Mention “submitting to your husband” to the average woman, and she’ll look at you like you just suggested that the U.S. should bring back slavery. These days submission has such a negative rep that trying to sell women on submission is like trying to sell paleo dieters some carbs. In my opinion, given the current cultural climate, trying to pound the submission drum is just going to come up against a lot of resistance.
Last weekend I had lunch with a recently married friend and got onto the subject of submission. While she had a knee-jerk reaction to the word itself, she actually agreed that deference was a part of her marriage and that it worked for her and her husband. So maybe submission just needs rebranding. When a woman hears “submit,” she thinks “become a doormat, throw brains out the window, let husband become a tyrannical dictator.” Of COURSE women are going to reject submission when it is so closely correlated with those ideas. But deference – and the connotation of agency involved in the decision – that seems a little more appealing.
So maybe the subject should be approached from that angle – ladies, can you defer to your husbands’ decision-making?
I suppose we can quibble over whether women should just suck it up and ACCEPT that the Bible says submission so therefore they have to SUBMIT whether they like it or not, but there’s also a reason that chewable pills taste like fruit, so………
Haley's Halo 
I attended a wedding before I took the red pill. Part of the bride’s vows were “I will submit to my husband”. Because of my brainwashing, the words repulsed me even though there is no other way to translate Ephesians 5:22. The NAS might be even more un-PC “be subject to”. Even as a pastor and seminary graduate, I still want to tiptoe around submission because it feels so retrogressive and hidebound. We need to redeem the word.
“Deference” is good. My wife has used that word.
I have yet to see a situation where one of my brother’s divorced male friends ended up with a downgrade in wife/girlfriend choice.
Any experience with women, even if it doesn’t ultimately end well, helps you do better next time. Not every man can go from lower beta to high alpha, but every man can learn how to be somewhat more attractive.
No.
Nu-uh.
The church basically pounds on me in order to suck up to my wife. I don’t provide enough. I’m not sensitive enough. I’m not spiritual enough. I don’t “lead” her right. I don’t pray enough. I’m not like Jesus when he was patiently waiting to be nailed to the cross. I can never be a good enough door mat for my wife and kids. I hear about it ever Father’s Day while mother’s day is a circus of ass-kissing.
You charlatans in the modern church can stop the bull shit right now. Use the word for God’s sake. It’s “submit.” Don’t finesse it. And while you’re at… you can review the circumstances where the New Testament allows for divorce and where it doesn’t. Then you can cruise over to 1 Cor 7 and address whether or not it makes any sense for Christian wives to use denial of sex as a component of an elaborate behavior modification program. Because right now the “older women” in the church will freaking wet themselves trying to win new members by dividing women against their husbands and teaching them to use access to the children as a threat point to get the husband to submit to the wife.
While you painstakingly develop your little “deference” marketing plan here, the church at large is helping turn systematically God’s order upside down. And you don’t care about the men that get decimated in the process. Why? Because “man up”, “step up”, “suck it up loser”… that’s why.
You’re a joke.
Mixed feelings on this. In the end, the act of submission is more important than labeling it as such.
Ultimately, insisting on a different word could be viewed a little like holding one tiny, small little piece of obedience back. It is the microscopic expression of one’s own will. Kind of like complying with a parent while secretly giving them the finger behind their back.
A real Christian would be reticent to re-label sin as misbehavior, or as erroneous action.
Insisting on pleasing-sounding words is essentially just the person dictating to God the terms by which they will accept His Word.
That said, if changing the term leads to submission in the fullest Biblical sense, then perhaps it is valid.
I would have to say that the result would determine the validity. If the re-labeled word only got someone “most” of the way, then I would say it was a weasel-word.
Hey some guy, reading your post makes me sad for you. You’ve got so much bitterness, frustration, anger and unforgiveness pent up against your church and wife, no wonder you are so unhappy. I don’t know what your church teaches or whether it is biblical. If their teaching isn’t in alignment with biblical principles, maybe find a church that is. Don’t act like a victim. Don’t point fingers and blame everyone around you. May I suggest, you yourself honestly search your heart and ask the Holy spirit to reveal to you the areas that God wants to work on (no point denying it, we all have them, you, me, your wife, any person you look at). Then humbly submit to and obey the word of God to renew your mind (Romans 12:1-2). As the head of your household and of your wife , take up the responsibility that is both your privilege and blessing and start leading by example. Just perhaps, through your heart of humility and loving submission to God, she too will learn to submit to you.
Haley, I luv reading your blog btw! I’m not sure how I stumbled on to it but I’m sure glad I did =)
I’m a single young woman waiting on God too and coming from a family of strong women, I found it really hard to accept the biblical concept of submission for a long time, and I definitely don’t understand it fully (not being married and all). Yet over the years walking and growing in the Lord, I’ve come to realise what a beautiful thing it is. Everyone goes on so negatively about the verses in Eph 5:24 about women having to submit to their husbands. Why don’t they read the bits above and below that? The whole submission deal is in the context of LOVE. Not some tyrannical, dictatorial, wife beating wife hating husband type submission. Vs 1- It’s about following the example of Christ who was obedient and submissive to God, even to death. Vs 21- it’s about submitting to one another. Vs 23- its about acknowledging that the christian husband is the head of the marriage just as Christ is the head of the church. I’ve seen so many unhappy couples/broken marriages because the husband doesn’t take up responsibility as the head of the marriage/household (spiritual or otherwise), women thinking they have to rise up and control everything, the whole order gets turned upside down, the woman feels overworked, unloved, under appreciated. The man feels emasculated, disrespected, out of control.
Why are we allowing the fallen world and its culture to teach us how a marriage should work? Why are we allowing the media, tv, worldly influences, shrinks and so called ‘experts’ to teach us the roles men and women have and how we should treat each other? We need to rewire our brains to align with God’s simple truth. Not try to fit his Word into our terms and decide if and how we want to obey it. We need to look to God’s unchanging word, His wisdom and instruction on what godly life partners should strive to be AND OBEY IT. That’s how a marriage is going to be blessed!
We read on, and vs 25, ‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.’ Doesn’t that blow anyone else’s mind?? Our husbands are to love us and lay down their lives in the same sacrificial way as Jesus loves us! Men are told to love us as their own bodies! All we have to do is obey and respect them and their decisions (if they are obeying God of course). I don’t know about everyone else but I think that’s one sweet deal. But more than that, our marriages are meant to be modeled after our relationship with Christ. And HE prizes obedience, humility, submission, holiness, sacrificial love because He embodies those things. Things the world deems foolish and doesn’t understand (1 Cor 2:14-16 – The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit… but we have the mind of Christ).
Anyway, the whole thing is incredibly romantic and is ultimately about true love. I’m sorry for the rant, it began as a comment to some guy and turned into a mini essay lol.
Deference is a good word. I like it.
I think it’s a shame that a perfectly good word has been taken over and given such a nasty connotation. It gets used by feminists as if it means to grovel or abase yourself, but that’s not what the original sense of the word carried.
I submit to my husband. There’s no force involved, I’m not debasing myself in anyway. He seeks out my opinion frequently and takes it seriously. It’s just that, when we have a disagreement, he is the one to make the final decision. And I submit to his authority in our home as our leader.
If you change the word to defer, you’ll get some people listening for a while, but eventually that word is going to get hijacked, too, and start meaning something negative. You can see this all the time in the language liberals use. Crippled to handicapped, to differently-abled, to physically-challenged, to ??? So there is utility in changing the term, but you’ll need to have another word lined up.
The options aren’t very good. “Submitting” to the feminist’s twisting of the language just cedes ground to the enemy, which I am loathe to do. Fighting for the original meaning of the word, though, just seems a way to sidetrack the debate into red herrings.
@Haley,
Scripture says “Submit” as a command. “Defer” implies that you have the choice to do so or not, yet still be aligned with God’s command regardless if you do not follow it or not. “Defer” still places the wife at the head of the marriage as opposed to the husband.
@Su,
You are probably against using the word “Submit” because You’ve got so much bitterness, frustration, anger and unforgiveness pent up against your church and husband/men, no wonder you are so unhappy.
@Su,
“All we have to do is obey and respect them and their decisions (if they are obeying God of course).”
I really should have fully read your comment further before I responded. There is so much Churchian doctrine in it.
The wife is not the judge of whether the husband is following God or not, otherwise it establishes the wife at the head and authority in the marriage. Only God can judge that. The wife is called to SUBMIT to anything that isn’t sin and in her submission, let GOD either change or convict her husband. A wife’s submission to her husband when he is wrong is the best way to bring about a change in his heart.
Sis does a great job explaining it further here: http://passionatechristianmarriage.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/more-on-living-in-weakness-and-submission/
ar10308 has it correct. Deference, at least in colloquial term of the word, means you tend to “know better” or “don’t want to make the decision” and are just letting the other person have their preference. Sounds like feminism to me.
Although the definition of defer has submit within it, it is not a synonym of submission. Submission to leadership is different from this in the Biblical perspective.
Critique of Su’s position is spot on as well. It is not the woman’s job to interpret her husband’s commands from the Bible, rather to live out her own.
However, I do agree somewhat with the Scold’s Bridle on this point:
However, it is very hard to not dilute the message. Sometimes this requires calling things like it is. We are called to be salt and light in the world — not conform to it.
I’m sort of on the edge about this. It is because the church is in such disarry that we have to even consider “dumbing down” the message in the first place.
Hey Su,
“I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”
— 1 Timothy 2
“Not every man can go from lower beta to high alpha, but every man can learn how to be somewhat more attractive.”
I agree in the vast majority of cases, but not every man. There are a small group of men who cannot improve their SMV to the level necessary to get a women to which they are attracted. Even dregs can get somebody, but only if they are willing to take anybody. For example, we can argue about whether or not a 2 can raise himself to a 3 or even a 4, but it’s a pretty silly argument to have if he’s not ever going to take less than a 6 and would rather stay alone forever otherwise.
It looks like the moxie crew has managed to change the connotation of submission. Sounds similar to what they’ve done for marriage and a few other choice words. If we keep running to a new word every time they ruin one, we’re bound to run out of words.
I remember one time I talked with a pro-lifer who accepted as fact a pro-choicer’s claim that pregnancy begins at implantation. Calling him on his BS, I went to dictionary.com, a neutral source, and asked him to read the definition for himself and tell me he thought. He then agreed with me that pregnancy begins at conception.
What I took from this exchange is that it’s probably not a good idea to grant liberals a pass on using blatantly self-serving definitions. If you can hold them there while you respond (with a cogent logical argument or emotional manipulation), then you’ve won.
When arguing with a woman, frame is everything. Remain dispassionate. Keep your confidence up. Remember all the thinking you’ve done to come to your beliefs. That’s what makes you right.
A previous girlfriend managed to bring up a similar topic. I asked her what she thought about it. She mentioned some claptrap about things needing to be “equal” and a man who loved her would want equality for her. Seeing the red flag, I talked to her about a privately held business where one man owns 51% of the shares, and the other owns 49%. Such an arrangement works well because a deadlock can’t happen. The men work with each other on a daily basis. Both are leaders in the same boat. Mr. 51% has a little more power, but it’s in his best interest to listen to his partner. Mr. 49% has his career invested to the same degree as his partner. It’s in his best interest to push for the ideas he thinks is best, but when the chips are down, Mr. 51% makes the best decision he can based on the available info.
This was my analogy of marriage at the time. In retrospect, quite similar to Athol Kay’s Captain and First Officer model. Pretty good for a red-pill me.
I saw how destructive “egalitarian relationships” were. Filled with nagging and pushing. Makes both parties fight to be on top at any given moment. Definitely not healthy.
@someguy- that was rude and unbiblical, yes you used a bible verse, but you’re pretty much doing what the Pharisees did back in the day, pulling it out of the context of the whole bible and not trying to see how it fits into Gods design for men and women.
Su made some good points, and anyone reading your first post would reasonably arrive at the conclusion that you’ve got issues with the church and possibly your wife. (these may or may not be justified, thats not the point of my post)
If you’re of the opinion that God doesn’t use women, please check out Judges 4:4.
@deep strength: the dictionary defines defer as to “submit humbly to”
@ar10308 Perhaps clarify what you mean by ‘when he is wrong’, it sounds like sin.
“the wife is called to SUBMIT to anything that isn’t sin” and ” A wife’s submission to her husband when he is wrong is the best way to bring about a change in his heart”
@ Sonya
All fluff and no substance. If you’re going to make bold claims about “someguy” being Pharisee-ical you have to back them up. Rebuke in the Bible is often harsh, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
As for defer it’s used colloquially as ar10308 said. Defer is not a good word because it has multiple meanings. There’s a reason why defer is not a synonym of submission.
The woman does not get to decide what is right or wrong about what the man is doing, except if it explicitly is a sin in the Bible. She is called to submit to his decisions even if she disagrees and thinks it is wrong.
Haley, I like your writing, and I also struggle with the marketing, but the Scold’s Bridle has it right here. Insistence on terms means “submission, but on MY terms,” which is of course no submission at all. And as dalrock says, you can tell this is on the right track because the questions it brings out are all the right ones.
Of course, the Bible, specifically Eph. 5:22, says neither “submit” nor “defer,” because it is not written in English. I can’t do Greek characters here, but the verb is hypo-tasso, where “hypo” means “under,” as in hypodermic (under the skin), and “tasso” means “arrange,” in the sense of a troop of soldiers being arranged (I can’t think of an English cognate). Nor does St. Paul, contrary to some of the comments, use the imperative (in this verse), he uses a participial form. I am always puzzled by people who want to analyze Scripture, but who don’t know Greek (and Hebrew). I am not saying you need to need to know Greek to be saved, but you do need it to do close textual analysis.
A very literal translation of Eph. 5:21-24 would read: “Being arranged under each other in fear of [the] Messiah, the women to their personal men as to the Lord, for a man is head of the woman even as the Messiah [is] head of the church, he [being] savior of the body. But as the church is arranged under the Messiah, even so the women to the men in everything.”
Obviously, some interpretation will be required to turn the foregoing into usable English. Personally, to suit our egalitarian, democratic, and sports-mad age, I would suggest: “Wives, elect your husband the team captain of your marriage, just as the church elected Jesus as its captain.” (Of course, we did not actually elect Jesus, he elected us, but that is another topic.) For those who prefer military metaphors (which may be closer to the original meaning of “hypo-tasso”), I suggest, “Wives, enlist in your husband’s army . . . . “
@deep strength
I think my point was self evident, someguy was usung a bible verse with the intent of letting her know that as a woman she was called to be silent and not ‘teach’. As this is a discussion forum, he is avoiding addressing her point by falling back on a single verse. My point is that the Pharisees often did the same (in a different form) by sticking to the letter of the law rather than following the heart of it.
@y81 Well stated, thanks!
I don’t like defer very much. The way was never meant to be easy, The truth was never meant to make one happy. The life is not what we propose but what God purposes. Submit is the difficult word, yet it is the correct word, however that does not make the wife the doormat. Women have extraordinary power in their feminine nature, in their own way, it is every bit as powerful as the masculine. In fact, the feminine attracts the masculine, the masculine attracts the feminine. To bring it out, the man must lead. Just as he does when they are dancing. I will say that although Athol is an atheist, I like his Captain and First Officer model.
The main strike against the word “defer” is that it does not imply a hierarchy like “submit” or “hypotasso” do. That is the main idea intended to be conveyed by the passage. A First Officer doesn’t defer to the Captain, the First Officer submits or hypotasso’s to the Captain because the First Officer’s role implies that submission. The First Officer either obeys or does not obey, there is no “well, I’ll defer to the Captain this time because I agree with him” on a ship. So it is with a Biblical marriage as well.
In related vein, this kind of word-massaging is EXACTLY why Eve was deceived by the Serpent, because not only did the Serpent misuse and misstate God’s words, but Eve did as well. It is why women are prohibited from authority in the Church. Paul even says exactly that. Women are more easily deceived and this is precisely how it happens; through the blurring of words and ideas.
@ Sonya
This is a gross misinterpretation of his/her post. It’s not about telling someone not to teach or be silent. It’s about spreading misinformation as defer is not synonymous with submission.
I’d freely admit he is harsh, too harsh in my opinion, in the rebuke. But that doesn’t invalidate the argument.
As FreeNorthern said in this post:
@deep strength
If that was his point then sure, I’ve no issue with it, I misunderstood his intent.
Actually, this former hottie appeared on the Today Show to say explicitly that women should submit to their husbands. Outrage inevitable ensued, but she didn’t back down:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/13/gabrielle-reece-laird-hamilton_n_3071594.html
Is the tide turning??
Language is both amazing and frustrating. Translations can too easily miss the mark regarding a word’s more subtle connotations. Cultural perceptions also mess with translation efforts. Finally, shifting social conditions can confound word meanings and connotations. I also put forward a language shift regarding gender roles:
Haley has the right idea but her choice of words, “defer”, has connotations that make it rather problematic. Of course, “submit” has negative connotations that simply can’t fly in today’s environment of political correctness.
When I am asked “what do women find attractive in a man?” I am forced to use two different words based on my intended audience.
For those in the know:
“Confidence, competence, charisma, and dominance.”
For the rest of them:
“Confidence, competence, charisma, and leadership.”
Yeah, it’s complicated.
Haley, I’ve been considering pursuing a woman who is either shy or lacks a sense of humor(don’t know her very well), and found myself wondering if I could live with that. I realized that I could, as long as she was submissive. It’s not necessarily that it’s attractive—although it is—but it also inspires loyalty, which is a really big deal to men. While women probably adapt to new situations better, men can be willing to fight to the death to preserve what’s theirs, for no other reason than that it’s theirs. I think that’s why although politicians often cheat on their wives, they rarely actually leave them (I know that’s not the apex of moral virtue there, but that’s the point—even when getting some on the side, men are loath to abandon one of their own).
As such, I really don’t think softballing on submission serves women well. It is hard to teach, and I’ve never tried it, so maybe this isn’t helpful. But it *really* inspires loyalty. I suspect the comparison a woman would understand would be closer to a mother for her children than a wife for her husband.
On James Bond, and why he appeals to men:
“This is all true, and I suppose that if one sees things from this perspective, Bond (and Fleming) come off seeming a trifle pathetic. But the truth is that Bond doesn’t really have any illusions about British power and influence. He’s just fighting for his country. Not because he thinks it’s the greatest country in the world, or because he thinks it has a mission to civilize the rest of the planet. The loss of the Empire really makes no difference to him, because he doesn’t need a reason to love England and the English. He simply loves what is his own.” (http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/11/the-importance-of-james-bond/)
A little late to the game on this one, but still: What a great post! Deference, not submission. I’m sure this isn’t the case in ALL situations, but speaking as a Christian man, I think the majority of us want a wife who defers to us by choice, not a wife who submits to us because she is being subjugated.
@ cj7wilson
Sigh this is old but I have to respond.
This is Biblically incorrect.
Wives are called to submit to their husbands by God. Even IF the husband is not a Christian she is called to do so as well.
1 Corinthians 7
It is her choice whether to submit or not in the marriage. If she doesn’t, she is not living as a Christian wife and in open rebellion in a marriage.
1 Peter
Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us,[f] leaving us[g] an example, that you should follow His steps:
“Who committed no sin,
Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; [h]
who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer[i] of your souls.
Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel— rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.