Principles Of Marriage And Family Discussion Board

[pastorhelen]

Paul, in his teaching of marriage in his letters to the Ephesian and Colossian churches, wrote that husbands are to love their wives and wives are to submit to their husbands. Does Paul mean by this that the wife in particular, is not supposed to love her husband in the marriage union? With good use of Scripture and sound interpretation, marshal the reasons for whatever position you take.

Essay should be at least 500 words, while your reply should be at least 250 words.

Paste the same submission from the previous step here by clicking on the REPLY link just above. Your submission should be made by Wednesday, the 23rd of July 2025.

Then scroll down to see your peer submissions and click reply to comment on their submissions. You MUST comment on at least one post with a minimum of 250 words by 11:59 p.m. (WAT) on Friday, the 25th of July 2025. Your comments will also be graded.
Your post should be a minimum of 500 words, while your reply should be at least 250 words.

[Wechie]

In Ephesians 5:22–32 and Colossians 3:18–19, Paul presents marriage as a reflection of the relationship between Christ and the Church. He instructs husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church—sacrificially and selflessly—and wives to submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Christ. This does not imply that wives are exempt from loving their husbands. Rather, it highlights a divine order where love begins with the husband’s Christlike leadership, and the wife responds in loving submission.

Just as the Church responds to Christ’s love with surrender and devotion (Romans 12:1), the wife’s submission is not robotic obedience, but a heartfelt, love-filled response. 1 John 4:19 reinforces this: “We love Him because He first loved us.” Submission, then, is a form of love—an expression of trust, respect, and partnership.

Paul’s emphasis is not on limiting the wife’s role to submission but on modeling marriage after Christ’s redemptive love. The husband sets the tone by loving first; the wife responds by aligning herself in love and support. However, love is not exclusive to the husband. Titus 2:4 clearly instructs women to love their husbands and children, confirming that mutual love is central to a godly marriage.

In summary, Paul does not suggest that wives are not to love their husbands. Instead, he outlines a relationship dynamic based on Christ’s love for the Church: the husband initiates love, and the wife responds. Both roles are rooted in love, expressed in distinct but equally vital ways. Marriage, in this view, becomes a living testimony of the gospel—where love, sacrifice, submission, and mutual devotion reflect the beauty of Christ and His Church.

[Ben]

RESPONSE TO WECHIE

I agree with you and to add to what you have said,Paul was also saying in essence, that to show love to a husband, you speak his “love language”. Which is to submit to him, ie. show him respect in ways that are meaningful to him. Such respect lets him feel his wife’s love for him and ignites in him feelings of love for his wife. Peter chimes in with Paul on this matter of respect for husbands.

According to 1 Peter 3:1-2, Peter wrote to wives that if any husband is disobedient to God’s Word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe their chaste and respectful behavior. The husbands mentioned here are both carnal Christians or unbelievers who are disobedient to the Word- that is, Jesus Christ. No husband feels affection toward a wife who appears to have contempt for who he is as a human being (Proverbs 21:19). The key to creating fond feelings of love or to show this love for a husband is for his wife to show him unconditional respect as he shows us love (agape as translated in Ephesians 5:33; which means unconditional love). This is the idea behind telling wives to submit to their husbands. A negative experience for a man or husband to endure would be to feel inadequate and disrespected by everyone. Many would rather live with a wife who respected them but did not love them than live with a wife who loved them but did not respect them. It doesn’t mean that men or husbands are indifferent to love. They know they need love, but they need to feel respected even more than to feel loved. Respect is the key to motivating a husband.

For example, when a General in the army respects his men and believes in them more than they believe in themselves, these soldiers want to improve, they want to get better, they want to fulfill that potential this General sees in them. Such men want to serve to the best of their abilities and to the end. 1 Samuel 4:9. In the same manner, a husband even when he is not up and doing in his responsibilities, would be greatly inspired and motivated to get himself engaged and ever productive when his wife submits to him- express respect in ways that matter to him.

[Paulpraze]

The instruction for the woman to submit to her own husband does not imply or indicate that she should not love her husband for the following reasons.
1. God’s command to the new creature (kainos ktisis) is lo love.
Regardless of the kind of relationship that a believer finds himself in, he is expected of God to love others, especially those of the household of faith, in the same way that Christ loves us.
JOHN 13:33-34.
ROMANS 13:8
I JOHN 3:14.
I JOHN 4:7-8
This command already gives a background to the relationship between herself and her husband, and implies that she ought to love her husband in the same way that Christ loves her, as her status as a believer is not suspended in her marriage relationship with her husband.
Furthermore, not only is her status as a believer not suspended in her marriage relationship with her husband, but also that it is expected that this status be the basis from which every aspect of her life is coordinated from. Being a believer has to be evident in every area of a believer’s life.
God us love, therefore, as children of God, who have received of His nature and fullness, His love ought to be flowing out of us in every relationship that we may find ourselves in, and even more so from a wife to her husband.
JOHN 1:16.
ROMANS 5:5.
2 PETER 1:4.
2. It is noteworthy to mention that in the new Testament, the idea of submission to authority in the Christian context is premised on the presence and activity of love (agape), so that one of the ways that we respond to God’s love is absolute submission and obedience to Him.
3. Paul, in PHILIPPIANS 2, tells us of Jesus’s submission to God, even unto death, without speaking about His love for His Father.
However , what is abundantly clear from the Scriptures is that the Son loves the Father as much as the Father loves the Son, and that His submission, as recorded in PHILIPPIANS 2, is a result of His love for His Father, as well as His love for mankind.
JOHN 14:31.
This truth is further buttressed by Jesus’s definition of loving Him. He makes it clear, that one major expression of loving the Lord is obedience.
JOHN 14:15.
According to the English dictionary, obedience can be defined as follows;
Compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another’s authority.
In other words, by God’s design, submission to another’s authority, which is what Paul admonishes the woman to do in a marriage relationship, ought to be an offshoot of love.
Therefore, the admonition for a woman to submit to her clearly underscores the presence and activity of love. I would even go further as to say that the more a woman loves and trusts her husband, the easier it is to submit to him.
In conclusion, the instruction for a woman to submit to her husband does not in any way imply that she is not supposed to love her husband.

[Pchris]

MY REPLY TO PAUL
I totally agree with your point that a wife’s status as a believer is not suspended in her marriage relationship with her husband.
Love in the biblical sense is never gender exclusive, Paul himself affirms in Romans 12:10 ” Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves”. This verse applies to all believers and certainly to spouses. The Greek word “agape” the unconditional love God shows us is not gender based .
If husbands are to love with agape and wives are not expected to love back , then the picture of Christian marriage becomes distorted and imbalanced.
A theological analysis of the Trinity also offers a unique perspective, the relationship between Father , Son and Holy Spirit is one of mutual submission , honor , love and not inequality.
Marriage which Apostle Paul likens to the relationship between Christ and the Church in (Ephesians 5:32) is to reflect this divine harmony , not domination or emotional detachment.
Therefore, does Paul mean that wives are not supposed to love their husbands?
Absolutely not, rather his choice to emphasize submission for wives and love for husbands reflects a strategic correction of cultural dysfunctions not a full exclusion of reciprocal duties .
Apostle Paul is not assigning love only to husbands and limiting submission only to wives, his teaching is a call for complementary devotion where love and submission intertwine to form a union that mirrors Christ and the Church.
Lastly, I will like to state that love is the atmosphere which submission can thrive. A wife who loves will naturally submit joyfully , not out of fear but out of reverence for Christ ( Ephesians 5:21).
A husband who loves will lead not with domination but with service and self- sacrifice.
If we extract Paul’s teachings from the cage of cultural literalism and interpret them through the lens of the gospel, we will find a powerful, timeless model of marital love ( mutual, sacrificial and Christ centered).

[Paulpraze]

MY REPLY TO WECHIE

The apostle Paul’s passionate appeal to the church in Rome to offer themselves as living sacrifices to God was premised on the mercy and loving kindness of God. This devotion and submission go the will and authority of the Father, like you rightly pointed out, is a response to His love for us.
ROMANS 12:1.
Submission, indeed, is a form and expression of love. It is one of the faces that a woman’s love for her husband wears or manifests.
Jesus was very clear when He showed us that loving Him means obedience, which means submitting to His authority. JOHN 14:15.
The apostle Paul, in speaking of the union between a husband and wife, describes it as a picture of the union between Christ and the church, where Christ is the head, and the church is the bride. EPHESIANS 5:23.
He also tells us that the submission of a woman to her husband should be in the way that the church submits to Christ, and we have seen earlier from ROMANS 12:1, that the submission of the church to Christ is not a robotic submission or obedience as you put it, but one that is born of love for Christ, which is a response to His love.
1 JOHN 4:19.
Indeed, all of these shows that the apostle Paul was not placing a no-love restriction on the woman towards her husband by the instruction to submit to him.
Where there is love (agape), there will be loving and trusting submission.

[Pchris]

Apostle Paul’s teaching on marriage in his letters to the Ephesian and Colossian churches has long been the subject of theological debate and misunderstanding.
In Ephesians 5:22-23 and Colossians 3:18-19, Paul calls wives to submit to their husbands and husbands to love their wives. This seemingly asymmetrical instruction has sparked a question that lies at the heart of biblical marriage interpretation. “Does Paul mean that the wife is not supposed to love her husband in the marriage union?”
I will begin by saying that it is critical to understand Paul’s writings not merely as prescriptive gender roles but as divine instruction contextualized within the Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures of that time.
A closer look at Ephesians 5:22,25, it might seem that Apostle Paul is only concerned with the husband’s affection and the wife subservience, but a deeper inspection reveals even more.
Paul’s instruction to husbands to love their wives was revolutionary in a partriachial society where women were often treated as property. His instruction to men to love their wives with the sacrificial self- giving love of Christ was not only counter cultural but transformative .
However, this command to husbands does not negate the wife’s ability or obligation to love. Instead it strategically corrects the cultural imbalance by lifting the husband’s behavior to Christ like standards.
The absence of an explicit command for wives to “love” their husbands does not mean Paul intended wives to be emotionally disconnected. Infact, Titus 2:4 offers a critical insight : Paul instructs older women to teach the younger women “ to love their husbands and children” , from the above Scripture, the Greek word “ philandros “ is used referring to affectionate, committed and friendship based love. This single verse reveals Paul’s implicit understanding that love from the wife is necessary and assumed.
Moreover, when Paul writes in Ephesians 5:21 “submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God “ , he establishes mutual submission as a framework for all Christian relationships and this includes marriage.
This mutuality is rooted in love, humility and Christ like character. In other words , while Paul emphasizes different roles in marriage , he does not diminish the importance of reciprocal affection . Why then , the different language?
Consider a unique interpretative lens; Paul was not writing a comprehensive marriage manual, he was offering corrective wisdom to specific communities in Ephesus where the goddess “ Artemis” was worshipped and women held unusual social influence, Paul may have emphasized submission to counter potential domineering behaviour.
In contrast, in a culture where men held legal authority over women, calling husbands to love would radically challenge their presumed rights .
From my own cultural context, here in Nigeria especially in the igbo communities where I come from, the biblical balance of love and submission is often misunderstood. Wives are sometimes culturally expected to submit without questions, while husbands are not always held to a Christ like standard of sacrificial love. This has resulted in an imbalance that Apostle Paul’s full teaching actually aims to correct. Scripture is not promoting hierarchy for control’s sake but for partnership built on Christ centered Love.

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