Kristen

To TL (#510)
Aww. Thank you for that and the other encouragements you have passed my way in this discussion. 🙂

Dave said:
“In fact it says that authrity has the ability to; command, act, control, exercise power, have credability, exercise dominion, etc.
Although I agree that some of these things can be done in more and less loving ways, the concept of control is essentially anti love as a concept. I hope I do not need to explain why!” (Emphasis mine.)
NN countered this in #512 with a couple of scriptures that proved Christ could be in authority and still be loving. But that’s not what Dave was talking about. He was talking about the exercise of control as an aspect of authority, not being loving. It has never been my experience in my personal life, or my understanding in the reading of scripture, that God controls us. Rather, God draws and woos us into His arms.
As for #516 — Tiffany, you have placed a good deal of emphasis on the idea that self-sacrificial love by husbands is, or should be, normative. And yes, it should be. But surely you realize how many Christian marriages exist where men think Ephesians 5 gives them the right to control, dominate and be served by their wives– and many churches, when wives complain about this, counsel the wives to be more submissive, giving tacit approval to the husband to run his home however he chooses. When I see a Christian marriage where the husband manifestly goes against this unfortunate dynamic, I find it worthy of praise.

In other words, many husbands are quite pleased to exercise the “control” aspect of authority that Dave speaks against. I’m glad that in NN and Tiffany’s marriage (I did understand correctly that you two are married, right?), this is not the case– and NN is also to be lauded for that.
However, all of this is tangential to the question of whether God gives husbands authority over their wives in the first place– or whether such authority is a result of the curse and of unrighteous human power structures. But I will note this– authority is easily abused. Christian husbands abuse their supposed authority quite regularly. Many of us women here either are, or have close friends/relatives who are, victims of this abuse. We are excited when we see marriages where this does not happen– even if we know such marriages should be normative, that is often sadly not our own experience. (This should not be considered a statement in any way about my own marriage, btw. My husband has always laid down his life for me, whether he considered himself in authority over me or not– but we abandoned the authority-subordination paradigm some time ago and have never regretted it.)