A Third Position?
It was in 1988 that the term complementarianism was invented. A declaration on the differing biblical roles of men and women while also an affirmation of their equal worth and value, this concept was meant to be a response to the growing egalitarianism in the church. Patriarchy (literally “father rule”), the most commonly held perspective on marriage and society for thousands of years, had long since become “icky” and carried with it a lot of baggage, but it was toward feminism that complementarianism took aim.
Complementarianism has since become quite convoluted in practice. It emphasizes equal worth and value of men and women, but insists that there is still a hierarchy of authority, mainly in the church. Even that is fading as the lines are moved further and further toward egalitarianism. The boundaries are unclear, and this is largely to blame for the confusion in marriages in recent decades. It wasn’t until we had been married for about 10 years that we finally started to realize that complementarianism isn’t even real. You either believe that Scripture gives different roles to men and women or it doesn’t. You celebrate and honor those differences or you don’t. You believe God ordained men to lead (as a rule, with rare exceptions) or you don’t. In my opinion, there are only two positions – egalitarianism (equal rule) or patriarchy (father rule). In patriarchy, the main role boundary is set, with distinctions being made from the smallest family unit to the leadership of entire nations. It generally reaches beyond the walls of marriage and the church to society at large. Perhaps you can be a hardline or softline patriarchalist with more or fewer allowances for feminine roles, but the fact you think there are different roles means you are a patriarchalist. If you do not think there are role differences between men and women, you are an egalitarian. So complementarianism is just soft patriarchy.
The equal worth and value of men and women is not really in question because anyone who reads Scripture with intellectual honesty for five minutes can see that God bestows equal value on both men and women. Of course there are abuses committed by authority figures because sin still afflicts our world, but that does not change God’s design. More equality is not the answer to these abuses. Rejecting more authority is not the answer. Particularly as a category in the church, complementarianism pretends to be a middle ground between harsh, selfish men bossing and controlling their wives and weak-willed men letting their wives split every responsibility 50/50 and being happy about it. In reality, it only polarizes men and women by forcing a fake equality (i.e. women can be pastors but not elders, or the husband has ultimate veto power but his wife can deny him intimacy while disputing his leadership in any number of areas). Complementarianism tells men to lead while imposing a list of requirements they must fulfill before they ever make the buck-stopping decisions, hamstringing their authority and encouraging women to question it (with “respect” of course, wink, wink). It removes clarity in favor of an agreeableness and partnership that is egalitarian in practice and piecemeal-patriarchal in lip service. There isn’t a clear middle position! Men and women end up constantly looking for the lines that they shouldn’t cross instead of firmly planting themselves within God’s designed boundaries. Straddling the fence didn’t turn out too well for Baal-worshippers keeping God’s festivals in Israel, and it hasn’t worked out too well in Christian marriages either.
The concept of complementarianism might originally have been intended to encourage women to embrace their unique feminine roles and replace their pantsuits with maternity dresses, but it has not addressed a root of destruction that we women must acknowledge. We don’t want to submit, and if there is ever any chance we don’t have to, especially if it is endorsed by our pastors, we’ll take it. Complementarian marriages are on shaky ground and often end up on the side of egalitarianism. I have seen it happen far too many times. The broad acceptance of egalitarianism in our society has led to a collapse of all hierarchy, and has erased the boundaries between men and women so completely that it’s no wonder our world looks like a mass of genderless, leaderless, lawless automatons insisting that our sameness is somehow beautifully in line with God’s design. The church has followed the world in lockstep. I propose that we look back to the ancient principles of biblical marriage, established long before feminism took hold of our hearts.
abusive patriarchy
My own childhood is a testament to the 21st century’s negative image of patriarchy. I grew up in a church that soundly hated egalitarianism and embraced a form of abusive patriarchy that was quite worthy of rejection by sincere believers. It eschewed any kind of male “servant leadership” in favor of iron-fisted rule and complete domination over households by any means necessary. I don’t need to go into the gory details here, but yes, Sunday morning services were often attended by wives who cowered in fear, some bearing black eyes and bruises that their sisters in Christ would take pains to teach them how to cover with makeup in the bathroom, ironically one of the only allowable uses for makeup in this church. My own mother was among them. Children were expected to be silent and perfectly obedient. They bore their own bruises that testified of childhoods that were anything but happy and carefree. Most were very obviously terrified of their fathers. I know I was afraid of mine. I’ve stayed in touch with a handful of people from this church, and almost all of them have walked away from their faith completely as adults. Not only did the church elders not step in to help victims in these homes, they encouraged abuse as a means of taking authority in the home and living righteously as the Bride of Christ. It has taken me decades of getting healing to see that what my childhood church practiced was not actually biblical patriarchy; it was a lot of warped, unscriptural views on how to raise godly families. Abuse thinly-veiled in religiosity is not the answer to the woes of feminism.
Fast forward to our marriage
By my early 20s, I already knew to my very bones that men and women have different roles. I began to see complementarianism as a great safety net for those women who would otherwise be caught by the big, bad wolf of abusive patriarchy. I saw it as the biblical mandate for women who didn’t view feminism in a positive light. I could practically quote the Danver’s statement. I had graduated from a complementarian Bible college with a giant chip on my shoulder, but mostly I was filled with fear that my story would end up mirroring my mother’s unless I could find a good servant leader to marry. I couldn’t bear the thought of being the victim of physical abuse for inconsequential mistakes, and I didn’t want to be crushed by a husband’s will. So it was critical that I marry someone who would not live out my view of patriarchy.
Meanwhile, my husband had been raised to be egalitarian, having had a mostly secular upbringing. Though he is a very gifted, intelligent, natural leader, he had not been taught how to lead a godly family. His serious faith journey began in his late 20s, so he hadn’t benefited from seeing good examples of husbands and fathers. Rather, he was reared on the world’s worship of girl bosses and women who grasp for authority that isn’t theirs. What a match we were – a woman terrified of what she thought was patriarchy and “submitting” only as far as she could bear to be led, and a man thinking I was his equal in authority, only embracing complementarianism because it seemed more Scripturally palatable than egalitarianism, which in turn seemed just as icky as patriarchy. The church we attended embraced complementarianism, so it seemed like a great way to begin our marriage adventure. But we really didn’t know what any of it meant in practical terms.
It was a rocky few years for many reasons. We were struggling financially, had a bunch of young children, and had only a handful of examples of strong marriages around us, few of which were in our local church. We knew he had to be the leader and me the follower, but our experience wasn’t lining up with our biblical knowledge.
As far as my husband being a servant leader, he absolutely lived it out. He gave sacrificially of his time and ability to provide for our family and take care of me, particularly when we were in the very difficult season of having five children under five years old and everything was a blur. I couldn’t have asked for a better father and spiritual leader for our children. He took his responsibility as leader of the home very seriously, using every available resource to better equip himself to be the best leader he could be. He was (and is) kind and lived (and lives) with me in an understanding way. The main problem was with me. A godly man can only servant-lead his way through so many crises if his wife is resistant (or even rebellious) and hindering his authority by questioning it at every turn. I didn’t hate his being the leader, but I was operating from a place of fear (remember the abusive childhood church?) and that affected my ability to fully submit and let him lead. I’ve since come to believe that a lack of submission often stems from a place of fear and reveals itself in a need for control. I was afraid and thought that getting to control as much as I could (via undue influence) would prevent my husband from living out of some kind of embodiment of an overbearing brute. It wasn’t in his nature to be an abdicator, but I know from the experiences of several friends that a wife’s fear of her husband not stepping into the authority he needs to and leaving her to do all the spiritual heavy lifting is also a reality in many complementarian homes.
The funny thing about having a muddled complementarianism as our foundation is that I wasn’t very aware of or bothered by my lack of submission. I wavered between the ideals of Debi Pearl’s Created to Be His Helpmeet and Jen Hatmaker’s Ms. Understood: Rebuilding the Feminine Equation depending on what time of the month I was in. Each of these books defends diametrically-opposed positions, yet it is unsurprising that the lack of clarity in complementarianism would cause me to be endlessly missing the mark. It all seemed so complicated.
The results of complementarianism
Our own marriage was characterized by my having severe anxiety over the decisions Hubby might or might not make. Instead of joyfully entrusting myself to his care, skills, leadership, and thus ultimately to God’s, I couldn’t ever just let him decide! Sure, I had learned to care about his preferences and deferred to him often, but for many decisions, I just had to weigh in. And it’s not like he didn’t want my perspective or wouldn’t consider my thoughts, but I was regularly putting my fears, emotionalism, and feminine desire for consensus into his ears, clouding the issues and making it nearly impossible for him to confidently make decisions. And God help him if he did do something big without consulting me! I truly thought I could save us from disaster if only he would listen to me. Rather than go about the process of presenting issues in a respectful way and then stepping back, I turned to nagging, reminding, and re-hashing things over and over, followed by a cold shoulder if he seemed reticent to accept how I thought things should be done. Wives, we have to acknowledge our incredible ability to influence our husbands. I’ve had to repent for the times I manipulated my husband while deceiving myself into thinking I was submissive just because I stayed home with the kids and cooked dinner every night. Being a homemaker does not a submitted heart make. This fear made its way into many arenas of our life, and while we both wanted a God-glorifying marriage, the tension was high, and I lived in a practically perpetual state of anxiousness. I’m embarrassed at how often I probably sounded like the dripping faucet in Proverbs.
a break in the dam
It took living through a gut-wrenching church split for us to begin to redefine leadership and submission. I remember writing a strongly worded email to a pastor because he did something I didn’t agree with. Though my husband and I were on the same page regarding the situation, I sent the email without his permission because I knew he would tell me not to send it. He told me later that he read the email (that I’d graciously bcc’d him on) with his heart in his throat at my tone. I had brought shame and dishonor to my husband by my defiance, not to mention my unsubmitted heart toward our pastor. I had to repent. If I had submitted, my husband could have dealt with the situation himself. My undue influence in the early years of our marriage discouraged my husband from timely obedience, from considering the fear of the Lord before the fear of man, from being able to develop into a better leader sooner because the weight of responsibility tends to force that process. In short, I prevented myself from walking in abundant peace because I was too afraid to trust, ultimately to trust God through trusting my husband. And while my husband thankfully still led our household, he had to do so with a heaping dose of guilt from me when I disagreed. I showed respect to him outwardly, but inwardly, I was battling overwhelming worry and a feeling that I was somehow responsible to lead with him instead of simply follow him and focus on my own arena of responsibility.
a slow awakening
I can’t speak broadly to every situation, but I am expert on my own. I feel as though I have been slowly awakening from a stupor as we have watched dear friends’ marriages fail again, and again, and again. The terrible destruction of divorce and its effects on extended families, churches, friend groups, and children simply cannot be overstated. I believe there would be far fewer divorces if roles were better understood and people were better discipled. It’s true that some marriages will not last, but many more on the brink could be saved if only we were better equipped. I have always defined my marriage as wonderful, even with the warts of confused-complementarianism, but it has become clear over the years that nothing is a given. Coming into an embrace of biblical patriarchal marriage has felt like an offense on the enemy, and I have discovered it to be one of my main weapons against the schemes of the devil in my own life.
How is it possible that someone who experienced a horrible kind of abusive patriarchy and had some deeply-ingrained habits of complementarianism come to see that biblical patriarchy is most assuredly the right path? All I can say is that I came to the end of myself. Due to several health issues, and a mix of very difficult circumstances in our church and home life, something in me snapped. I realized I simply couldn’t do it anymore, and I had to let my husband lead us – without interference. I know it was the Holy Spirit nudging me toward this understanding. I suppose finally embracing patriarchy wasn’t so much a conscious decision as a reality of experiencing the consequences of walking only half-heartedly in God’s best for me for so many years and wanting something better in the future. My thought process had to change. Complementarianism, or essentially the need to be a co-leader in my marriage, had led to a lifeless, embittered, strained, and anxious existence with only the momentary reprieve of joy. Even the romance in my blissful marriage was suffering. I had been digging my heels in with resentment, and it was turning me into a hardened cynic. I could no longer carry the weight of my fear and need for control. It seemed to me that the path I was on would lead to a stalemate with my closest friend if I wasn’t extremely careful.
I took a chance on my husband’s being wired by God to have broad shoulders that can carry heavy loads. We had several “come to Jesus” talks over the course of several months, and I made a conscious choice to close my mouth and let him lead. This did not happen in a day. We had created a habit of communicating that made it harder for him to walk in obedience, and I only made myself more anxious and fretful. Rather than seeing his authority as a necessary evil to be tolerated, I began to see it as a divine gift given to him because of how he is created to lead. I decided to lean even harder into my gifts of nurturing the children, nurturing my husband, and creating a sanctuary in the home for all of us. I started to develop a prayer life for those moments I knew I would have a hard time trusting my husband’s authority, knowing that the most powerful thing I could do was place myself directly inside my God-designed place. I even started to reframe my understanding of my childhood experience with abusive patriarchy, this time from a place of healing. Rather than throwing everything out, I decided to just throw out the bones (the abuse) and keep the meat (the Scriptural principles of submission). As I have removed my heart from grasping at anything to save me from being ruled over by my husband, I cannot even express the freedom I have come into. My husband has also done his own heart work in realizing just how great his responsibility of leadership is in our household. He has grown so much in the past few years and it thrills me to see him taking on the full stature of his position. I won’t speak for him here, but he will make a guest post in the weeks to come about the things he’s learned while becoming the unapologetic patriarch in our home. Again, it is more of a perspective change than anything else. I could go on and on with testimonials of how the way we do our marriage now has brought us into a very sweet place. Simply put, it has been lifechanging.
We have been embracing biblical patriarchy for quite a few years now, but I have only really embraced the term itself in recent years. Why? Because I have grown weary of seeing marriages with such potential end in disaster all around us. Why hide what we’re doing just because of all the haters? I know that our opinion on patriarchal marriage is an unpopular one. But I can’t argue with the fruit I’ve seen in myself and my husband. I know how anxious I used to be. My newfound peace is not a miracle, but it very nearly could be. I want to shout from the rooftops that I look at my husband with adoration now in ways I never did before. I have stars in my eyes and a deep appreciation for how he carries our family. What a relief that when an issue arises, I can trust that my husband will pray over it and make a good decision for us. I don’t have to be involved in every single situation, and my natural response now is to ask what he thinks, even for small things. Sure, I know what I think and my perspective is still something that my husband often asks for. But the weight has very deliberately been rolled off my shoulders and onto his (and he rolls his burdens onto the Lord). I choose not to worry, and though I’m tempted to do otherwise when life is hard, I know that holding my peace has strengthened my husband. It has freed him to embrace leadership in our church and carry burdens there since he’s now really good at it with so much practice. It has helped our kids to see what godly submission and leadership look like in a marriage, far from perfect but safe and fruitful. It has given him the confidence to lead from a solid place of authority without carrying guilt or manipulation along with it. Each year that passes with me fully submitting, I feel more lightheartedness. I exchanged harriedness for a role beautifully designed by God – being a wholehearted helper to my husband. Without the added burden of carrying an authority that was never mine, I have been able to come into being the woman and wife I was destined to be. And I’ve only scratched the surface of that potential. My husband gets to benefit from my being much more peaceful, and that spills over into better romance than we ever imagined was possible. I wish someone had asked me several years ago when I was struggling, “Have you tried being quiet and letting your husband lead?” Well, I did, and it worked.
but what about…
Whenever someone starts to talk about biblical patriarchy in a positive light, there are always immediate responses with questions like what about women in Scripture having leadership roles, and what about women who are in truly physically abusive situations at home, or what about women who don’t have a wonderful man like my husband (I literally heard a friend say this was the reason she didn’t have to submit to her husband)? As if all believing husbands haven’t been given all they need through the Holy Spirit for a life of godly obedience and leadership. The questions themselves are not the point. When I used to bristle at the idea of full submission when asking these questions myself, it was really about the age-old desire of Eve to not be ruled over by her husband. I don’t have an answer for every exception, but I will say that looking more to overarching principles than every exception to rules makes it easier to see a clear standard. There is truly excellent biblical scholarship addressing situations in Scripture where women seem to have authority for one reason or another, and once I was able to accept the fact that they are exceptions, not rules, I could really appreciate Esther, and Abigail, and Phoebe for who they were and how God used them in the times and ways He did. I don’t need to insert any modern intent into the text. God has already given parameters to protect women because they are in a vulnerable place as they submit. Accountability in the church, church discipline, and elders demanding a high level of integrity from the men in the church will help prevent abusive marriages from happening in the first place. And for men who simply refuse to repent and insist on being violent? The civil magistrate is there for a reason! The fact that we don’t really have true accountability in churches anymore is a symptom of egalitarianism and it has led to disaster. But real discipleship based on biblical roles will help establish strong marriages. While some will not last, I believe the majority will be strengthened. Removing the lack of clarity on where authority begins and ends for husbands (and pastors) is a worthy endeavor. One of the best things a young couple can do when they are starting out in marriage is to be a part of a church community that has biblically accurate definitions of men’s and women’s roles and incorporates real accountability when marriage gets hard, because it will! There is no room for compromise when it comes to discipleship, teaching women to live out submission (which is much more than just respect) and developing men who rule their families well. We are so very blessed to be a part of a couple of communities that strengthen and encourage us to be obedient in these ways. Growing in wisdom has taught us the tremendous value of surrounding ourselves with people who will hold our feet to the fire.
If the standards of Scripture are hard to accept and do not seem to fit into our modern day reality, it is not the Scripture that must move, it is us. Just because submission is an icky word to our deeply feminist culture does not mean we are exempt from it. How many books have been written in recent decades with “new” interpretations of passages that have been interpreted in certain ways for millenia, all with the purpose to set women free from the patriarchy? Admittedly, it is a great thing that some of the abuses of patriarchy as a whole have been addressed. But now we have a different problem entirely! Perhaps we should not be asking ourselves how far we can go in our freedoms without transgressing, but instead how deeply can our obedience go? Is there even more I can surrender? There is a temptation to compare the biblical ideal with what we actually see in the church today: many women are not married to wonderful, godly, patient, steadfast leaders, and many men are not married to wonderful, godly, peaceful, submitted helpers. It must not be possible for biblical patriarchal marriages to be happy and thriving because we don’t see many of them, right? At what point do we admit to ourselves that this mixture of egalitarianism with a few dashes of authority sprinkled in is not doing Christian marriages any favors? I want my daughters to know the joy of submission, and it starts with my repentance.
so, how is my biblical patriarchy going?
It is humming along quite well. Do we ever fight or disagree? Of course. We both still sin against one another and have to repent regularly, but we talk through things with more understanding the older we get. Marriage is a work of deep sanctification; it’s a process of refinement that is never completely finished. But I know who my leader is and I have learned intimately the path of intercession when I have a hard time accepting a decision. Do I ever find myself desiring to rebel and lean into egalitarianism? Yes, especially when I listen to the voice of the enemy, which speaks through a megaphone into all corners of our society today.
What about my anxiety? Isn’t it an incredulous claim to say I was cured just by saying “yes, my lord” to my husband? Yes, it’s quite the claim, but I have a promise in Scripture that I am one of Sarah’s daughters when I submit to my own husband, do what is right, and do not fear. There’s a lot to be frightened of, especially when there is a real risk that my husband will make wrong decisions. He has and will steer us off course sometimes, and it is true that I will have to pay those consequences alongside him when that happens. It has been and will be painful! However, just because there is a risk that he will make a mistake does not negate my mandate to submit. And just maybe, the better I am at being a helpmeet and joyfully respecting his authority, the more I create an environment of peace as he seeks the Father for direction. Another crucial piece to the puzzle is that he also has godly men in the church holding him accountable should he step out of line, just as I have women who encourage me to remain in a place of submission. Living in faith has always been a challenge for me as I am often tempted towards worry. God faithfully removing anxiety that has been debilitating at times as I’ve walked in obedience in this area is just a testament to His kindness. I know I can trust Him to meet us where we are, even when mistakes are made. Meanwhile, the lush promises of fake freedom are less and less desirable as I double down on this ancient path of peaceful marriage.
And my own patriarch has yet to turn into an overbearing brute.
Hebron Heights Academy 