Women, submitt to your husbands...etc.

[jswranch]

Has the church ever authoritatively defined how this relationship of husband to wife is to work? I'm not looking for TOB or understanding of marital goals.

[Sojourner]

I'm a little confused about what you're looking for. Are you asking whether the church has ever said, "A wife can offer opinions, but when her husband puts his foot down, that's final -- he's the dude in charge" or a statement like that?

[chris]

Here is my last post. I am more of a feminine kinda guy and here is what I have on how a man and a wife should be together.

Eph 5:

A)Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;

2and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.


Eph also goes on to say in chapter 5 verse 25:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,

When a wife submits to her husband it not a strict "man rules all" situation. If we are to love our wives and give our lives up for them as our LORD did for his wife, The Church. That love is a self sacrifical love.

Col. says: Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. (3:19)

1 Corinthians explains the Exellence of Love:

1If I speak with the (A)tongues of men and of (B)angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a ©clanging cymbal.

2If I have the gift of (D)prophecy, and know all (E)mysteries and all (F)knowledge; and if I have (G)all faith, so as to (H)remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

3And if I (I)give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I (J)surrender my body [a]to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

4Love (K)is patient, love is kind and (L)is not jealous; love does not brag and is not (M)arrogant,

5does not act unbecomingly; it (N)does not seek its own, is not provoked, (O)does not take into account a wrong suffered,

6(P)does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but (Q)rejoices with the truth;

7®bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never fails; but if there are gifts of (S)prophecy, they will be done away; if there are (T)tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

The Church believes that the marriage is an insitution between a man and a woman and should be everything stated in the Holy Gosples and a blessing and precious aroma unto GOD.

[Semperviva]

vatican II.
language used:
mutual submission or hierarchy?
mutual submission.
this is all I have to say.

[Era Might]

[quote]Domestic society being confirmed, therefore, by this bond of love, there should flourish in it that 'order of love,' as St. Augustine calls it. This order includes both the primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and children, the ready subjection of the wife and her willing obedience, which the Apostle commends in these words: 'Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the Church.' ...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.

For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love. Again, this subjection of wife to husband in its degree and manner may vary according to the different conditions of persons, place and time. In fact, if the husband neglect his duty, it falls to the wife to take his place in directing the family. But the structure of the family and its fundamental law, established and confirmed by God, must always and everywhere be maintained intact. With great wisdom Our predecessor Leo XIII, of happy memory, in the Encyclical on Christian marriage which We have already mentioned, speaking of this order to be maintained between man and wife, teaches: '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.

--Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Letter "Casti Conubii"[/quote]

[jswranch]

Era, that is what I am looking for. Any more?

[cmotherofpirl]

"For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love."........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"Leo XIII

Awesome quote which I will keep forever.

[Aloysius]

Era's quote is gold.

I personally don't like the language of "mutual submission"... Semperviva, do you have a reference for VII saying that? I'm pretty sure it didn't, though I think the phrase may have been proposed once or twice by Pope John Paul II.

And the way I've seen it proposed by him, I can understand it, but I think it leads too much to confusion and a muddling up of the roles of husband and wife. Any husband "submission" to the wife is not of the same nature of the submission of the wife to the husband; and as such I do not believe it can even properly be called "submission". The husband loves his wife, the husband respects his wife's will and dignity. The husband self-sacrfices for the sake of his wife in imitation of Christ for His bride, the Church. But the husband is the head.

It is like a dance. The husband leads the dance as the wife follows... but the husband still cannot step on the wife's toes. And all the while Christ's music plays in the background... the husband must follow that music or else the dance won't turn out right. Now you might be able to pull off some wording like "the husband must follow the wife's following of his lead"... ie the way the wife follows the husband's lead has to be conformed to the way the husband is leading so that the dance will still flow... in the same way that you could say, and this is the way John Paul II I believe was trying to say, that there must be a "mutual submission". but if the husband follows the wife's following his lead, that does not mean the wife is leading the husband at any time. the husband leads, the wife reacts, the husband reacts to that reaction. in the same way the husband is the head of the household, the woman the heart, so the husband's rule of the household reacts to the woman, but is not what I would call "submisive"

[Era Might]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1010473' date='Jun 22 2006, 04:08 PM']Any husband "submission" to the wife is not of the same nature of the submission of the wife to the husband; and as such I do not believe it can even properly be called "submission".[/quote]
If Christ can speak through a wife (and we know that he does), and if a husband willfully disregards God speaking through his wife, and does not submit to the talents and wisdom God has given through her, then he has failed as a husband. This is why St. Pauls says to "be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ," and why Pope Pius XI says to "let divine charity be the constant guide of [your] mutual relations." A true leader does not make all the decisions. Someone has to make the ultimate decisions, obviously, but a true leader hears those he leads, and acts as a facilitator for the common good. In marriage, it's not about making your own decisions, it's about discerning the will of God through and in one another, where Christ lives and reigns. He is the ultimate head of each family.

Christ himself submits to his Bride. Why else would we pray to him? Remember the parable of the poor widow who kept pleading. Of course, God is omniscient, and knows what's best for us; a husband is not. He has an even greater responsibility to submit to the proper guidance of his wife, when appropriate.

Edited June 22, 2006 by Era Might