What is the correct understanding of the wife’s submission to her husband?

Many people misunderstand the apostolic phrase: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord” (Eph. 5:22). They consider it a call for women’s surrender and servility, or an assertion of men’s superiority. In Christianity, “submission” is not servility, weakness, or lack of dignity. This is what the incarnate Word of God showed when He declared His obedience and submission to the Father, even though He is of one essence with Him. He, therefore, elevated the virtue of submission to make it a sought-after matter, by which we attain the likeness of Christ, the submissive and obedient.

Luke the Evangelist says that Christ was subject to St. Mary and St. Joseph the Carpenter (Luke 2:51). Although He is their Creator and Savior, His obedience did not hinder Him from fulfilling His work on earth. He humbly and clearly said, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). Submission is not surrendering at the expense of one’s will, nor is it blind obedience, but it is being openhearted and accepting the other’s will, in a mature state of mind.

St. John Chrysostom says, “Be subject for God’s sake, because this adorns you, he says, not them. For I mean not that subjection which is due to a master, nor yet that alone which is of nature, but that for God’s sake … For it is possible for one who loves even, to be bitter. What he says then is this. Fight not; for nothing is more bitter than this fighting, when it takes

1734 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians 20 (NPNF I/13:144) amended.

1735 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians 20 (NPNF I/13:144) amended.

1736 Origen, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 3.36.2–5.

1737 St. Augustine of Hippo, Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount 1.16.43 (NPNF I/6:19).

place on the part of the husband toward the wife … From being loved, the wife too becomes loving; and from her being submissive, the husband becomes yielding. And see how in nature also it has been so ordered, that the one should love, the other obey … Do not therefore, because your wife is subject to you, act the despot; nor because your husband loves you, you become puffed up. Let neither the husband’s love elate the wife, nor the wife’s subjection puff up the husband. For this cause has He subjected her to you, that she may be loved the more. For this cause He has made you to be loved, O wife, that you may easily bear your subjection. Fear not in being a subject; for subjection to one that loves you has no hardship. Fear not in loving, for you have her yielding. In no other way then could a bond have been.”¹⁷³⁸

He also says, “The woman by submission to the man turns him to a meek person towards her … for all resistance is taken away by Love. If the man was a non-believer, he would then accept the faith quickly. If he is Christian, he will become better.”¹⁷³⁹