Ephesians 5:22

Wives, submit yourselves. Paul ascribes to women a position of subordination in relation to their husbands (cf. 1 Peter 3:1-6). The ethics of Christian relationships within the family are clear when once it is seen that difference and subordination do not in any sense imply inferiority. The submission enjoined upon the wife is of the kind that can be given only between equals, not a servile obedience, but a voluntary submission in the respects in which the man was qualified by his Maker to be head (cf. Gen. 3:16). Every community must, for purposes of organization and existence, have a head. Even in our free age of insistence on the equality of men and women, the man who does not assume the leadership of his family in love is regarded with something akin to contempt by men and women alike. This principle of submission is permanent, but its specific application may vary from age to age according to custom and social consciousness. Compare 1 Cor. 11:3, 7-9; Col. 3:18; 1 Tim. 2:11, 12; Titus 2:5.

Own husbands. This is said, not by way of contrast with other women’s husbands, but to emphasize the holy relationship of possession upon which the submission is founded.

As unto the Lord. Compare the phrase, “as it is fit in the Lord” (Col. 3:18). The wife should see in her relation to her husband a reflection, or illustration, of her relation to Christ.