Kristen

Allison said:
“We have to consider how loving it is for a husband to try to take authority over his wife, as if she were somehow incapable of making decisions for herself (or of dealing with the consequences if they turn out to be the wrong decisions). We have to consider if it is at all loving for a husband to assert that his is the final decision in all matters, and the wife consistently has to sacrifice the things she wants and needs in the name of “submission”, just so the husband can have his way (sounds like kids in the sandbox, where one gets his own way all the time, to the detriment of the others).”

I have to say also, that even in complementarian marriages where neither of these things take place, where the husband is self-sacrificially serving his wife as Ephesians 5 directs him to, there are still negative consequences to the assertion that the husband somehow has a birthright to the role of “leader” and the wife is born to the role of “follower.” God said it was not good for the man to be alone, so He gave him an “ezer kenego” (“facing-him strong help”). “Facing him” implies equality, as does the fact that she was taken from his side and is of exactly the same substance as he. “Ezer” means “strong help” and is the word used of God when He helps Israel. When the husband turns his “facing-him strong help” into a “subordinate to him sidekick/assistant,” the man has rendered himself effectively alone again– for God showed him that none of the things the man was to rule were capable of being what he needed not to be alone.

The woman was meant to rule the creation beside the man, not be one of the things that is ruled. When he rules her, however sacrificially or benevolently, I believe that a man places himself under a strain that he was never meant to bear. It’s lonely at the top, and it’s lonely for the man to take the top place and not raise the woman up from the place the curse gave her, to be strong and at his side once again.