Can you think of a reading that is more dreaded by priests and contemporaries alike than Ephesians 5:21-33? Many people are offended by this biblical passage, in which wives are instructed to be subordinate to their husbands, because they interpret it to be creating a hierarchy in marriage, thus putting one spouse in a position of domination and is seen as offensive to women. With this understanding, strong emotions are stirred up within congregations and the stomachs of priests do flips before saying their homilies. Individuals ground the bitter taste of this scripture in its language which, as some argue, creates and promotes justification of gender inequality. However, such an interpretation is wrong because this scripture actually does
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The first verse (Eph 5:21), in which the commandment of each spouse subordinating and giving of him/herself to the other, is not a frivolous verse one can glance over, but is the essential sentence for correctly reading and comprehending these codes. Without the commandment for both man and woman to submit to subordination in reverence for Christ, the necessary equality within marriage and the household is not present in the reading and gender inequality characterizes the codes. The mutuality of subordination out of fear or reverence for Christ expresses “mutual giving way, mutual subordination, and mutual obedience are nothing other than totally availability and responsiveness to one another” (Lawler, 14). Mutual giving way to one another does not show an inequality between spouses, and instead expresses how through their union of marriage “they live only for the good of that one [other] person” …show more content…
By being connected to her husband as his body shows how the wife is equal to her husband, for “the term body…is a title of honor rather than of debasement” (15). By making the woman part of the husband’s body it gives her a place of respect and this ‘physical bond’ creates a unity between the two for how can man not love his body (woman) (15)? The wife becomes part of the man’s body, thus connecting the two in one body which, as announced in Genesis, “is only within the creative love of marriage” (15). In marriage each person completes the other because before their union man was without a body as a woman was without a head; they are equal gifts to each other
The first verse (Eph 5:21), in which the commandment of each spouse subordinating and giving of him/herself to the other, is not a frivolous verse one can glance over, but is the essential sentence for correctly reading and comprehending these codes. Without the commandment for both man and woman to submit to subordination in reverence for Christ, the necessary equality within marriage and the household is not present in the reading and gender inequality characterizes the codes. The mutuality of subordination out of fear or reverence for Christ expresses “mutual giving way, mutual subordination, and mutual obedience are nothing other than totally availability and responsiveness to one another” (Lawler, 14). Mutual giving way to one another does not show an inequality between spouses, and instead expresses how through their union of marriage “they live only for the good of that one [other] person” …show more content…
By being connected to her husband as his body shows how the wife is equal to her husband, for “the term body…is a title of honor rather than of debasement” (15). By making the woman part of the husband’s body it gives her a place of respect and this ‘physical bond’ creates a unity between the two for how can man not love his body (woman) (15)? The wife becomes part of the man’s body, thus connecting the two in one body which, as announced in Genesis, “is only within the creative love of marriage” (15). In marriage each person completes the other because before their union man was without a body as a woman was without a head; they are equal gifts to each other