More Questions About "Wifely Submission" For Christians?

Question

In reference to my earlier question at: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AnNVYXIzAioiJ6vsuktsk17sy6IX?qid=20070830114037AAWWGE5

Quite a few responded that wives have to submit to the husbands with the trust that the husband will also submit to Christ. I am guessing this means that the husband will be Christ-like in his actions.

(1) But what happens if the husband isn't Christlike?

In addition, no one really answered my question about what happens in the case that the woman has a type A personality and the man has a type B personality.

I think some assumption is made that all women are naturally Type Bs and all men are naturally As. As a therapist for 15 years, I have seen many successful couples where the woman is the go-getting, decision-making type and the husband is more of a laid back, supportive, silent wall of strength type and enjoys being so.

(2) Would such a couple have to change to if they were Christian in order to meet Paul's regulations?

(3) Why do so many men feel that if a woman is a natural leader she will not have respect for a man who is more laid back? In order to get respect you have to give it right?

(4) Do you expect this one mould (written by a man who was never married) to fit EVERY single couple? Especially couples today? There are so many personality traits, histories etc, inter-relation aspects to consider.

CJ do you even KNOW what a type A personality is?

Some have assumed that when I said, "laid back" I meant lazy and weak. I didn't.

For example, a couple I know, the wife is an academic, she runs an entire department in her college, she is outspoken a natural born leader. Her husband is quiet, gentle and very supportive and prefers to be in the background doing his woodworking etc. That is what I meant by "laid back".

Answer 1

I am a Christian, and I think that a marriage should be an equal partnership. There are only a few instances I can think of where I would be okay with submitting to a man, but I can't put them up here because this is a public forum.

Answer 2

People misunderstand the purpose of the headship arrangement.

Question:
What do the following things have in common?
A Ship
A Corporation
A Government
An Army

Answer:
They all have a head. A leader. Why? Because it promotes order. What would happen if a ship had two captains? Not much, especially if they wanted to go in opposite directions. Thus there is one captain. The one who makes the final decisions. Does, or should he make them entirely on his own? Of course not. A wise captain listens carefully to the counsel of his second in command, his first mate. He weighs this against his own wisdom and experience, then makes the decision from there.

The same principle applies in a marriage. The man is designated as the head of the household to preserve order. Careful consideration of the scriptures (ya caught me, i believe in the bible) shows that a man should listen closely and consider carefully the thoughts, opinions, and feelings of his mate, but in order to maintain order, the man has the final say.

Why the man and not the woman? Well because I do believe in the bible, I answer you this way: Because man was created first, and woman was created from man as a complement to him. Besides, what sort of order would that be if who would be the head of the household was up in the air?

As to the question of the different personality types, if the woman was A and the man was B, then the man would just defer to the counsel of his wife a little more often, wouldn't he? :0)

I could cite examples from the bible of where men were told to listen to their wives, but this post is already much longer than I intended it to be, so I will only continue if asked to.

Answer 3

I'm gonna pick on Paul for a minute: Paul had a conversion experience and did not know Jesus while he was on Earth. While Paul is indeed an inspiring writer, never does he claim to be the literal hand of God as he writes. So..... his "regulations" at best (to me) are more like guidelines.

If a fundamentalist were to look at my life, how my "household" is structured, and my belief system, he/she would tell me to repent now before I end up in Hell.

What IS "Christ-like" anyway? I believe myself to be a follower of Jesus and I know when I'm Christ-like (it isn't all the time, btw). But I have no problems with my wife being in command of the checkbook and looking after our finances.

I'm a right-brain kinda guy. Very creative (and its almost a distraction to some other familial duties). My wife is definitely left-brained. Highly analytical (almost a distraction for HER at home) and very very smart (with a master's in applied mathematics). It was her intelligence and confidence that attracted me to her. Imagine my happiness when I found out we were of the same religion!

The underlying message here is: I am not going to Hell because I let my wife do things and I'm the submissive one when it comes to those things.

My pentecostal tendencies tell me that the Holy Spirit is moving in our lives and home.

I always keep in mind that God is just; God is love; and anything is possible with God -- even if its in direct contridition with Paul and the Bible.

Answer 4

I missed your first question, sorry.

My husband and I have been happily married for 13 years. I hate narrow labels, but to help you out, I'm type A on most things, he's type B on pretty much all of those. The things he's type A about, I'm generally type B.

We are Christians (Catholic now, but Protestant when we married) and we do believe that husbands are commanded to be Christ-like (which is to lay down one's life for others) as wives are commanded to submit.

Here's how we worked it out in our marriage. We have a lot of mutual respect, so we agreed to always discuss until we reached an agreement (preferably) or a compromise. But we realized that there would be some circumstances in which a compromise could not be reached, and on those points, I agreed in advance to submit to my husband...on the condition that he would never order me to or even ask me to. The submission would happen in my own timing.

I can count the number of times this has happened on one hand -- literally only 4 times in 13+ years. And in retrospect, he was definitely right on 3 of the 4 occasions (though I couldn't see it at the time) and the other one is still a draw in my mind.

Because we agreed on this tactic in advance, I don't feel bad about any of them, and I'm even glad I did submit, because it enabled us to move on and get past whatever was bogging us down for the moment.

Submitting doesn't mean "becoming passive when you aren't a passive person." I'm not a passive person, and if I ever was, my husband would not have been attracted to me. He likes my strength and respects it. The idea of submission as we see it is that when you're at an impasse, somebody has to be willing to step aside and let the other person by. Personally, I feel that women in general are more capable of being the one who steps aside -- not all women, to be sure, but for most of us, we are capable of seeing it as "losing the battle but winning the war."

To answer your other questions:

(1) If the husband isn't Christlike, then the hope is that the woman, by her Christlike example, would win him over. Obviously, this doesn't always happen and sometimes the relationship becomes abusive. In such cases, my own faith tradition (Catholic) allows a woman to do what's necessary to protect herself and any children of the marriage, even to the point of getting a legal divorce if necessary (though she may still remain spiritually bound to him, depending on the circumstances).

(2) No, I don't believe that either person should have to change their personalities to follow the instruction, because I don't define "submission" as "become passive," nor do I define "be Christ-like" as "become aggressive."

(3) I think that men believe that super strong women have trouble respecting passive men because super strong women are very definite about what they find worthy of their respect and what they don't. A "get'r done" woman has little patience for a guy who is so utterly passive, he won't get ANYthing done. In my marriage, as I said before, I'm "get'r done" on certain issues and my husband is on others, and we welcome the cooperative effort -- we're really a team and it works well for us.

(4) Yes, I do expect the one mould to fit for every couple, because it's such a loose instruction. As you can see, my husband and I have made it work for us, on our own terms, for our perfectly modern marriage. The issue is, I think, that you are equating "submission" with "passiveness" and "Christ-like" with "aggressiveness" and that's not the case at all.

Answer 5

I'm always fascinated why the topic of submission is from wife to her husband. I believe every wife would be more than willing to submit to her husband if the second part of the command wern't left out. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her... that he might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle... that she should be holy and without blemish."
That is such a beautiful picture. Christ gave Himself for those who'd believe in him. Those believers thus, surrender their lives to Jesus Christ and purposely try to walk in the ways he commanded.
Marriage is suppose to portray this also that the Husband would love his wife so much that he would willing die in her place in whatever circumstance. That she might live, in know this truth and love she willingly submits to him, supports, and cares for him in her daily life.
In that she is his help mate, she needs to voice her point of view and her wishes to him also and he needs to acknowledge and fulfill them in the best way possible.
As far as type A/B personalities concern, I don't understand how this factors in. Each of us are given a set of gifts and need to use those to glorify God to the best of our abilities. We need to support one another in that, but as long as love and honor play a role submission should never be a problem

Answer 6

1. If he is not christ like then maybe he is not a christian then
the question is directed toward non-belivers and not
christians.

Note: There are know A or B type people in the body of
christ.

2. YES.

God Bless

Answer 7

If the husband isn't submitting to Christ, they're in for either a long miserable marriage or divorce court.

Answer 8

If you read farther down in you will see that the man must love his wife as himself and how Christ loves the Church. A wife who is not being loved has no reason to submit. It is that simple.
Peter put it best, ...we are to be heirs together in the grace of life... 1 Peter 3:7.

Answer 9

CJ says, The Lord will either change him or get her to safety.

uh no he won't. People never changed their situation by sitting on their *** and praying. Hopefully she will get herself to safety or some caring relatives or friends will intervene. It pisses me off that people attribute everything to God instead of solving their own problems. If God gave us free will it goes both ways, you can't blame God for things that happen but you can't assume that he intervenes to help us either, people have to help themselves

I think the whole "wives submit to their husbands" thing is bullshit. That may work for some women but the day I EVER submit to a man will be the day pigs fly

Answer 10

Wow! All this "wifely submission" stuff is another reason why I'm glad I'm Jewish. I'm the balaboosta in my house!