“The husband has to be prepared to die for his wife.”
One of the most bizarre arguments defending men being in authority over women is the idea that one day, he may have to take a bullet for you.
A husband has to be prepared to die for his wife, but God doesn’t ask the same of a wife, they say! Since God gave a husband far more responsibility, then he obviously needs more authority.
That’s the argument that Emerson Eggerichs, for instance, makes ad nauseum in Love & Respect. I’m not kidding—it comes up eight different times in his book. He really thinks he has a winning argument here!
Just a few examples:
A man who has basic goodwill will serve his wife and even die for her. There is no expectation of the wife to die for her husband. … One woman wrote to me to confess:
“Although a Bible student for most of my life, and a very spiritual person, I had given up, but then I read your statement that says: “Though there is more to love than dying for someone, it is a sad day when a man knows that he’d die for his wife because he loves her, yet he hears her continually complain, [‘You don’t love me.’]” The truth hit me powerfully in my spirit like no other thing has hit me concerning our marriage. I felt the kind of shame one feels when she knows she has done terribly wrong, and she knows not to even ask for forgiveness, and she knows that this one will take a long time to heal, but she knows this is one thing she won’t do again.”
This lady “gets it.”
Later he says:
The problem many women have today—including Christian wives —is that they want to be treated like a princess, but deep down they resist treating their husbands like the king. They aren’t willing to recognize that in the depth of his very soul a husband wants to be the one who provides and protects—he wants to be an umbrella of protection who would willingly die for his wife if need be.
He brings up this idea that men have to be willing to die for wives as the cornerstone argument in his chapter on why husbands are in authority in marriage (although it also pops up in his chapter on hierarchy). He ends up inviting women to ask themselves this question:
Authority—Have I gone on record that, because he has the primary responsibility for me (even to die for me), I recognize him as having the primary authority? Do I let him be the leader? How have I helped in that regard recently?
He also goes on a bizarre rant about how men are soldiers and understand the need to protect, while women just don’t.
Eggerichs isn’t the only one who claims this, either.
Here’s just one example, once gain tying the idea that a man should die for his wife to the idea that he thus has authority over her. The website BibleRef.com gives this commentary beside Ephesians 5:25:
Husbands are called to a level of dedication which includes love unto death. Though given authority as the leader of the family, the corresponding responsibility is often overlooked. A husband must love his wife, dedicate his life to staying with his wife, and be willing to die for his wife if need be. Women are obligated to submission in marriage (Ephesians 5:22–24), and the modern world often rejects this principle.
In our new book The Marriage You Want, we identified the one big attitude that hurts marriages the most: Entitlement.
We talked about this last week on the Bare Marriage podcast (episode 269), but basically, When you feel like your spouse owes you something without you having to work for it, and you expect something out of your spouse when you are not putting in reciprocal effort, that is entitlement.
And in this case, men are feeling entitled to be in authority over their wives based on an extreme hypothetical that will, in all likelihood, never happen.
But the men who teach and believe this get to feel like they are the good guys, without having to actually do anything, and if women resist being under their authority, then the women are the bad ones.
Men who believe that they are in authority over women are more likely to show up as entitled in the bedroom, too, and more likely to not do their fair share of housework.
So all around, this belief tends to make men worse husbands.
But let’s ask: does this claim even stand up to scrutiny?
1. It is wives who are most likely to die for the family.
Emerson Eggerichs insists that a man must theoretically be prepared to die for his wife.
But women risk their lives through pregnancy and childbirth all the time. In fact, throughout history, and all over the world, women are far more likely to die for the family than their husbands are, simply because childbirth is the most risky time in a woman’s life.
While medical advances have made it far less risky, it is still bears risk. And even if a woman doesn’t die, her body is often changed forever.
Women also bear pain for the family in a way that men will never be asked to do. Most men will never go through anything analogous to labour. But instead of applauding women for literally bearing the family in their bodies, we’re told that men are actually the ones who take the risks.
As someone who has given birth three times—that bites.
(I also wonder how much of this “men will risk their lives for women” stems from jealousy that women can give birth and they can’t.)
2. Women are far more likely to be killed by their spouse than saved by their spouse.
Rather than being their primary protectors, men actually pose the greatest danger to women. About 25% of women are victims of marital abuse, and, according to the UN, every 10 minutes one woman or girl is killed by her intimate partner.
Additionally, when men say they want to protect their wives, we have to remember WHO they are protected the wives from: other men.
If men really want to protect their wives from other men, they should work to change the culture which promotes tropes that make violence against women more likely. Stop objectifying women. Stop seeing women as less than. Stop preaching that women should defer to men and be under men. That will do far more to protect women than hypothetically being willing to take a bullet for them!
The Marriage You Want is HERE March 11!
(And the Launch Team is OPEN!)
Our new marriage book is almost here!
Pre-order it now--and get pre-order bonuses and an invite to the launch team--so you can start reading right away!
3. Dying for someone doesn’t mean you’re in authority over them.
The Secret Service doesn’t have authority over the President, after all. Bodyguards don’t have authority over their employers.
4. Jesus was calling men to give up their lives daily, not just hypothetically.
In Ephesians 5:25, the Apostle Paul writes:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
This passage is saying so much more than just that a husband be willing to die for his wife. This passage is asking men to live a life of humility and service for their wives. To lay down whatever power they have (as Philippians 2:5-11 tells us) and serve.
Remember Jesus’ words in Luke 9:23-25:
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”
Take up your cross daily.
Sure, we should be willing to die if it comes to it.
But much more, we should be willing to live an other-centered life! We should give up our own interests and power to serve others.
What does it profit a marriage if he will give up his life, but won’t do the dishes?
Remember that this is the same Emerson Eggerichs who leaves towels on the bed, and then calls his wife disrespectful when she asks him to stop (and the resolution is that she stops asking).
So much of evangelical advice allows men to feel great about themselves without asking anything practical of men.
And men are able to talk about the burdens of leadership, and how much that weighs on them, as a way to stop women from saying, “ummmm….that actually isn’t fair, and I’m doing all the work here.”
Remember this, from John Piper and Wayne Grudem? (I fixed it for you!)
Entitlement kills marriage.
In The Marriage You Want, we walk through what this looks like in your sex life; with housework; even with who takes care of the in-laws.
Marriages need to overcome entitlement, not breed it. And much of evangelical advice breeds male entitlement by praising men for things that are not actually burdens, while requiring women to work everyday in a way that men are spared.
We’ve got lots of pretty charts and graphs in The Marriage You Want that show the repercussions of this.
And my prayer is that we walk away from this kind of entitlement and power-over thinking, and embrace the mutual submission way of Jesus.
That we learn to live a life of service, rather than puffing ourselves up.
Download Our Marriage Survey
Join 40,00 others and let's change the evangelical conversation about sex
My prayer is that The Marriage You Want becomes the go-to marriage resource.
We’ve got a study guide that goes along with it, with premarital curriculum, with small group curriculum, even with couples questions.
Everyday I get questions from pastors saying, “I need premarital curriculum but all the current books are bad!” And I hear from couples saying, “My pastor wants us to read Love & Respect before he’ll marry us.”
Well, now there’s a healthy alternative, that encourages BOTH men and women to look more like Christ.
So pre-order it now (and send in your receipt to get our pre-order bonus and join the launch team!).
A bit off topic, but one of my favorite parts of this site is the “fixed it for you” passages!
Great post. Also I find it odd that so many people go to the I would for you bit. I think it’s more impressive to be able to keep on living.
As is the case so often, we can learn a lot from Star Trek. (Although Codec just said this a bit more directly)
Li Nalas: I’d die for my people
Ben Sisko: Sure you would. Dying’s easy. Dying gets you off the hook. But are you willing to LIVE for your people?
That’s the thing. Yes, I’d die for my wife, and that’s a noble thing, but it’s a vague promise based on a potential future situation that may never happen. But you willing to LIVE for your spouse? (and this applies to men and women). Aside from the good and fun things in life, are you also willing to do the hard and dirty work? Laundry? Dishes? Vacuuming? yardwork? Staying up with the kids when they’re sick? Caring for your spouse when she’s sick? And so on? These are the daily things that need doing all the time.
In old school terminology, yes, grab the sword when necessary and fight, but 99% of the time, it’s the plowshare that needs to be used.
Not only do women risk their lives with pregnancy due to possible complications, but down here in the U.S. pregnancy additionally puts women at risk of being murdered by their husband, in fact, a woman’s chances of dying by homicide in pregnancy are greater than her chances of dying due to pregnancy complications. (I know you already mentioned under #2 that women are more likely to be killed than saved by their husbands, but I wanted to add that for U.S. women this heightens with pregnancy, so it also falls under #1.)
Yes, very true and very tragic.
Women don’t understsnd the need to protect!? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
What women has he been talking to? I dare him to say that to the face of any woman who is protective of her loved ones, especially ones in any of the search and rescue fields. There’s also a reason that “Con Mom” is a known and loved title with Cosplayers at conventions if they find themselves in a bind.
Also, does he not realize even with animals, wise hunters are as warry of the mother with babies as any large male?
I’m sorry, but I’m not sure if I could keep from laughing in his face if he said that to me.
Pretty much every farmer I know will say that he’d rather face a bull than a cow who thinks he’s a threat to her calf. Same with boars and sows. And whenever you hear of someone being killed or seriously injured by an animal, it’s nearly always a female protecting her young. So the idea that females don’t have any protective instincts is rubbish. (Yes, male animals often fight off other males, but usually in breeding season when they don’t want another male pinching THEIR females – so it’s more based on a desire to protect their own position than to protect the females in their flock/herd.
I can give a hearty amen to this. I’ve been tossed by more than one protective momma cow over the years. It hurts.
It really is rubbish.
The entire act of pregnancy is is using our bodies to protect our vulnerable children who would literally die without us.
I know!
No.
Zawn has a new article answering a woman about her ex’s behavior. But how many women in the church have husbands who act just like the letter writer’s?
Zawn’s answer should be a wake-up call to Christian women everywhere.
I especially liked her final line. 😉
(Language warning for her own writing as well as the commenters’.)
https://zawn.substack.com/p/did-my-ex-husband-ever-really-love
EE and his take on women wanting to be treating like princesses, but won’t treat their husbands like the king just nauseates me. It sounds so pedophiliac. Princesses are daughters of the king. The queen is the wife of the king. So, I guess EE thinks that women are like children, yet they’re supposed to have sex with their husbands who should be treated like kings but not act like one.
Yep. I have a fixed it for you on that coming soon!
I wish these guys would do some research as to the time and culture in which the New Testament was written.
The number of times I’ve heard the argument that the reason some people object to the idea of women submitting and men having all the power is because it is new, radical teaching that flies in the face of how the world does things. But that is SUCH a modern, Western mindset.
Throughout history and in much of the world today, men HAVE had all the power and women have often had no rights at all, having to submit to any ill treatment meted out to them by the men who ‘own’ them. So in that context, telling women that they have to submit and men that they get to rule is NOT counter-cultural – it would just have been reinforcing the culture of the time.
Which is why it makes far more sense when you realise that it’s not actually about who gets to have the power at all!
Absolutely!
It’s easy to puff yourself up with a hypothetical about how valiant you would be if someone threatened your wife.
It’s harder to love her every day.
Besides, Jesus is quite clear that those who cannot be trusted in small things cannot be trusted in large and important things. Want your wife to know that you would risk your life to protect her? Treat her tenderly in bed and don’t have an allergy to throwing a load of laundry into the machine.
Oh, I hadn’t thought about that verse about being trusted in the small things, but that’s so apt too!
“My pastor wants us to read Love & Respect before he’ll marry us.”
There are other people out there who will marry you.
Great post!
I have also heard complementarians argue that it’s right for men to be leaders instead of women, because if you’re ever on a sinking ship or something, “women and children first.” Besides the fact that this will never happen to the vast majority of people, studies have shown it’s actually not even true- there was a study of historical shipwrecks that found men were more likely than women to survive https://www.cbsnews.com/news/women-and-children-first-just-a-myth-researchers-say/
Interesting! Of course the exception is the one of which a major movie was made, so it is easy to convince people it is “true.” 😂
I saw the Titanic during my miserable first marriage with a guy who liked to yell and scream whenever he didn’t get his way. I remember my ex and I were visiting his friend and said friend’s girlfriend when the Titanic movie came up in the discussion. The girlfriend was talking about how some of the women refused to leave their husbands and chose to stay on the ship to die with their husbands. The girlfriend said to me that if it was her and her boyfriend, she would choose to stay on the ship and die with him. She looked at me and asked, “Wouldn’t you?”. She went on talking and didn’t notice that I never answered her question. As guilty as I felt, I know I would’ve been in a lifeboat….
Oh, wow! I’ve never heard of that study, but I’ll look!
Regarding EE’s first example: if we are not showing love to others daily, does it really even matter if we would die for them? If I make my kid or husband miserable by being a sullen bully to them but then die to save their lives, how much did I really love them? They now need therapy to deal with the internal conflict and guilt they feel over the person that was unloving to them yet did one last act of good.
There have been many kings in history that went out to fight with their soldiers but that is not the case so much now… it seems to be opposite, with great expense taken to protect the king/ruler! That isn’t really the nail in the argument-coffin he thinks it is.
My “successful” pregnancy was high-risk. I daily thought about what would be needed if I died so I wrote a letter out with instructions to my husband on how to proceed with life and raising our kid in case I did die. I knew he would be frozen and my child would not be cared for well if I did not give him some basic instructions on who to ask for help, what kind of help, etc. I agree that women are much more likely to *actually* die for their families than men while men are the ones most likely to *hypothetically* die for theirs.
I have heard so many men talk about the great burden of responsibility placed upon them by being the “final decision maker.” Let’s talk mental load, guys…
One of the (many) awful things my son chastised me about when I was in trying to navigate a failing marriage was that his dad “worked so hard to put a roof over our heads” and blah blah blah. (No acknowledgement of how hard I worked to take care of the roof that was over my head, but that’s for another day.) I finally answered him that I did not marry a man for his hard work and his money; I married hoping that we could build a loving relationship where we were able to build a loving connection and care for each other. Hard work to earn money and being willing to die in some far-off hypothetical situation do not make up for the total lack of regard for me as a human being, and the constant slights and regular verbal and emotional abuse I lived with for years and years. Did his willingness to supposedly die for me some day make the rest of that stuff OK? If he died for me, would that cancel out the fact that Christ was nowhere in the picture for the many years that led up to that moment? I don’t think so.
Presumably, if dad had still been a childless bachelor, he would have been quite happy living in a cardboard box on a street corner. Because if not, he wasn’t just working that hard to put a roof over the heads of his wife and child.
I do get so tired of people expecting men to be praised for doing something that is a basic part of life on earth. Check out 2 Thessalonians 3 v 10 – “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
“I do get so tired of people expecting men to be praised for doing something that is a basic part of life on earth.”
And get called “leaders” for doing it, to boot. 🙄
Dad lived with his parents until he married me at age 30. Red flag number one! — if I had known enough to recognize it!! So I guess that for him, he really was working just to put a roof over our heads!
Great questions! And I’m so sorry you were treated that way.
““The husband has to be prepared to die for his wife.”’
Realistically, just how likely is it for that situation to come up?
Not very often.
“Entitlement kills marriage”
And a lot of Biblical Manhood seems to be as Entitled as Andrew Tate or Joffrey Baratheon-Lannister.
I remember going down a linked-list of articles on this site a couple weeks ago that ended up at a posting from a few years back about how one of these Biblical Manhood/Womanhood gurus wrote that the Wife has to be the (sexual) Release for her Husband. As in “Wham! Bam! thank-you Ma’am!” whenever he gets the Urrges in his Aareas. Now THAT’s Entitled.
P.S. Under separate cover in case this is too graphic for this blog, but my impression of/reaction to the attitude in the older posting cited above was so graphic it had a good chance of getting deleted: And when you read this, you’ll know why.
Understand, I am InCel in the original sense of the word; I never married, was never attractive to women, and the the only exception to this (the closest thing to a girlfriend I had some 40 years ago) ended badly. All my college friends married, and at last contact were still married in stable marriages; I was the only exception. Yes, it is a bummer.
What I heard in this Biblical Manhood guru was to guys who were married – in the situation I’ve longed for but could never have – telling the man that his wife was nothing more than his cum-crusted washcloth to use for a couple minutes when he got horny. Nothing more.