In season six of The Office, David Wallace names Michael Scott and Jim Halpert co-managers of the Scranton branch. It looks like a promotion. It is a mess. They fight over raises, talk over each other in meetings, hide from their own staff with matching “World’s Best Boss” mugs, and spend more time arguing about who is in charge than running the branch. The joke works because everyone already knows the truth. Two leaders is not leadership. It is a stalemate with a fancier title. A house works the same way. When a husband and wife both try to be the head, the home does not become more fair. It just gets stuck.
Why these words hit a nerve
If the words submission and head of the household make you tense, you are not weird. You may be a wife who wants to follow the Bible without disappearing. You may be a husband who wants to lead without turning into a bully. You may be in counseling because those two things keep crashing into each other.
I write this as a Christian and as a marriage counselor. That matters. The Bible is God’s Word. It is not a suggestion. But I also sit with couples week after week. I watch what happens when people use the right verses with the wrong meaning.
Here is what I see most. Spouses think they are talking about the same thing. They are not. One person says submission and means respect. The other hears slave. One person says head of the household and means “I carry the weight.” The other hears “you do not get a vote.”
Until you define the words, you will keep fighting the same fight.
Start with the words, or you will talk past each other
One wife told me submission just means the husband “leads by example.” When I asked what that looked like at home, it meant she wanted him to do more housework. When I asked about her part, she did not have one. He just needed to step up.
By the end she could see the problem. She was trying to tell him he was the head of the house. At the same time, she was acting like the head of the house.
That is why this has to start simple.
Biblical submission
Biblical submission means a wife chooses to respect her husband’s leadership and support it. She does that first because she wants to honor God. She does not shut off her brain. She does not give up her voice. She does not give up her conscience.
Biblical headship
Biblical headship means a husband is responsible before God to love, protect, provide, listen, and make hard calls for the good of his family. It is a job. It is not a trophy.
Notice what those definitions do not say.
- They do not say the wife is a child.
- They do not say the husband is always right.
- They do not say the wife has no say.
- They do not say the husband gets whatever he wants.
Why the word “submission” feels ugly now
A long time ago, most Christians heard this teaching in a plainer way. They thought a home needed order, just like a church, an army, or a farm. The husband had a duty to care for the family and answer to God for it. The wife had a duty to stand with him and help him. People did not think that meant she was less human. They thought a family worked better when someone finally owned the outcome.
That does not mean every old home was healthy. Some men were kind. Some men were harsh. Some churches taught this well. Some used it badly. Sin has always been in the room.
What changed is the meaning of the word itself.
Over the last several decades, a lot of people were taught that any difference in roles is unfair. In many colleges and in a lot of popular talk, submit stopped meaning “support and yield for the good of the home.” It started meaning “get small, stay quiet, and let a man run over you.” If a Bible verse told a wife to submit, the verse itself was treated like the problem.
That idea did not stay in classrooms. It showed up in TV, books, counseling programs, and even churches. After enough years of that, people stopped asking what God meant. They just reacted to the word.
Sometimes the reaction is not from school at all. Sometimes a woman hears submit and thinks of a dad who used power as a weapon. Sometimes a man hears head of the house and thinks of a dad who yelled and called it leadership. Old pain trains us fast.
So if that word hits a nerve, it may be because:
- you were taught that any yielding is weakness
- a parent used authority in a cruel way
- a church used the Bible like a club
- you watched a marriage where “leadership” meant control
Those stories matter. They deserve care.
They still do not get to rewrite Scripture.
The word is in the Bible. “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord” (Colossians 3:18). “Wives, be subject to your own husbands” (1 Peter 3:1). Society can twist a word. That does not mean we throw the word out. It means we go back and find out what God meant.
The other side warped it too
Feminism is not the only group that handled this badly. Some men who talk a lot about headship have warped it too.
In that version, the husband becomes a little king.
- His mood becomes the rule.
- “Submit” means “stop talking.”
- “Head of the house” means “I win.”
- He quotes the wife’s verse and skips his own.
That is not biblical manhood. That is selfishness with a Bible verse taped to it.
The Bible never tells a husband, “Make your wife submit.” It tells him to love her “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). It tells him not to be harsh (Colossians 3:19). It tells him to live with his wife in an understanding way and honor her as a fellow heir of God’s grace, “so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7).
A man who uses headship to crush his wife is not obeying the passage. He is fighting it.
So we have to say both things.
- Culture turned submission into a dirty word.
- Some Christian men turned headship into a permission slip.
The fix is not to cut the verses out. The fix is to read the whole thing.
What God actually meant
Paul does not start Ephesians 5 with “wives, disappear.” He starts with the kind of life the Holy Spirit makes: “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21). Every Christian is called to humility. Then he gets specific about marriage.
- The wife is called to submit to her own husband as to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22).
- The husband is called to love her the way Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25-29).
- The marriage is meant to look like Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:31-32).
Watch the words Paul uses. First, Paul uses submit for wives and obey for children and slaves. That difference is on purpose. Submission here is not “she has no voice.” It is “she yields; she does not run a parallel government.”
Second, Ephesians 5:21 sits over the whole section: “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Then Paul spells out different shapes of that for wives and husbands. The wife’s shape is respect and yielding. The husband’s shape is costly care. If you keep only her verse, you get a tyrant. If you keep only his, you get a man who never decides anything.
So the strongest reading of the text is not “he wins every argument.” It is this: there is an order. Someone carries the weight of the final call.
That last part is the heart of it. God did not invent marriage and later hunt for a picture. He made marriage to show the gospel. The husband’s job is patterned after Jesus. The wife’s response is patterned after the church’s love for Jesus.
If your idea of headship does not look like Jesus serving and sacrificing, it is not the real thing (John 13:1-17; Philippians 2:5-8). If your idea of submission looks like fear, silence, or shrinking, that is not the real thing either.
Christians who take the Bible seriously usually say it this way:
- A husband and wife are equal in worth.
- They are not the same in role.
“So God created man in his own image… male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). “There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Those verses destroy any teaching that treats a woman as less than a man.
They do not erase the rest of the story. God made the woman as a strong helper for the man, a partner who fits him (Genesis 2:18). Paul also wrote, “the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3). Even the Son submits to the Father. That does not make the Son less God.
There may be difficulty for some husbands and wives to accept this, but we do not decide if a Bible teaching is true by asking if this year likes it. We ask what God said. Then we decide if we will obey it. A true thing can still be used in an ugly way. Fake money exists because real money has value.
Why two leaders isn’t leadership
Remember the co-bosses from earlier. Michael and Jim did not fail because they were both talentless. They failed because two people were told they were in charge, so nobody really was. That same setup would sink more than a paper company. Two presidents, two CEOs, or two captains on a Navy ship would not make the team more fair. It would make it freeze. When no one can finally decide, the group does not become more equal. It just stops.
A house with two heads is not twice as wise. It is twice as confusing. Every team that actually has to move learns the same lesson. Someone has to have the last word. Head of household is not a trophy, and submission is not a gag order. They are the unglamorous admission that a family, like every other team, needs a direction more than it needs a tie vote.
You cannot have a leader if there is no follower. Leadership is not a feeling. It is a relationship. A husband can try to lead all day, but if his wife treats every decision like a power grab, he is not leading a home. He is stuck in a tug-of-war. A wife can be loyal and wise, but if her husband will not decide, listen, or carry weight, she is not following a leader. She is propping up an office her husband will not occupy.
Husbands, you were appointed
Steve Farrar said it plainly in Point Man: “You were appointed. Like it or not, you carry the responsibility. You are the point man.”
That is not a compliment. That is an assignment. The point man walks first. He watches for danger. The people behind him depend on him.
Farrar said leading a family through this culture is like leading a small patrol through enemy land. Most men say they would die for their family. The harder question is whether they will live for them.
Husbands, hear this without the drama. You were appointed. Like it or not, you carry the responsibility. God did not take a poll first. He said the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church (Ephesians 5:23). He also did not hand you a throne. He handed you a costly job.
Headship puts the heavier load on the husband. His command is not “make your wife submit.” His command is to love her as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25). That is a hard standard. Jesus did not stand over the church with a verse and a scowl at His flock. He gave Himself. He feeds. He protects. He takes the hit.
Do not expect this to be easy.
- Husbands are sinful and often self-centered.
- Wives are sinful and often self-centered.
- Now take those two people and give one the role of head and the other the call to support that head.
Of course that will be hard.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9).“Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (James 3:16). If you put two fallen people in one house and act shocked when pride shows up, you have not been paying attention.
Farrar also said that if a man is already passive about God and his home, the enemy does not have to knock him down. He is already out of the way. That is one cost of this fight. Some husbands heard the culture mock headship and quietly stepped off the field. Some wives got tired of that, took over, and then stayed mad that he let them.
How husbands mess this up
The most common line I hear from husbands is, “She needs to submit.”
Sometimes it comes in the middle of a fight. Sometimes it comes after he has not listened. Sometimes he uses it to end the talk.
Other versions sound like this:
- “I’m the head, so we’re doing it my way.”
- “God put me in charge.”
- “If you respected me, you wouldn’t question this.”
- “A submissive wife wouldn’t talk to me like that.”
Each of those can have a tiny piece of truth and still be a bad use of Scripture. Yes, a wife is called to respect her husband (Ephesians 5:33). No, a question is not the same thing as contempt. A wife can honor her husband’s role and still say, “This plan will hurt us.” The woman in Proverbs 31 is not silent. “She opens her mouth with wisdom” (Proverbs 31:26).
If a husband only talks about what his wife owes him, he is already failing his own job. His job is not to force submission. His job is to become a man a wise woman can trust.
How wives mess this up
Wives have their own sticking points.
The classic one is, “I am not going to be your slave,” said right when a husband is trying to make a real leadership decision. Sometimes he is being controlling, and there should be some push back. A lot of the time he is not. He is choosing a church, a budget, a move, a school, or a family boundary. She hears a decision and translates it as domination.
Other versions sound more spiritual:
- “We should just pray until we both have peace.”
- “God would not ask me to do something that does not feel right.”
- “If I do not agree, then there is no decision.”
Prayer is good. Peace is good. But “we both have to feel the same” can also become a quiet veto. A helper is not a hostage. A helper is also not a boss who lets her husband “lead” only when he already agrees with her.
1 Peter 3:1-2 calls wives to respectful conduct, even when a husband is hard to follow. That is not a call to get smaller. It is a call to refuse contempt.
When you agree, this is easy. When you don’t, you find out what you believe.
It is easy to “submit” when you already want the same thing. If he wants Italian and you want Italian, nobody needs Ephesians 5.
The test comes when you do not want the same future.
Say a couple is planning a move. The husband wants to move near his family in California. The wife wants to move near her family in New York. Neither wants to budge. Both can make a decent case.
- “The kids should know my parents.”
- “The cost of living is better there.”
- “My job makes more sense there.”
- “I will be miserable if I go.”
This is where couples find out if they believe in headship or only in a tie vote. Agreement is great when you can get it. A wise husband hunts for unity. He does not grab the last word early. But if two plans cannot both happen, someone has to carry the final weight. In Scripture, that someone is the husband, and he will answer to God for how he carried it (1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:22-24).
A godly husband in that moment does not say, “I’m the man.” He says, “Help me see what this would cost you.” He prays. He asks wise men for counsel. He thinks about money, church, kids, aging parents, and his wife’s heart.
A godly wife does not say, “Then I guess I do not matter.” She tells the truth about her grief. She still refuses to treat his leadership like an insult.
That is much harder than winning.
Sex and submission
Couples also drag this into the bedroom, and they usually do it badly.
Sex in marriage is good. “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled”(Hebrews 13:4). Paul does not give the husband a one-way claim. He says each spouse has a claim on the other: “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (1 Corinthians 7:4). Then he says they should not deprive one another except by agreement for a time of prayer (1 Corinthians 7:5).
That is not “submit means she owes him sex whenever he wants.” That is two people belonging to each other.
So let’s be plain.
- Using headship to pressure, guilt, or force sex is not leadership. It is harmful.
- Using “I’m not your slave” to punish a husband by shutting him out can become a weapon too.
The marriage bed is not a prize for winning the argument. It is part of becoming one flesh (Genesis 2:24).
Two habits that look spiritual, but aren’t
I see these a lot in counseling. They can sound Christian. They are still not what God is asking for.
Mistaking quiet for submission.
A wife stops saying when she disagrees so she can look submissive. Underneath, she gets bitter. People at church may even praise her for being easygoing. At home she is disappearing. That is not 1 Peter 3. That is fear. “Better is open rebuke than hidden love” (Proverbs 27:5). A wife can be respectful and still be clear.
Mistaking passivity for servant leadership.
Some husbands avoid hard decisions because they are afraid any lead will be called controlling. They call it humility. Their wives feel abandoned. Jesus served people. He also made decisions. He still said, “Follow me.”
Dr. John Gottman’s, a leading marriage researcher, work is useful here. Couples who last well listen to each other. They do not let criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling run the house. A husband who cannot take his wife’s concern is not strong. He is brittle. A wife who meets every attempt to lead with contempt is not protecting her dignity. She is hurting the bond.
Emotionally Focused Therapy, often tied to Sue Johnson, helps explain the heat under the fight. A lot of this is not only about power. It is about safety.
- “Do I matter?”
- “Am I safe with you?”
- “Will you leave me alone in this?”
When a husband says “submit,” a wife may hear “you are not safe.” When a wife says “you’re controlling,” a husband may hear “I do not want you as a man.” If those alarms are ringing, more verses will not settle the room by themselves. The couple has to make the relationship safe again. Then they can obey Scripture. Those two things are not enemies. A wife cannot gladly support a man she experiences as a threat. A husband cannot lead well if every move is treated like danger.
This can become spiritual abuse
Most of us have some idea what physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse look like. This topic can slide into another kind: spiritual abuse.
Spiritual abuse is when someone uses God, the Bible, or church talk to control, silence, or harm the other person. It can be loud. It can also sound very Christian.
A husband crosses that line when he:
- acts like God is on his side just because he is the man
- treats disagreement like sin
- keeps his wife from wise counsel
- demands sex, money, silence, or loyalty “because Ephesians 5”
- refuses to be accountable and calls that headship
A wife can harm the marriage this way too when she:
- treats any act of headship as abuse
- uses Christian language to keep her husband unsure all the time
- tells the kids Dad is unsafe when what she means is she lost a decision
- recruits a church, a friend group, or a counselor to shut him down every time he tries to lead
There is another version that does not look like a villain story. It is the husband who feels responsible but powerless. He hears, “You are supposed to lead.” Then he is told he should never make a call his wife disagrees with. He gets anxious, passive, or bitter. He has the weight of the job and none of the room to do it. That is not safety. That is a trap.
True safety tells the truth about both sins. It protects a wife from being crushed. It also protects a husband from being stripped of the role God gave him. “God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33).
The question that cuts through the fog
One question I use a lot in Christian couples counseling work is this:
What does headship or submission require of you, rather than what does it entitle you to demand from your spouse?
That question shows the problem fast. If the husband mainly talks about what his wife owes him, he is looking the wrong way. If the wife mainly talks about why submission should never cost her anything, she is looking the wrong way too.
A healthy Christian talk has to move off “Who gets the power?” and onto “How do we copy Christ when we disagree?”
Jesus had all authority and used it to serve (Matthew 20:25-28). The church has a Lord, and following Him does not erase the church. Marriage is not two presidents with no tie-breaker. It is a covenant. Two people who are equal before God take different postures for one shared life.
Steve Farrar said accountability is a willingness to explain your actions. That fits this whole subject. Headship that cannot be explained is usually ego. Submission that cannot be talked about is usually fear. A trustworthy leader can say why he is choosing a path. A respectful wife can say why she is worried. Both can stay under Christ while they talk.
So the roles sound like this:
- Husband: “My job is not to force submission. My job is to become a trustworthy, sacrificial, God-submitted leader who listens carefully to my wife and takes responsibility for the welfare of our family.”
- Wife: “My job is not blind obedience. I speak honestly, offer my wisdom, respect my husband, remain open to his influence and leadership, and don’t automatically interpret yielding as inferiority.”
If more couples lived those two sentences, fewer couples would need this article.
A Step-by-Step Process for Christian Couples Making an Important Decision
When a decision is big enough to strain the marriage, use a process. Do not invent a new theology in the middle of a fight. This can apply to money, a move, church, school, in-laws, work, or discipline. You do not need this process for small daily choices.
Treat this as a guide, not as law. Take what serves you, drop what does not, and settle on a process you both recognize before the next hard call arrives:
- Identify the problem. Say out loud what you are actually trying to solve. Do not start with solutions. Start with one shared sentence: “The problem we are trying to solve is ______.”
- One or both of you put together a plan.
- Child discipline, church membership, jobs, in-laws, where the kids go to school. 401(k), IRA, mortgage, savings, emergency fund, college savings, and many other topics.
- Sit down and talk. The wife tells her husband what she thinks they should do and why. She names her concerns.
- The husband says which plan he thinks is best for the family. He tries to stand in her shoes. He admits the choice may be harder on her or the kids than on him. He uses her input, his knowledge, prayer, the Bible, time to think, and counsel from other Christian men or a pastor (Proverbs 15:22; 1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:22-24).
- The wife gets another chance to agree or disagree with respect.
- After that, he chooses. He may stick with his plan, compromise, take more time, or even choose her plan because love requires it (Ephesians 5:25). Then he says, as gently as he can, what he believes is best. She works to accept it and trust it for the family’s sake (Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1). This does not include a plan that is sinful, cruel, or unsafe for her or the children. In that case, she should not go along with it. She should get help from a pastor or a Christian counselor (Acts 5:29).
- If she still disagrees, they talk again later about why her plan matters and whether a later change is possible. Disagreement after a decision is not a green light to quietly wreck the plan.
- Remember the plan may need trial and error. Be patient. Be willing to adjust if it is clearly not working. Stubbornness is not the same thing as conviction.
This keeps the husband’s responsibility in place without turning the wife into a spectator. It also keeps the wife’s voice in place without turning every decision into a stalemate.
A step-by-step guide for husbands
- Take the responsibility.
- You were appointed. Like it or not, you carry the responsibility.
- Stop waiting to feel ready. Jesus loved first. He did not wait to feel impressed.
- Practice humility when you fail.
- Let your wife tell you when you are dropping the ball.
- Do not get defensive.
- Treat her with kindness. Do not treat her harshly (Colossians 3:19).
- Tell her when you know you failed or when a decision led the family the wrong way.
- Pray with your wife often.
- Shared prayer builds trust.
- It lets her see your spiritual life.
- It helps you see hers.
- It shows her you are taking this seriously.
- Pray by yourself about the calls you will make (1 Corinthians 4:1-2).
- You are a steward. Stewards are supposed to be faithful.
- Value her opinions and learn to trust her.
- Thank her for helping you think (Proverbs 31:11-12, 28-29).
- A wise wife is not a threat to headship. She is one of God’s gifts to it.
- Keep the whole family in view (1 Peter 3:7; 1 Peter 5:2).
- Headship that only serves your hobbies is not headship.
- Providing money matters. So does her body, her friendships, her church life, and her soul (1 Timothy 5:8).
- Be willing to give up what you want on a regular basis (Ephesians 5:25-30; John 13:1-17; Philippians 2:5-7).
- If you are the only one who never yields, you are not copying Christ.
- Watch your self-centeredness on purpose.
- You are fallen (Jeremiah 17:9; James 3:16).
- Notice the bias that makes you think about yourself first and the family second.
- Never use “submit” as a weapon.
- If you need that word because you have not earned trust, the verse will not fix what your character broke.
- Protect spiritual safety.
- Invite accountability.
- Explain your actions.
- If your wife is afraid, find out whether she is fighting God or responding to wounds you have not taken seriously.
A step-by-step guide for wives
- Tell the truth without contempt.
- Give honest feedback.
- Cut down global shots like “You never take me into consideration.”
- Watch defensiveness and bitterness.
- Be careful with the word “controlling” unless he is actually refusing the process above and running over you.
- Respect and accept his decisions without disappearing (1 Peter 3:1-2).
- Accepting a decision is not the same as pretending you never had a thought.
- Be on his team when the decision is hard (Genesis 2:18).
- A helper strengthens. She does not wait for him to fail so she can say she knew better.
- Pray for him.
- Ask God to make him wise, brave, gentle, and family-focused.
- Do not only pray that God would change his mind to match yours.
- Work to trust that he is committed to the family.
- If you honestly believe his pattern of decisions is unfaithful to the family’s good, take that to a pastor, an elder, or a Christian counselor.
- Suspicion with no outside help becomes a private court you always win.
- Accept that he is fallen like you and will make mistakes.
- You wanted a leader. Leaders sometimes choose poorly. That is not automatic proof that headship is a bad idea.
- Refuse blind obedience.
- Speak up if something is wrong (Proverbs 31:26-27).
- “As to the Lord” means the Lord still comes first (Ephesians 5:22; Acts 5:29).
- You do not submit to sin, cruelty, or harm to your children.
- Do not confuse yielding with being less than him.
- The church is not less than Christ because she follows Him.
- You are not less than your husband because you support him.
- Don’t confuse staying quiet with being submissive.
- If you never say when you disagree, the fight later will feel like it came out of nowhere. It didn’t. You just held the truth in too long.
Want a printed copy of this step-by-step guide on headship and submission?
Download the PDF here and keep it handy when you sit down to make a hard decision.
A last word to both of you
God was not confused when He spoke. We were. The culture trained a lot of us to hear submission as humiliation. Some Christian homes trained us to hear headship as control. Neither of those is the Bible.
The Bible says the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church (Ephesians 5:23). The Bible says wives are to submit as is fitting in the Lord (Colossians 3:18). The Bible says husbands must not be harsh (Colossians 3:19). The Bible says love is patient and kind, and that it does not insist on its own way (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). All of those verses can sit on the same kitchen table.
If this subject has been used against you, I am sorry. If you have used it against your spouse, repent. Then go back to the text. Do not let a classroom, an abusive father, a harsh husband, or a contemptuous wife become the voice that explains Scripture to you.
Open Ephesians 5 again. Read the whole section. Ask what it requires of you. Ask how you will copy Christ when you do not get your way.
That is where a Christian marriage becomes more than a fight about power. It becomes a small picture of a Lord who loved first, and a people who learned how to follow Him.
Contact a Louisville Christian Marriage Counselor
If you and your spouse are stuck on head of household and biblical submission, you do not have to keep fighting this alone. Our Christian marriage counselors can help you sort out what Scripture is asking of each of you, without using the Bible as a club and without throwing it away. If this article hit home, reach out and set up a time to talk.
