I have made the case that the controlling metaphor for the husband and wife relationship in the Ephesians' household code is the metaphor of head and body as visually identifiable parts of an organically indivisible unit. It is a masterful play on the idea that "the two become one flesh." Examining these passages, we see complementary ideas about husband and wife that must be matched correctly. The metaphor is frequently said to teach that the husband's role is to "be the head" and the wife's role is "to submit." As Sarah Sumner (162) has pointed out, the matching pairs are as follows:
Husband and Wife
Head and Body
Sacrifice and Submit
Love and Respect
Head relates to body. Sacrifice relates to submit. Still, within the metaphor, the husband is characterized as the "head" and the wife as the "body." What is Paul conveying by this? Let us take a look at the instruction to wives first.
22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.
HUSBAND AS HEAD 23 For the husband is the head of the wife
PREEMINENCE OF HEAD just as Christ is the head of the church,
HEAD/BODY UNITY the body of which he is the Savior.
HONOR TO HEAD 24 Just as the church is subject to Christ,
HUSBAND AS HEAD so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
The first line before the chiasmus says wives are to be subject to their husbands as they are to the Lord. We know that husbands are not like Christ in many ways, but in some regard, they apparently are, according to verses 23-24. How?
As we saw earlier in this letter (1:18-23) and in Colossians (1:15-20), Christ is higher and prior in status to all else. He is behind all that exists and sustains it. But specifically, where Christ outshines all others is in sacrificial love. At the center of the chiasmus is "…the body of which he is the Savior." It does not say "… the body of which he is the ruler."
Christ had supreme power. He surrendered that power, even to the point of death, so that he might do what was best for the Church. Clearly, the husband is not his wife's savior. However, in the Greco-Roman household, the husband has supreme power, as with Christ, over creation. The metaphor casts the husband as the one who is preeminent in surrendering power (he has the power to surrender), even to death, so that he might do what is best for his wife. This quality makes Christ and the husband preeminent in their relationship to their bodies. In the kingdom of God, the highest status goes to the one who puts himself last. That paradoxically makes them the head. This demonstration of sacrificial love compels us to place the one who sacrificed for us ahead of ourselves. In other words, you end up being "subject to one another," as in verse 21. I believe this is the theological justification for wives to submit to their husbands.
There is another very pragmatic reason for this instruction. Roman authorities were already suspicious of this bizarre Jesus movement where people of different statuses, ethnicity, and condition of servitude met together for worship and called each other brother and sister. They worship some crucified nobody from the backwaters of Judea yet refuse to worship Roman gods along with their own god. The husband was the head of the household in that he was the member that represented the household to the world. The wife behaving in ways that were dishonorable to the husband would bring reproach not only to the wife but also to the husband and the entire household. It would fuel the suspicion of detractors and hamper the witness of the Church. Therefore, a wife being subject to her husband was missional in that it rejected the status obsession of the Romans while avoiding giving needless offense to the culture.
The power of the metaphor is this: In submitting to her husband, she is also submitting to herself. Remember that "the two have become one." The head and body are fused as one, and of course, she wants the head of the fused body to receive honor. It is her head! The idea of a human body that purposely does things to make its head dishonorable is ludicrous at several levels.
So in case husbands did not get the sacrifice concept, Paul makes it unmistakably clear:
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind -- yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.
Husbands love your wives to the point of death. This is the minimum standard. This is the polar extreme of "husbands rule your wives for the sake of preserving the social order." Then Paul presents a chiasmus for husbands:
WIFE AS BODY 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies.
LOVE BODY He who loves his wife loves himself.
HEAD/BODY UNITY 29 For no one ever hates his own body,
SUSTAIN BODY but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it,
WIFE AS BODY just as Christ does for the church [his wife/bride], 30 because we are members of his body.
At the center of chiasmus is the absurd notion of a human being with a head who conceives of itself as separate from its body for whom it holds nothing but contempt. It is not organically possible, particularly when you keep in mind that according to Greek physiology, the head does not control reason and action. You might as well say your foot has developed its own will and hates the rest of the body.
Instead, in the second and fourth lines, we have a husband who loves his wife by nourishing and tenderly caring for her. I am convinced that we have another instance of "head" as life-giving source here. Line five likens it to the idea of Christ as head of the church "…from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love" (4:16) and "…from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God." (Colossians 2:19)
The paterfamilias has the power to put himself first or his wife first. She depends on him for food, shelter, legal protection, and status within the culture. He represents her to the world. But once again, the metaphor transforms the equation. "The two have become one." "He loves his wife as he loves himself," because she is himself! The idea of body parts at odds with each other is silly.
Now let us revisit the closing:
31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.
Here Paul states his explicit intention. He has written of Christ as head and Church as body elsewhere, including earlier in this letter. We have seen in both Ephesians and Colossians how connecting the body to Christ alters the body's status and animates the body. In Genesis 2, we have Adam and Eve "becoming one" body. Paul declares that he is intentionally mixing his metaphors. He innovatively applies the "head and body" metaphor to husband and wife. He is innovatively applying the "two become one" metaphor to Christ and the Church (possibly informed by his composition of 1 Corinthians 6:15-19 I wrote about yesterday?). Each informs the other.
Paul concludes his instructions to husbands and wives with this summary:
33 Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.
Now we see Paul's answer to the problem of how to work out the fictive family status-neutral relationship of siblings in Christ in the context of the husband-wife relationship. Mutual submission is captured in the metaphor of being an organic unit. The husband with power submits to his wife and makes sacrifices for his mission, while the wife who was previously without status and now has it places her status in service of her husband and the Kingdom of God.
In one sense, the surface behavior of the wife may not look very different. However, she is empowered. She no longer submits as one of inferior rank, forced to obey. Now she chooses to submit as a full missional partner in the Kingdom of God. I think we can imagine what changes in attitude would accompany her actions.
It is the husband for whom we might expect to see some observable difference, and he is the one who must part with something for this new perspective to work. He no longer gets to play the status card to get his way. But imagine what other men in this culture would think when they observed the loving, respectful attitude this man's wife showed him as he lived out sacrificial love toward her. And imagine what other women would think when they observed the love and care extended to this woman by her husband. This is missional stuff!
What we do not have here is a command to husbands to be the "head" (read "ruler" or "authority over") of their wives. We do not have a teaching on maintaining a divinely ordained family hierarchy. We have an injunction of mutual submission and metaphorical teaching on how that looks in a first-century Greco-Roman household.
We also do not have a teaching of egalitarian family decision-making here. There is still a patriarch, and there is a wife. But neither do we have a teaching of a divinely ordered patriarchy. That the "two become one" in marriage is a culturally transcendent reality. Paul is applying it to the Greco-Roman context of patriarchy. I'm not sure if Paul had a specific vision in mind of exactly how his teaching could change patriarchy into something else, but I am thoroughly convinced he had a vision that patriarchy would radically change.
Thanks for this thoughtful post Michael.
Certainly lots to ponder in this passage! I so appreciate the incredible background work and foundation you have built before coming to this so often quoted passage about the 'husband being the head of the wife'... If only all those who understand head to mean 'authority over' would take time to research as you have, then perhaps there would be less division on the topic.
The more I study this passage, the more I believe the 'key' is Paul's statement about how the 'two will become one flesh’. This is often not even mentioned by those who espouse the 'man has responsibility/authority/leadership’ etc. So thanks for pointing that out so clearly, especially in this post. It's interesting that in passages like 1 Tim 2:11-15 complementarians make a huge ra-ra about how Paul's supposed teaching that no woman can teach or ‘authenetein’ a man is grounded in 'creation order'... yet here, in this passage, they seem to mostly pass over the amazing unity and one-ness that Paul emphasizes as being what God wants in marriage based on his pre-Fall quote from Genesis.
I know a number of husbands who believe that they have some kind of ‘ultimate responsibility’ for their wives before God (which they say is not ‘authority’ … but I question how can you have ‘responsibility’/ ‘accountability’ without the authority to ‘enforce’?) because of Eph 5:22-33. They are loving hubbies. Not ‘practically’ or harshly authoritarian in any way - yet hold this kind of we ‘men’ have to ‘do’ /’be’ something for our wives that they do not have to ‘do/be’ for us… As far as I can tell, this just does not fit with the NT teaching that every Christian is a priest before God…(1 peter 2:9 etc). We need no human being (such as the OT priest) to represent us to God or hear from God for us… apart from the ‘human’ Jesus who is our ONLY Great High Priest (multiple references in Hebrews). If I have the same access to God as a woman that any male does, why would I need my husband to have some special kind of responsibility for me spiritually? (What happens for the single woman with ‘no husband’ to have spiritual responsibility for her??!) I can’t find anywhere in the Scriptures that state women can’t hear from God in the same way as men.
One pastor told me that the illustrations Paul uses in Eph 5:22-35 clearly ‘differentiates’ the roles of husband and wife… but I ask, am I as a wife ‘not’ to lay my life down for my husband, just because Paul specifies something that husbands ‘are’ to do for their wives? In fact it’s interesting that just as Paul’s specific example to wives of submission to husbands (5:22) follows the statement that we should ALL submit to one another (5:21), AND at the beginning of the chapter in Eph 5:1-2 Paul also tells Christians that we should ALL follow Christ’s example of giving himself up (παρέδωκεν – same word used in 5:2 and 5:25; cf also same principle 1 Jn 3:16) as a fragrant offering and sacrifice for one another… then he goes on to specifically tell the husband to lay his life down for his wife sacrificially (5:25).
So even though a ‘specific’ example is given for wives and husbands in 5:22-30, neither of these specific example are ‘only’ for one gender of Christians.
Do you agree with this reasoning Michael, or am I missing something?
Sarah Sumner’s book “Men, Women and the Church” was a great read. I especially appreciated her chapter on metaphors. Paul’s use of the metaphor of husband ‘is head of the wife’ as ‘Christ is head of the Church’, is unfortunately taken by some to mean far MORE than was ever intended…. They simplify the metaphor down to equate ‘husband = Christ’ to wife. Clearly this is not the case as a woman is not spiritually ‘saved’ by her husband …yet ‘where’ do the boundaries of the metaphor lay?
I propose that they must specifically lay within the framework of what head (kephale) means in this context (with consideration of how kephale is used by Paul in the broader context of his epistles). I guess the trouble is that many incorrectly see kephale as carrying a sense of “authority” and ultimate power. I can’t find any scripture where we are told that Christ as “head” of the church has “authority” over it? Everything Jesus does as Head is FOR the body and (as you have so beautifully laid out in this series), and emphasizes Jesus’ pre-eminence and prominence for the Church and his being the organic source of his Body. Sure Jesus does have authority over everything – including his Bride - but the “Head” metaphor is not used to express this.
Qn for you –
Paul says the husband “is” head of the wife. You make the point that the husband is not told to ‘be’ the head etc… Paul simply uses the metaphor as a statement of ‘fact’. Do you believe that this metaphor is a transcultural one…That the husband today in 21st C western culture is still ‘automatically’ the kephale of his wife?
Warm regards
Kerryn
Posted by: kerryn | Oct 11, 2007 at 09:54 PM
“The more I study this passage, the more I believe the 'key' is Paul's statement about how the 'two will become one flesh’.”
That would be my take away point. “Head and Body” is another metaphor for “Two become on flesh.”
“…yet here, in this passage, they seem to mostly pass over the amazing unity and one-ness that Paul emphasizes as being what God wants in marriage based on his pre-Fall quote from Genesis.”
And I think the 1 Cor 11 passage makes this very clear when you see it terms of the chiasmus presented there.
“Do you agree with this reasoning Michael, or am I missing something?”
I do agree. I think the differing instruction is has less to with gender than having differing status. She, coming from lower status to equal status, will have the temptation to presume upon that status in harmful ways. Therefore, she needs to be sure that in her new equalized status she does not act imprudently and bring dishonor.
The husband has a different problem. He has very high status relative to hers. Where she might be inclined to reach too far in her new status, he might be inclined to stubbornly hold on to his higher status. Thus, the instruction that he must lay down his very life. The instruction limits her reaching and his hoarding. That is my take.
If Paul talking to two people of equal status in society where that was normative, then I suspect he might have instructed them to be sure “they have each others back” or some similar metaphor.
“Paul says the husband “is” head of the wife. You make the point that the husband is not told to ‘be’ the head etc… Paul simply uses the metaphor as a statement of ‘fact’. Do you believe that this metaphor is a transcultural one…That the husband today in 21st C western culture is still ‘automatically’ the kephale of his wife?”
No. When I say it was factual it was still contextual. For instance, the USA has the biggest economy and the biggest military. We could say, in the Greek sense, that the USA is head of the world. That is a factual statement. But it is not prescription. It is not an instruction to exercise headship. It is not a statement about the eternal order of things. It is metaphorical statement about a present reality. Same with Paul here.
Thanks again for your affirming remarks. We are nearing the end. (Of the series, that is, not the world.)
Have a G’Day
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Oct 12, 2007 at 09:09 PM
Thanks Michael.
I think your clarification about the passage being about 'status' not gender specifically is very helpful.
What will i do when i dont have your 'household codes' posts to read up on every few days?
(-:
K
Posted by: kerryn | Oct 12, 2007 at 10:19 PM