Charis

I suggest that the passive voice of hupotasso is evidence that biblical teaching about wifely subjection is not a command to women. Commands are in the imperative. (eg. verse 25 directed to HUSBANDS is in the imperative love-agapete) . Rather this submission is a state of being and a response. Much like a garden passively receives watering, nourishing, cherishing,. The garden is SUBJECT TO the gardener. If tending, nourishing, cherishing, is neglected, the garden wilts and dies.

I suggest that the statement in Ephesians 5:24 should not make wives sweat at all. Rather, husbands should be sweating. She has no power nor control to resist. When she marries, her husband holds her heart in his hands. Will he be harsh and trample her under his feet? crushing her spirit? or will he be like Christ and minister LIFE?

The way I am seeing this passive voice of submission in marriage is reflected by this quote from the movie Fireproof:
A woman is like a rose.
If you treat her right she blooms.
If you treat her wrong she wilts.
In this way, a wife is subject to her husband as the church is subject to Christ.

But Christ ministers LIFE, while a husband is capable of ministering a great deal of death.

And a husband has a particular power and influence upon a wife that may not go “vice versa” because she is uniquely “subject to” (being harmed by?) him moreso than he to her. John Gottman observed this in his marriage laborator (see quote below). This view also makes sense of the instruction to wives that they need to PHOBEO their husbands (Eph 5:33).

Susanna Krizo mentioned this passive state of submission/cooperation of women in comment 184:

Women tend to smile more than men, and often their smile is taken for approval, whereas it is often just part of their nature as co-operative beings (women tend to be more co-operative, especially during the childbearing years due to large amount of estrogen. This does not mean that men are less co-operative, but some studies have shown that testosterone makes men more hierarchical, and dominating in relationships)

and John Gottman has observed and reported this from his laboratory research

This observation led me to formulate the hypothesis that marriages work to the extent that men accept influence from, share power with women. Next I applied this to a longitudinal study of 130 nonviolent newlywed couples and found that, amazingly, those in which the men who did not accept influence from their wives wound up divorced. The prediction rate was very good, 80% accuracy, and it did not work the other way around: Most wives accepted influence from their husbands, and the acceptance predicted nothing. from [Gottman “The Marriage Clinic”]