AdobeStock_by Christin Lola
By Mikaela Pannell
Ephesians 5:21-33 can be a hotly contested Scripture passage among Christian couples. Here’s a refresher:
“Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So [also] husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
‘For this reason a man shall leave [his] father and [his] mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.’
This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church. In any case, each one of you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband.”
At first glance, many couples may think St. Paul is saying that a husband gets free reign over his wife, and she just has to sit there and take it. But that’s not what he’s saying at all. Father Kristopher Cowles, parochial vicar for the St. John the Baptist Pastorate in Sioux Falls, says people tend to get stuck on the beginning and don’t realize how important the rest of the passage is. As with all Scripture, context is important.
He also explains that the word “submissive” (sometimes used in the place of “subordinate”) can sometimes be more helpful in understanding this passage. It is translated to “under the mission of.” What does that mean? What is a husband’s mission, anyway?
Guiding the family
Well, ideally, a husband is trying to guide his family in the way that Christ guides the Church. He’s trying to get himself, his wife and their children to heaven. That is a hefty call! Luckily for all the husbands out there, the onus isn’t all on the man.
“In a culture, men are typically as heroic as the goodness and beauty of their wives,” Father Cowles points out.
So a wife has a responsibility to the success of her husband’s mission, too. The woman, then, is being asked to support her husband in this endeavor, to invite him to become the man she knows he can be, and to support him on that journey.
Thanks to the graces of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, which allows spouses to live out their vocation, “A woman is recognizing that their husband is willing to do anything for them. To love them through thick or thin, hard times or easy times,” Father Cowles explains, “to affirm, to lift up and strengthen his wife in every possible way.”
Wives are then called “to do the same for their husbands, to allow the husband to become the man he’s called to be, because they see the potential in him to die for them as Jesus died for the Church,” he says. And actually, spouses are meant to be submissive to each other. This is best lived out when expectations are communicated clearly.
Communicate expectations
Father Cowles stresses the need to communicate expectations, such as what does each spouse picture or expect the role of the other to be? This starts before marriage begins, but they need to be continually communicated throughout life. As couples go through different stages of life and stages of marriage, expectations sometimes change. What one may have initially pictured the role of their spouse to be may evolve as the years go by, but without communicating that to your spouse, there is no way for them to know. This is another reason that expectations need to continually be communicated.
There are, of course, marriages wherein the spouses are not on the same page in regards to faith. When living this passage out in these situations, particularly in marriages where perhaps the husband isn’t using his faith to guide him, Father Cowles advises, “There are moments when we don’t always have the same opinion or believe the same thing as our spouse does. It’s important to recognize we’re called to have respect and a certain level of obedience, but obedience where it’s not going to lead us into sin.”
He has seen multiple times where the husband comes into the marriage with a lukewarm faith, but thanks to the wife’s invitation and example, the husband ends up with an even stronger faith than his wife’s! This happens when the wife invites her husband into the faith, but doesn’t force it on him. He recalls the words of Pope St. John Paul II: “We are called to propose the faith, not impose the faith.” Similarly, Father Cowles expands upon this idea in that “we propose to our spouse the kind of men they can be, the kind of men that they can become.” But it’s ultimately up to them to pursue that goal.
Choose to sacrifice
Regardless, all couples can live this passage out in the way that they choose to sacrifice for each other. Father Cowles says living in a way that tells your spouse,“I’m willing to make this sacrifice for you,” whether that’s always taking the first shift of the night with the baby or giving your spouse 30 minutes of alone time after getting off of work, or however that looks for each marriage, are ways to live out this passage. It’s up to each couple to decide how best to pursue the mission God is calling them to.
Mikaela Pannell is a freelance writer and a parishioner at St. Therese Parish in Sioux Falls, where she serves as a lector. She is married with two young children.
