the different conditions of persons, place and time.
Nevertheless, the following in turn may be taken as normative for the culture of his day due to its particular circumstances: "In fact, if the husband neglect his duty, it falls to the wife to take his place in directing the family."

Now Pope John Paul II writes to all the faithful, taking great care to make clear that husbands' general "ruling over" their wives is contrary to God's will, that there is a mutual subjection, and that the analogy of Christ's headship to a husband's is limited to the notion of saving and does not suggest that wives be obedient in all things (though the Church is obedient to Christ in all things). From Mulieris Dignitatem or On the Dignity and Vocation of Women:

"He Shall Rule Over You"

10. The Biblical description in the Book of Genesis outlines the truth about the consequences of man's sin as it is shown by the disturbance of that original relationship between man and woman which corresponds to their individual dignity as persons. A human being, whether male or female, is a person and therefore "the only creature on earth which God willed for its own sake;" and at the same time this unique and unrepeatable creature "cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self." Here begins the relationship of "communion" in which the "unity of the two" and the personal dignity of both man and woman find expression. Therefore when we read in the Biblical description the words addressed to the woman: "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you," (Genesis 3:16) we discover a break and a constant threat precisely in regard to this "unity of the two" which corresponds to the dignity of the image and likeness of God in both of them. But this threat is more serious for the woman, since domination takes the place of being "a sincere gift" and therefore living "for" the other: "He shall rule over you." This "domination" indicates the disturbance and loss of the stability of that fundamental equality which the man and the woman possess in the "unity of the two:" And this is especially to the disadvantage of the woman, whereas only the equality resulting from their dignity as persons can give to their mutual relationship the character of an authentic "communio personarum." While the violation of this equality, which is both a gift and right deriving from God the Creator, involves and element to the disadvantage of the woman, at the same time it also diminishes the true dignity of man. Here we touch upon an extremely sensitive point in the dimension of that "ethos" which was originally inscribed by the Creator in the very creation of both of them in his own image and likeness.

This statement in Genesis 3:16 is of great significance. It implies a reference to the mutual relationship of man and woman in marriage. It refers to the desire born in the atmosphere of spousal love whereby the woman's "sincere gift of self" is responded to and matched by a corresponding "gift" on the part of the husband. Only on the basis of this principle can both of them, and in particular the woman, "discover themselves" as a true "unity of the two" according to the dignity of the person. The matrimonial union requires respect for and a perfecting of the true personal subjectivity of both of them. The woman cannot become the "object" of "domination" and male "possession." But the words of the Biblical text directly concern original sin and its lasting consequences in man and woman. Burdened by hereditary sinfulness, they bear within themselves the constant "inclination to sin," the tendency to go against the moral order which corresponds to the rational nature and dignity of man and woman as persons. This tendency is expressed in a threefold concupiscence, which St. John defines as the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. (Cf. 1 John 2:16) The words of the Book of Genesis quoted previously (3:16) show how this threefold concupiscence, the "inclination to sin," will burden the mutual relationship of man and woman.

These words of Genesis refer directly to marriage, but indirectly the concern the different spheres of social life: the situations in which the woman remains disadvantaged or discriminated against by the fact of being a woman. The revealed truth concerning the creation of the human being as male and female constitutes the principal argument against all the objectively injurious and unjust situations which contain and express the inheritance of the sin which all human beings bear within themselves. The books of Sacred Scripture confirm in various places the actual existence of such situations and at the same time proclaim the need for conversion, that is to say, for purification from evil and liberation from sin: from what offends neighbor, what "diminishes" man, not only the one who is offended, but also the one who causes the offense. This is the unchangeable message of the Word revealed by God. In it is expressed the Biblical "ethos" until the end of time.

In our times the question of "women's rights" has taken on new significance in the broad context of the rights of the human person. The Biblical and evangelical message sheds light on this cause, which is the object of much attention today, by safeguarding the truth about the "unity" of the "two," that is to say, the truth about that dignity and vocation that result from the specific diversity and personal originality of man and woman. Consequently, even the rightful opposition of women to what is expressed in the Biblical words "he shall rule over you" (Gen. 3:16) must not under any circumstances lead to the "masculinization" of women In the name of liberation from male "domination," women must not appropriate to themselves male characteristics contrary to their own feminine "originality." There is a well-grounded fear that if they take this path, women will not "reach fulfillment," but instead will deform and lose what constitutes their essential richness. In the Biblical description, the words of the first man at the sigh of the woman who had been created are words of admiration and enchantment, words which fill the whole history of man on earth.

The personal resources of femininity are certainly no less than the resources of masculinity: They are merely different. Hence a woman, as well as a man, must understand her "fulfillment" as a person, her dignity and vocation on the basis of these resources, according to the richness of the femininity which she received on the day of creation and which she inherits as an expression of the "image and likeness of God" that is specifically hers. The inheritance of sin suggested by the words of the Bible - "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" - can be conquered only by following this path. The overcoming of this evil inheritance is, generation after generation, the task of every human being, whether woman or man. For whenever man is responsible for offending a woman's personal dignity and vocation, he acts contrary to his own personal dignity and his own vocation.

The "Great Mystery"

23. Of fundamental importance here are the words of the Letter to the Ephesians: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church." (5:25-32)...

The Gospel "Innovation"

The author of the Letter to the Ephesians sees no contradiction between an exhortation formulated in this way and the words: "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife." (5:22-23) The author knows that this way of speaking, so profoundly rooted in the customs and religious tradition of the time, is to be understood and carried out in a new way: as a "mutual subjection out of reverence for Christ." (Cf. Ephesians 5:21) This is especially true because the husband is called the "head" of the wife as Christ is head of the church; he is so in order to give "himself up for her," (Ephesians 5:25) and giving himself up for her means giving up even his own life. However, whereas in the relationship between Christ and the church the subjection is only on the part of the church, in the relationship between husband and wife the "subjection" is not one-sided but mutual.

The apostolic letters are addressed to people living in an environment marked by the same traditional way of thinking and acting. The "innovation" of Christ is a fact: It constitutes the unambiguous intent of the evangelical message and is the result of the redemption. However, the awareness that in marriage there is mutual "subjection of the spouses out of reverence for Christ" and not just that of the wife to the husband must gradually establish itself in hearts, consciences, behaviors and customs. This is a call which from that time onward does not cease to challenge succeeding generations; it is a call which people have to accept ever anew. St. Paul not only wrote, "In Christ Jesus ... there is no more man or woman," but also wrote, "there is no more slave or freeman." Yet how many generations were needed for such a principle to be realized in the history of humanity through the abolition of slavery! And what is one to say of the many forms of slavery to which individuals and peoples are subjected, which have not yet disappeared from history?

Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem
(On the Dignity and Vocation of Women),
citations from the e-text at CIN.

© Copyright 1998 Luke Wadel. Permission is required before reproducing my text.