Here’s Liana Cavanaugh:

Introduction

Few biblical texts have shaped Christian understandings of gender and marriage as deeply, or as controversially, as Paul’s exhortations in Ephesians 5. Verses 22–23 in particular: “Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior.”1 have often been read as a blueprint for male authority and female subordination in the home and church. Yet such interpretations frequently detach these verses from their literary, cultural, and theological context. They isolate a fragment of Paul’s argument from the Spirit-shaped communal ethic that begins in 5:1 and climaxes in the mutual submission of 5:21 “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

This paper argues that Ephesians 5:21–23, rightly read, does not institute a hierarchical gender order but reconfigures household relationships around mutual submission and cruciform love. Paul adapts the familiar Greco-Roman household code (Haustafel) form, but he subverts its ideological foundation by grounding all relationships in the self-giving love of Christ and the Spirit’s unifying work. “Headship” (kephalē) in this passage is best understood not as command-and-control authority but as sacrificial, nourishing responsibility. “Submission” (hupotassō) functions as a mutual, Spirit-enabled posture incumbent upon all believers.

To demonstrate this, the paper sketches the historical-cultural context of Roman patriarchy and the Ephesian setting, examines the literary and theological flow of Ephesians 5:1–21 and the structure of 5:21–23 within the household code, provides a lexical and rhetorical analysis of hupotassō and kephalē, and it considers related texts (1 Corinthians 14; 1 Timothy 2), Paul’s broader theological vision, and contemporary implications. Throughout, the paper engages both historical misuse of Pauline texts and current scholarship in order to recover Paul’s original intent as a liberating, Christ-centered ethic rather than a charter for patriarchy.

I. Historical–Cultural Context

A. Greco-Roman Household Structures

First-century Mediterranean society was structured around the Haustafeln, or household codes, which prescribed hierarchical relations between husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves. In
Politics Aristotle presents the household (oikos) as the natural point of origin for the polis, and holds that certain hierarchical relationships (for example, male over female, and master over slave) are grounded in nature and thus play a role in the stable constitution of the political community.2 Jewish writers like Philo and Josephus reflect comparable household hierarchies, affirming the male head as the divinely sanctioned locus of authority.3

The Roman paterfamilias possessed legal power (patria potestas) over property, finances, and the bodies and choices of household members.4 Women, even when technically able to own property, were often under male guardians and excluded from formal political life and public legal advocacy.5 Cultural ideals valorized female modesty, silence, and domesticity.6 As Sarah Pomeroy has shown, classical societies operated with a “strong system of patriarchal values,” in which “citizen women were perpetually under the guardianship of a man” and “never did Roman society encourage women to engage in the same activities as men in the same social class.”7 In such a world, hierarchy was not an optional cultural pattern but the assumed architecture of social order.

When Paul’s audience heard terms like “head” and “submit,” they did so against a backdrop in which male dominance was considered natural, rational, and divinely sanctioned.

B. The Ephesian Setting

Ephesus, however, complicated this picture. It was home to the famous Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and a central religious and economic institution. As Ferguson notes, women served as priestesses, benefactresses, and cult officials in the Artemis cult at Ephesus, giving them a degree of public religious visibility uncommon in Roman civic religion.8 Inscriptions and civic records indicate that elite women in Ephesus acted as benefactors and sponsors of public works.9

This environment produced a distinctive gender dynamic. While Roman patriarchy remained intact, Ephesian society was accustomed to seeing wealthy, influential women in public religious and economic roles.10 Bruce Winter connects this phenomenon to the emergence of the so-called “new Roman woman”—independent, mobile, fashion-conscious, and sometimes viewed with suspicion by moralists.11 Such developments likely generated anxiety about gender roles and household stability. Margaret MacDonald argues that early Christian women in Asia Minor were sometimes perceived as unusually active and visible, particularly in teaching and prophecy, which heightened cultural tensions around Christian communities.12

In this context, Paul’s decision to include a household code in Ephesians is intelligible. He is not simply baptizing Roman patriarchy, nor capitulating to local female dominance, but navigating a complex environment in which Christian witness could be compromised either by perceived gender disorder or by complicity in oppressive structures. His solution is neither rigid hierarchy nor simplistic egalitarian slogan, but a Christshaped relational ethic grounded in mutual submission and sacrificial love.

C. The Harmful Legacy of Misinterpretation

Paul’s household texts did not remain neutral in the hands of later interpreters. Medieval and Reformation theologians frequently merged Pauline passages with Aristotelian and Roman assumptions about “natural” female inferiority. Drawing on Genesis and classical philosophy, Augustine and Aquinas articulated hierarchical gender frameworks in which women were socially subordinate to men, a view that shaped Western Christian anthropology for centuries; Aquinas, influenced by Aristotle, also suggested that women were weaker in certain rational operations, though both affirmed that women shared the same rational nature as men.13 The Reformation retained much of this framework; Luther and Calvin both affirmed male headship within already patriarchal legal systems.14

Early modern European law, especially under English coverture, used Pauline texts to sacralize the legal absorption of a wife’s identity into that of her husband and to justify forms of domestic discipline.15 Church
tradition often privileged restrictive passages (1 Cor 14:34–35; 1 Tim 2:11–12) while neglecting Paul’s many affirmations of women as coworkers, prophets, and leaders (Rom 16; 1 Cor 11:5).16

In the modern era, hierarchical readings have sometimes been used to rationalize abusive dynamics, telling women to endure mistreatment in the name of submission and telling men that domination reflects Christlike leadership. Historians such as Beth Allison Barr and Kristin Kobes Du Mez have documented how evangelical and fundamentalist cultures fused patriarchy with Christian language, shaping gender expectations far more indebted to modern ideology than to Paul. Empirical studies suggest that rigid patriarchal theology can correlate with increased tolerance of domestic abuse.17

Recognizing this reception history underscores the stakes of interpretation. Paul is routinely blamed for a patriarchal order he did not create and for abuses he did not authorize. If his household teaching is to be read faithfully, it must be returned to its own historical, literary, and theological context.

II. Literary and Theological Context of Ephesians 5:21–23

A. The Flow of Ephesians 5:1–21

Ephesians 5:21–23 cannot be interpreted apart from the larger movement of 5:1–21. Paul repeatedly exhorts the community to “walk” (peripatein) in ways that align with their new identity in Christ: walking in love (5:2), walking as children of light (5:8), and walking in wisdom (5:15). This language signals not isolated moral acts but a comprehensive way of life shaped by Christ’s self-giving sacrifice.18

A key pivot occurs in 5:18: “be filled with the Spirit.” What follows is a chain of participles that describe Spiritfilled communal practice—speaking to one another in psalms and hymns, singing, giving thanks, and “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (5:19–21). Scholars widely agree that this participial chain expresses the manner in which the command to be filled with the Spirit is realized.19 The final participle, hypotassomenoi (“submitting”), functions as a hinge, bridging general ethical exhortation and specific household instructions.

Thus, before wives or husbands are ever addressed, Paul has already established the ethos of mutual submission as a mark of Spirit-filled community life.

B. Mutual Submission as the Framework (5:21–23)

Verse 21 is crucial: “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The reciprocal pronoun allēlois (“to one another”) signals mutuality rather than a one-way hierarchy. Cynthia Long Westfall highlights that this construction grammatically encodes a shared posture rather than locating submission solely on the side of women.20

The household code begins in 5:22, but the Greek text of that verse contains no finite verb: literally, “Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.” The implied verb (hypotassesthe) must be supplied directly from verse 21.21 This syntactical dependence is not an accident; it binds the instruction to wives to the mutual submission already commanded of the entire community. As Andrew Lincoln notes, 5:22 is grammatically subordinate to 5:21, not the start of a new, independent pattern.22 Verse 23 then introduces the language of “headship”: “For the husband is the head (kephalē) of the wife just as
Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior.” Whether kephalē implies authority has been the subject of intense debate, but in Ephesians the “head” metaphor consistently emphasizes Christ’s nurturing, unifying, life-giving relationship to the body (4:15–16; 5:29–30).23 As will be argued below, Paul’s own explanatory imagery suggests that “headship” here is defined by sacrificial care, not control.

III. Lexical and Rhetorical Analysis

A. The Meaning of Hupotassō

The verb hupotassō, often translated “submit,” has a wide semantic range. In military contexts it can mean to arrange troops under a commander; in non-military contexts it can denote voluntary yielding, cooperative alignment, or assumption of a supportive posture.24 It is distinct from hypakouō (“obey”), which Paul uses for children and slaves (6:1, 5). The choice of hupotassō for wives, within a broader framework of mutual submission, already differentiates Paul’s vision from unilateral, authoritarian structures.25

In 5:21, hypotassomenoi allēlois (“submitting to one another”) describes a reciprocal pattern within the community. The same verb, implied but not repeated, applies to wives in 5:22. The grammar indicates that wives’ “submission” is not a separate or contrary requirement, but one instance of the mutual submission required of all believers.26 To isolate 5:22 and transform it into a one-sided hierarchy is exegetically unsustainable.

B. The Meaning of Kephalē (“Head”)

Modern English usage often associates “head” with authority. First-century Greek, however, does not consistently use kephalē that way. Lexical and historical studies show that kephalē more commonly indicates source, prominence, or a life-giving connection, and only rarely, if ever, an abstract notion of “leader” or “ruler.”27 In Ephesians, Paul portrays Christ as the kephalē who causes the body to grow, nourishes it, and holds it together (4:15–16; 5:29–30).

Within 5:23, the metaphor is immediately unpacked in terms of Christ’s saving, sanctifying, and nourishing action for the church (5:25–27, 29). Paul does not appeal to Christ’s authority, but to Christ’s self-giving love and care.28 As Lincoln and Arnold note, the passage itself interprets “headship” in functional terms: to be kephalē is to give oneself, to cleanse, to feed, and to cherish.29

Reading kephalē primarily as “authority over” therefore imports a meaning that Paul does not supply and that does not fit his own explanatory imagery. In this context, headship is best understood as sacrificial, life-giving responsibility.

C. Paul’s Rhetorical Design

Paul’s rhetorical strategy intensifies his subversion of traditional patriarchal norms. In classical household codes, only the subordinate parties (wives, children, slaves) are addressed, and the male head’s authority is simply assumed.30 By contrast, Paul addresses both wives and husbands—and lands his heaviest ethical demands on the socially dominant party.

Wives receive a brief exhortation as an application of mutual submission (5:22–24). Husbands, however, receive an extended and theologically dense instruction: they must love their wives “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (5:25). This command calls husbands not to claim their rights, but to relinquish them; not to assert power, but to imitate Christ’s self-emptying love.31 Paul then applies the metaphor of one’s own body: For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church. (5:28–29).

In a culture where husbands owed minimal reciprocal obligations and where masculine honor was associated with dominance and control, this is radically countercultural.32 Paul recasts the husband’s role in terms of vulnerability, nurture, and sacrificial service. He takes the culturally powerful party and calls him to the culturally “inferior” act—self-giving love.

Paul concludes this section by quoting Genesis 2:24 and identifying marriage as a “mystery” that refers ultimately to Christ and the church (5:31–32). Marriage is thus interpreted through Christology, not vice versa. The husband is not a stand-in for God; both husband and wife are called to embody aspects of Christ’s relationship to the church within a mutual, Spirit-filled union.

IV. Related Texts: 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 and 1 Timothy 2:11–15

Because Ephesians 5 is frequently interpreted through two contested texts—1 Corinthians 14:34–35 and 1 Timothy 2:11–15—it is important to consider briefly how these passages relate to Paul’s vision of mutual
submission.

A. 1 Corinthians 14: Local Disorder, Not Universal Silence

On the surface, 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 appears to command women to be silent in the churches. Yet earlier in the same letter Paul acknowledges that women pray and prophesy publicly (1 Cor 11:5). Gordon Fee and many others argue that Paul cannot be issuing an absolute ban on women speaking, since he has already regulated how they speak.33 The broader context of chapters 12–14 indicates that Paul is concerned with chaotic worship and calls for intelligibility, order, and edification.

Most likely, 14:34–35 addresses disruptive questioning or evaluation of prophecies, practices associated with authoritative discernment roles.34 Paul’s directive is pastoral and situational, meant to restore order in a specific context—not to impose a timeless prohibition on female speech.

B. 1 Timothy 2: False Teaching in Ephesus, Not Eternal Subordination

1 Timothy 2:11–15 has often been read as permanently barring women from teaching or exercising authority over men. Yet the Pastoral Epistles repeatedly frame their context as one of false teaching, deception, and disorder, with women particularly targeted by deceivers in Ephesus (1 Tim 1:3–7; 5:13–15).35 Against this backdrop, Paul commands women to “learn”—itself a significant affirmation—and temporarily restricts certain women from teaching until they have been properly instructed.36

The rare Greek verb authentein, translated “exercise authority,” appears to carry connotations of domineering or usurping authority rather than healthy leadership.37 Paul’s concern is not that women teach per se, but that no one—man or woman—teach in a domineering or misinformed way. The passage ends on a hopeful note, envisioning growth and maturity rather than permanent exclusion.

When read contextually, neither 1 Corinthians 14 nor 1 Timothy 2 undermines Paul’s affirmation of women’s participation or overrides the mutual submission and cruciform love of Ephesians 5. Instead, these texts address local crises in ways consistent with Paul’s broader theological commitments.

V. Paul’s Theological Vision: Mutuality and Cruciform Love

Across his letters, Paul articulates a relational theology marked by unity, reciprocity, and self-giving love. Galatians 3:28 announces that in Christ there is no “male and female,” a statement that, while not erasing embodied difference, relativizes gender as a marker of status in the new creation.38 Romans 16 portrays women as deacons, apostles, coworkers, and leaders in Paul’s mission, including Phoebe, Junia, and Priscilla.39 First Corinthians 12 depicts the church as a body in which every member, gifted by the Spirit, contributes to the common good.40

Ephesians itself frames Christian ethics in terms of humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love (4:1–3), aiming at unity in the body of Christ (4:13–16). These themes culminate in the mutual submission of 5:21 and then flow into the transformed household relations of 5:21–6:9.

Within this broader vision, Ephesians 5:21–23 is not an isolated charter for patriarchy but a case study in relational transformation. Wives are called to Christ-centered devotion within the relational pattern of mutual submission; husbands are summoned to cruciform love modeled on Christ’s self-emptying care for the church. Both are called into patterns that reflect the gospel and embody the new creation.

VI. Contemporary Implications

The misuse of Pauline household texts illustrates the danger of reading Scripture through the lens of cultural assumptions rather than the text’s own historical and literary framework. When Ephesians 5 is cut off from its context, “headship” is easily reconfigured as domination; when 1 Corinthians 14 is severed from Paul’s affirmations of women’s speech, women are wrongly silenced; when 1 Timothy 2 is universalized, women’s education and leadership are curtailed in ways foreign to Paul’s pastoral intent.

Such misinterpretations have contributed to harmful gender dynamics, reinforced patriarchal structures, and shaped destructive models of masculinity that equate leadership with control rather than sacrificial service. In some contemporary subcultures—including certain “redpill” and hyper-masculine online movements—Paul’s language is appropriated to justify entitlement, coercion, and authoritarian behavior that directly contradicts his Christ-centered ethic.41

Recovering Paul’s original intent offers a necessary corrective. When read on their own terms, these texts call both men and women into a pattern of life marked by humility, shared responsibility, mutual submission, and love that seeks the flourishing of the other. Paul’s theology of relationships is not an obstacle to gender justice but a resource for reimagining marriage, ministry, and community in light of the cross.

VII. Conclusion

A careful, context-sensitive reading of Ephesians 5:21–23, in conversation with 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2, reveals that Paul’s vision for Christian relationships is rooted not in hierarchy but in mutuality and cruciform love. Paul adapts the household code structure of his time but transforms it by placing Christ’s self-giving love and the Spirit’s unifying work at the center. Wives are summoned into a Christ-oriented posture within a mutually submissive community; husbands are commanded to embody Christ’s self-emptying, nurturing love for the church.

When these texts are removed from their grammar, context, and theology, they can and have been used to justify oppressive systems that Paul did not endorse. When read as Paul wrote them—out of reverence for
Christ, within a Spirit-filled community, situated in the realities of the first century—they offer a liberating vision of marriage and community life.

Paul’s original intent is not domination but transformation, not subordination but unity and love modeled after Christ himself. Faithful interpretation requires returning to this vision, allowing these texts to critique both patriarchal distortions and modern ideologies, and to reshape our relationships in the image of the crucified and risen Lord.

Endnotes

1 All Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) unless otherwise noted
2 Aristotle, Politics 1.1253b–1260b
3 Philo, Hypothetica 7.14; Josephus, Against Apion 2.201.
4 Jane F. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986).
5 Ibid.; Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991).
6 Emily A. Hemelrijk, Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna (London: Routledge, 1999).
7 Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Schocken, 1975).
8 Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).
9 Lynn H. Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009).
10 Ibid.; Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991).
11 Bruce W. Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003)
12 Margaret Y. MacDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
13 Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.92.1.
14 Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2021).
15 Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2021).
16 Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008); Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996).
17 Heidi Levitt and Karen N. Ware, “Religious Beliefs and Domestic Violence,” Journal of Religion & Abuse 8, no. 2 (2006).
18 Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, Vol. 2 (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2007).
19 Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010); Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians (Dallas: Word, 1990).
20 Cynthia Long Westfall, Paul and Gender (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016).
21 Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002).
22 Lincoln, Word Biblical Commentary: Ephesians (1990).
23 Arnold, Ephesians.
24 BDAG: A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed.
25 Westfall, Paul and Gender.
26 Lincoln, Ephesians; Hoehner, Ephesians.
27 Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek Lexicon; Richard S. Cervin, “Does Kephalē Mean ‘Source’ or ‘Authority Over’ in Greek Literature?,” Trinity Journal 10 (1989).
28 Lincoln, Ephesians; Arnold, Ephesians.
29 Lincoln, Ephesians; Arnold, Ephesians.
30 David L. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981).
31 Craig S. Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1992).
32 Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows.
33 Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987).
34 David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003); Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives.
35 Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).
36 Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives; Linda Belleville, “Teaching and Usurping Authority,” in Discovering Biblical Equality, ed. Pierce & Groothuis (Downers Grove: IVP).
37 Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives; Belleville, ‘Teaching and Usurping Authority,’ in Discovering Biblical Equality.
38 Philip B. Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009); Cynthia Long Westfall, Paul and Gender (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016).
39 James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).
40 Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987).
41 Debbie Ging, “Alphas, Betas and Incels: Theorizing the Masculinities of the Manosphere,” Masculinities & Social Change 6, no. 2 (2017).