Wives, Be Subject to your Husbands

One of the people who prepared the questions for the Fox News South Carolina Republican Debate may have been Catholic. The question they lobbed at Mike Huckabee referred to a Bible passage that was in the scheduled Sunday reading two weeks ago: Colossians 3: 18. The passage is one especially hated by feminists. It stuck in Warren Kinsella’s craw at the time, according to his blog:

‘The second reading today was Paul to the Colossians (3:12-31): "Wives, be subject to your husbands."

Not many folks I know take the Bible literally. But I'm sorry, that little admonition is just idiotic.’

Huckabee, being a trained minister, handled the question well. But it is telling that everybody these days—including the questioner last night, and including Kinsella—misses the vital fact that the admonition comes in two parts:

“Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them.”

So there are in fact reciprocal obligations on both sides. This is what equality of the sexes looks like.

Granted, they are not the same obligations. But, if you are going to object only to wives obeying their husbands, then, whether or not the Bible here is showing bias, you certainly are.

If “wives, be subject to your husbands,” implies that the husband need not submit to his wife as well, you must also, to be fair, read the next passage the same way. Wives, then, need not love their husbands, and are free to act bitterly towards them. Moreover, as this possibility passes without comment, you are apparently okay with this. You have no problem with obligations being imposed on the husband; only with imposing one on the wife.

This is sexual bias. This is sexual discrimination.

Now, anyone with any sense—this excludes, of course, feminists—is aware that men and women are different. Any CAT scan proves it. Any farmer always knew that much: you treat a cow differently from a bull, or God help you.

Men crave independence and self-reliance. Men like to make practical decisions. Women crave community and a good emotional atmosphere.

The formula to have a happy, peaceful household, therefore, is for the wife to concentrate on letting her husband make the decisions, whenever he seeks it. This is what is most important to his happiness. Meantime, a husband can serve his wife best by making her feel she is loved and surrounding her with pleasant emotions. This is what she most needs to be happy in that relationship.

Why is this difficult to understand? Only because of the contemporary prejudice against men and their needs.