On Patriarchy

Historically, most societies have been patriarchal, agreeing that a man rightly has rule over his family, which includes being in authority over his wife; and this not merely in the sense of primus inter pares; rather, a wife is subordinate to her husband. This contradicts both egalitarian feminism, which denies male headship, and complementarianism, which allows a sort of authority to husbands but interprets this as the authority of a first-among-equals.

Abandoning patriarchalism was a mistake. Women are in fact inferior to their husbands. This is not demeaning to women any more than it is demeaning to a lieutenant to be inferior to a general. In defense of this I propound three arguments: two from Scripture, and a third from the consensus gentium.

First Argument: Wifely submission is the submission of an inferior.

The sum of my first argument is that the Scriptural requirement of wifely submission is an implicit confirmation of a husband's superiority. Why do I say this? Is is because I think the mere word "submission" implies inferiority, as if it is impossible to submit to a first-among-equals? No. I allow that there are different varieties of submission. In some contexts telling someone to "submit" would not imply that the one being submitted to is a superior. But in other contexts it would imply that. Submission does not always and everywhere imply inferiority. However, the two notions are not just accidentally associated. Submission is among the essential duties (along with such things as honor & deference) that inferiors owe to superiors. Such duties define what it means to be a subordinate; they constitute the nature and quiddity of social inferiority. Because of this, when one who is in fact inferior is instructed to submit to a superior, it is to be presumed that the submission being talked about is the very sort owed by an inferior to a superior as such, and not some lesser sort of submission. To be sure, a lesser degree of submission may be appropriate toward one who is only a first-among-equals; nevertheless, we are probably not talking about that lesser degree of submission when we tell an inferior to submit to his superior.

The same holds when submission is urged upon someone falsely believed, in a society, to be inferior: those who urge this are presumably talking about the kind of submission that inferiors owe to superiors (they just happen to be wrong in thinking that that kind of submission is owed in this case). Regardless of whether the society's belief is right or wrong, what matters when it comes to determining what kind of submission is presumably being talked about is what is generally believed in that society.

I say "presumably" because, of course, a presumption can be overcome: if an author indicates that he rejects society's attribution of inferiority to those being told to submit, the presumptive interpretation would be undercut. But where he does not, the presumption stands. Not everyone agrees with what society thinks. But in general people do. That's what makes it the general belief of that society. So unless an author tells us otherwise, it is reasonable to expect the meaning of his statements to align with how they would generally be understood in his society. 

Accordingly, I argue as follows:

1. A text that instructs those regarded as inferiors in the society in which that text was written to submit to those that society regards as their superiors should, absent reason to think otherwise, be interpreted as instructing the former to render to the latter the sort of submission inferiors owe to superiors, not something less than that.

2. New Testament Scriptures instruct wives to submit to their husbands.

3. In the first-century, wives were regarded as inferior to their husbands.

4. Therefore, absent reason to think otherwise, Scripture should be interpreted as instructing wives to render that submission to their husbands that inferiors owe to superiors. (1,2,3)

5. Reasons thought to undermine this default presumption require interpretations of Scripture that are contrary to historic Christian doctrine in the face of no-less-reasonable alternative interpretations that are consistent with historic Christianity.

6. But Scripture should not be interpreted in a way inconsistent with historic Christian doctrine where an alternative interpretation exists that is both no less reasonable and consistent with historic Christianity.

7. Therefore Scripture should be interpreted as instructing wives to render that submission to their husbands that inferiors owe to superiors. (4,5,6)

8. Scripture would not do that unless husbands are in fact superior to their wives.

9. Therefore etc.

This argument is incomplete without a defense of the fifth premise that engages arguments of the opposition. But what we have achieved so far serves to set ground-rules for that engagement: it establishes that the burden of proof is on the complementarian to show that the submission required is something less than what inferiors owe superiors. 

And a heavy burden it is. Orthodox Christianity has been consistently patriarchalistic for its entire history until the rise of egalitarian feminism in modern times, at which point some Christians abandoned the historic Christian position on these matters, adopting egalitarianism, while others crafted the compromise position that is complementarianism. Proponents of those novelties have to defend the implausible thesis that the true teaching of the Bible on these matters, hidden for centuries, had to await the rise of the modern secular age, in which it was discovered conveniently to be more like the convictions of modern secular people than those of all earlier Christians.

Keeping in mind this burden of proof, let us consider  some typical complementarian arguments. In Ephesians, in the passage immediately prior to that which instructs wives to submit to their husbands, we have a sentence that ends, "...submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God" (5:21). Complementarians argue that this means that each Christian owes submission to each Christian: Paul is instructing masters to submit to their slaves, parents to submit to their children, brothers to their sisters, as well as vice versa. With this kind of submission having just been mentioned, the instruction to wives in the next verse, they say, must be speaking of the same kind of submission, which has nothing to do with superiority and inferiority.

But it is no less reasonable to interpret Ephesians 5:21 as enjoining us to submit to whichever of our Christian brethren are superior to us in our various stations in this life. Indeed I say this is by far the more reasonable interpretation. For while parents are to love and serve their children, it makes no sense for them to submit to their children. Likewise with masters and slaves: masters must remember that their Christian slaves are also their brethren, that in spite of their social inequality, they are equals in respect of eternal things, and should be willing even to give their life out of love for them, as Christ did for us his slaves. But masters are not told to submit to their slaves. When our Lord washed his disciples' feet, he humbled himself to be their servant, but affirmed in that very moment that he was their "Master and Lord" (John 13:13), and refused to submit to Peter. For it is not right that a superior (as Jesus was) should submit to his inferiors. The church submits to Christ, Christ does not submit to the church. He serves and sacrifices himself for her, but does not obey her commands and subject himself under her rule. That would be absurd. In the same way it would be absurd to command parents to submit to their children. So the command to submit to one another should be taken not as requiring each individual to submit to each individual (including, absurdly, parents to children), but requiring us to submit to whomsoever we may owe submission in our various stations in life.

Since this interpretation is not less reasonable than the complementarian's interpretation of 5:21, and since it is consistent with the historic Christian teaching regarding the subordinate status of wives, the complementarian argument cannot undermine the default patriarchalist reading of the words in Ephesians 5:22 as having the same sense as the Colossian believers would presumably have taken the parallel instructions in Colossians 3:18 to have (where they are not preceded by a general command to submit to one another).

Complementarians also argue that Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female," teaches that the differnce in sex between husband and wife is of no significance such that neither can be socially superior to the other. To be consistent, they ought also to countenance homosexual "marriage." For if the sex of the spouses is of no significance, it is of no significance. 

In fact, Paul's meaning does not eliminate all significance of male and female in this life; he is talking about the highest things, our eternal status as children of God through faith in Christ, something all Christians share equally. He is not abrogating the natural order. The equality of all in some respect does not conflict with the inequality of some in other respects. 

If the natural order stands, then whatever was thought to be included in the natural order—by Paul's society and by mankind as a whole—also presumably stands, unless we find it denied elsewhere. In fact we do not find this. What we find is that Paul was a patriarchalist, who affirmed the continuing duties of inferiors to their superiors within traditional social hierarchies: he does not allow women to speak in church, requires them to cover their heads as a sign of authority, insists that children obey their parents and that Christians obey magistrates. Thus Paul may be presumed not to be denying this aspect of the natural order when he affirmed that differences in sex are not relevant when it comes to the highest things in Galatians 3:28.

This traditional understanding is certainly not less reasonable than the complementarian's arbitrary assertion that Galatians 3:28 undermines what was regarded as the natural order, with respect to the superiority of husbands over wives, but not when it comes to who can be married to whom. So this argument also fails to overturn the presumption in favor of a patriarchalist understanding of the submission that wives owe their husbands. And, to avoid further prolonging my discourse, I summarily state that a similar fate befalls other complementarian arguments against the presumption that the submission a wife owes her husband is the submission of an inferior to her superior.

Objection: "Premise (6) is contrary to sola scriptura"

Response: Historic Protestant doctrine is that Scripture alone is an infallible authority. Church tradition is a subordinate authority. Where it is reasonably clear that the latter is in conflict with the former, we heed the word of God over the traditions of men. But where there are multiple equally reasonable interpretations of Scripture, the Protestant doctrine allows us to prefer interpretations consistent with universal Christian tradition. (6) is inconsistent only with the foolishness that is sometimes called "solo scriptura," the notion that the right way to interpret Scripture is to ignore the saints who went before us, or at least to give them no deference whatsoever.

Objection: "Wouldn't this also make slaves inferior to their masters? And isn't that bad?"

Response: This objection conflates two questions (i) Is superiority/inferiority inherent to the very nature of the master-slave relation? (ii) Should slavery exist? The answer to (i) is obvious. There can be no slavery without inferiority. That's what it means to be a slave. You don't have to be pro-slavery to see that. Anti-slavery proponents are not contending that slaves should be equal to their masters while remaining enslaved to them! They generally recognize that the only way for them to become their masters' equals is for them to cease to be their slaves.

In the case of slavery, it is (ii) that is the locus of controversy, not (i). In the case of marriage, it is the opposite. My argument is that superiority/inferiority is of the nature of the husband/wife relationship. My opponents disagree with that. They are not saying that marriage should not exist. Thus anti-slavery arguments, whatever their force, cannot be leveraged to undermine my case that the subordinate status of wives is implicit in God's command that they submit to their husbands.

An even more direct case for the superior status of husbands can be made from Peter's instructions to wives in 1 Peter 3, where he praises Sara for calling her husband κυριος.

Second Argument: It is commendable that a wife call her husband lord.

1. Peter would not have praised Sara for calling her husband κυριος if it were false.

2. Peter did praise her for that (1 Peter 3:6).

3. Therefore Sara spoke truth when she called her husband κυριος. (1,2)

4. The word κυριος normally implies superiority.

5. Absent contextual reason to think otherwise, a word should be taken to mean what it normally means.

6. Nothing in the context of 1 Peter 3 indicates that κυριος has some unusual meaning.

7. Therefore Sara's calling her husband κυριος implied that he was her superior. (4,5,6)

8. Therefore Sara's husband was her superior. (3,7)

9. He was her superior by virtue of being her husband only if husbands are superior to their wives generally.

10 So unless Sara's husband was her superior, not by virtue of being her husband, but only on some other grounds, husbands are superior to their wives. (8,9)

11. If he was her superior not by virtue of being her husband, but only on some other grounds, Peter would have no reason for mentioning Sara's speech-act with approval in the midst of a passage giving instruction to wives generally; indeed, doing that would misleadingly suggest (to his first readers: members of a society that regarded husbands as superiors) that Peter was affirming the superiority of husbands generally.

12. Peter was not scatterbrained and misleading in how he wrote his epistle.

13. Therefore Sara's husand was her superior by virtue of being her husband. (11,12)

14. And husbands are superior to their wives. (10,13)

Third Argument: The consensus gentium supports patriarchy.

The general belief in patriarchy in the society in which Scripture was written is something I have so far appealed to merely as a social fact which can be used to illuminate the meaning of certain words as they are used in Scripture. This procedure does not presuppose that that general belief was right. Only that it existed. And I have appealed to the consensus of historic Christianity to deflect counterarguments from complementarians offering dubious interpretations of Scripture. But this was only deflective, not a positive argument. I have not yet appealed to the traditional belief in the superiority of husbands as a weighty argument in its own right. This I now proceed to do.

Where there is a consensus of peoples, tribes and nations throughout history; where the Christian tradition is in accord with this universal human tradition; where the only exceptions are either rare savage tribes, or the very recent godless secular society; it is the height of folly to remain blithely confident that we moderns are right, and they are all wrong, especially when it becomes obvious that our belief rests on nothing but an unexamined prejudice that we have absorbed from our culture. 

If not a modern prejudice, on what is our egalitarian instinct grounded? Not on Scripture. The historic origin of complementarianism makes manifest that Scripture was not the real source of modern Christians' belief in the social equality of men and women; rather Scripture was interpreted in egalitarian terms because equality had first become a social fact in modern society, a social fact that Christians absorbed and only then "found" in Scripture. 

Is egalitarianism grounded in nature? If so by what means do we become aware of this natural reality that all our fathers were blind to? By some sort of argument? Modern people don't usually argue for it, but treat it as if it were self-evident, which it clearly is not. When they do try to argue for it, they invariably argue in circles or propound blatant non-sequiturs, such as: "Women are human beings just as much as men are, therefore men are not superior to their wives" (which has the same form as the obviously fallacious: "Lieutenants are human beings just as much as generals are, therefore generals are not superior to lieutenants").

In short, modern belief in the social equality of the sexes has all the marks of an irrational prejudice. It is not the good kind of prejudice: ancient wisdom deeply embedded in us, apprehended pre-rationally and felt as "common-sense." It is instead a uniquely modern prejudice, grounded on nothing but the idiosyncracies of our own society, a society that can scarcely be called exemplary in maintaining healthy, fruitful, lasting marriages. On the contrary, abandoning patriarchy has been disastrous for our marriages, for our children, for our sanity. Our experiment in forsaking the old ways has been a colossal tragedy.

In conclusion, we are out of step with humanity. When we weigh the consensus gentium against the blind prejudice of our dysfunctional society, we can come to no other conclusion than the very one we also arrive at when interpreting Scripture in light of its manifest original meaning, which is also how it has consistently been interpreted by those who went before us. Husbands are, by nature, superior to their wives.