NN

Let me start by thanking Cheryl for her willingness to interact with an opposing idea.

A few points are necessary to clarify the content of what I said and to point out that the logical demonstration which I described regarding a biblical understanding of gender roles in marriage was not even addressed by the above discussion.

The logical argument is straightforward (and not based primarily on Eph 5):
~Both Peter & Paul explicitly instruct wives to “hupotassoe” their husbands in several places in the epistles.
~This word (“hupotassoe”) is the same word which the same apostles used when describing the proper conduct of slaves toward their masters and citizens to the governing authorities. It is clear from its apostolic usage that it refers to a command to submission on the part of the doer.
~ This command [to submit] as given explicitly to the wife in the marital relationship, while the husband is not instructed in the same way [but rather to love the wife]. This gives clear indication of hierarchy within the marital relationship is given.

The commentary on Ephesians 5:21 is a secondary issue to the logical proof given above. It is simply meant to clarify the question of “if ‘hupotassoe’ means ‘submit’ then how can it be mutual and how can there be hierarchy within marriage when all christians are instructed to ‘submit’ to each other. The simple answer of course is that within a christian marriage there are at least two distinct aspects to the relationship involved: the people are both christians and they are husband/wife. As christians the relationship is governed by love [agapaoe] and this leads to mutual ‘submission’ however in the marital relationship a second type of love also exists [eros] which is not intrinsic to all christian relationships, and this type of love is naturally hierarchical as established by God.

Two loose ends that I particularly want to address:
– I did not say that the submission of the wife was the same as a master-slave relationship.
– Cheryl notes that the cultural system of the day was patriarchically autocratic (true) and that God never tells the man “exercise authority over your wife” (also true). This raises a question of why God didn’t say that if the marital relationship contains hierarchy. The answer is the same reason that God did not tell the wife “make sure your husband shows sacrificial love for you.” We are each told our own responsibilities, when we worry about this then the rest is for God to handle. But even in our daily lives it is plain just how much trouble arises when people are more concerned about how other people aren’t living up to their end of the bargain than in living up to their own responsibilities. (http://nuallan.livejournal.com/28921.html)
-(To limit the number of tangents arising and stay on the central point I will not address other flaws either in Ryan’s argument or other argument made in response to what I said.)