An orthodox reading of “mutual subjection” in marriage

By Thomas V. Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Apr 29, 2025

Many otherwise orthodox Catholics are uncomfortable with the Scriptural teaching on authority in marriage. “Catholic feminists” may embrace other Church teachings hated by secular feminists (anti-abortion, anti-contraception, the all-male priesthood). But when it comes to marriage, they often share the view of their secular counterparts that authority and hierarchy are to be feared as inherently oppressive. Indeed, this is where feminism is seen most clearly to be a subspecies of Enlightenment liberalism.

Thus many Catholic women immediately become defensive when they hear the New Testament verses in which wives are told to obey and submit to their husbands. They jump to cite Pope St. John Paul II’s language of “mutual subjection” (from Mulieris Dignitatem and one of his “theology of the body” audiences), wielding this phrase effectively as a riposte to Scripture and tradition.

In Ephesians 5, St. Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands as to the Lord, and husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, laying down his life for her and loving her as his own body. It is not as though it took the Church 2,000 years to discover that there is mutuality here—it is explicit in the text! What Pope St. John Paul II did was to emphasize the broader context of the preceding verse, where St. Paul says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” He contextualized, but did not eliminate, the inequality of authority established by St. Paul.

This context operates in two ways. First, while Paul’s picture of marriage is asymmetrical in important ways, it is not entirely so: before considering what is specific to marriage, husband and wife are first and foremost fellow Christians, and must follow the same general teachings of Christ about interpersonal relations, such as making oneself least, behaving as a servant or slave to others, deference to the needs and legitimate wants of the other, etc.

Second, in the particular context of marriage, both the wife’s subjection to her husband and the husband’s self-sacrificial love for his wife could themselves both be seen as expressions of this broader Christian subjection, in that they both involve a self-emptying for the service of the other (just as Christ, the head of the Church, took on the form of a slave). But the love between spouses is not just the generic Christian love mentioned above: it involves distinct ways in which that mutual subjection is lived out specifically as a husband or as a wife.

“Mutual subjection” is far too commonly read in the opposite way, as though it were effectively flattening marriage, a reductive reading of the husband’s headship just as service in a generic sense (rather than a service rendered in part through a real exercise of authority). If we make the husband’s and the wife’s “subjection” entirely symmetrical, St. Paul’s words are obliterated rather than explained. For instance, they cannot both be submitting to each other as authorities in the strict sense, for that would be nonsensical.

This becomes even clearer when we look at the verses following the discussion of marriage. After telling all Christians, not just married couples, to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ”, St. Paul proceeds to describe what that mutual submission looks like in various kinds of asymmetrical relationships within the Christian household. If mutual submission did away with all hierarchy of authority, St. Paul would not also have applied it to parents and children.

So far from liberating spouses to follow the law of love, egalitarian leveling actually destroys the unity of the family, now a two-headed monster. As Margaret McCarthy of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Washington, DC writes, not only are hierarchical order and equal personal dignity compatible, but “they are necessary to each other if the ‘fellows’ are not to be merely standing next to each other on a ‘spectrum,’ but rather turned toward each other, already belonging to each other, and generously so, in an insurmountable (and fruitful) unity in distinction.”

Hierarchy is inclusive by nature. McCarthy points out that it is because Christ is head of the Church that He can communicate His divinity to the members of the Church. Likewise, the authority of the mother over her children flows from that of the father; if she fails to recognize this and insists on equal authority, she only undermines her own queenship.

“Mutual subjection” in Pius XI

But more important than my interpretation is the interpretation of the magisterium. It is not Catholic to take the words of a single Pope out of the full context of Church teaching—this instance being only one example of a broader tendency of modern Catholics to treat the entire magisterium prior to Vatican II as obsolete.

Admittedly, Pope John Paul II was mainly focused on showing that St. Paul’s words should not be used to advocate male domination of women*, and thus he emphasized the mutual aspects of subjection for a modern, authority-phobic audience. So if one reads his teaching in isolation, one might mistake “mutual submission” for an elimination of authority and obedience.

But even if someone were impious enough to suggest that this was Pope John Paul II’s intention, a single apostolic letter (which St. John Paul labeled a “meditation” on woman, not a comprehensive teaching on marriage) plus a Wednesday audience would be well outweighed by the two modern doctrinal encyclicals on marriage (Casti connubii and Arcanum divinae sapientiae), not to mention the 2,000-year consensus of the Church’s magisterium, Fathers, and Doctors, all of whom consistently read Ephesians 5 and the other New Testament verses on authority in marriage in a straightforward manner.

It is not the most recent papal remark, but the most weighty and consistent teaching that receives precedence in the case of a perceived conflict. And against those who claim that the older teachings are simply cultural and dated, we can point to papal teachings within the past century which clearly opposed egalitarianism in marriage while also calling for greater reverence for women’s dignity.

Yet so far from setting the earlier magisterium against John Paul II (who himself never claimed to be overturning earlier teachings), we may be delighted to find a pre-Vatican-II pope teaching something that looks very much like mutual subjection. I refer to Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Casti connubii, still the Church’s most important document on marriage. Though he does not actually use the term, it seems to me that Pius XI even explains mutual subjection more clearly than St. John Paul II, as to both how it would be practiced and how it is consonant with sacred tradition, while also emphasizing (like John Paul II) that the husband’s rule is not absolute. I will quote the whole beautiful passage, putting in bold the part where I find mutual submission:

26. Domestic society being confirmed, therefore, by this bond of love, there should flourish in it that “order of love,” as St. Augustine calls it. This order includes both the primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and children, the ready subjection of the wife and her willing obedience, which the Apostle commends in these words: “Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the Church.”

27. This subjection, however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs. But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.

28. Again, this subjection of wife to husband in its degree and manner may vary according to the different conditions of persons, place and time. In fact, if the husband neglect his duty, it falls to the wife to take his place in directing the family. But the structure of the family and its fundamental law, established and confirmed by God, must always and everywhere be maintained intact.

29. With great wisdom Our predecessor Leo XIII, of happy memory, in the Encyclical on Christian marriage which We have already mentioned [Arcanum divinae sapientiae], speaking of this order to be maintained between man and wife, teaches: “The man is the ruler of the family, and the head of the woman; but because she is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, let her be subject and obedient to the man, not as a servant but as a companion, so that nothing be lacking of honor or of dignity in the obedience which she pays. Let divine charity be the constant guide of their mutual relations, both in him who rules and in her who obeys, since each bears the image, the one of Christ, the other of the Church.”

Catholic feminists are generally unwilling to face texts like the above—unless perhaps they quote Pius as saying “this subjection…may vary according to the different conditions of persons, place and time”, while ignoring everything else he said.

The fear of vulnerability

There are a number of other dodges used to get out of obedience in marriage. Some claim it is just a result of the Fall (with the implication that hierarchical order is, if not outright evil, basically a penalty and an imperfection to be overcome). This is contrary to Catholic tradition, including the teaching of Pius XI who calls “the primacy of the husband…[and] the ready subjection of the wife and her willing obedience” part of the “order of love”, “the structure of the family and its fundamental law, established and confirmed by God”.

It is feared that authority is incompatible with the mutual love and true friendship proper to marriage. This is true if authority is confused with domination and obedience with servitude. But to show us that obedience and friendship are compatible, Christ tells His disciples both, “I no longer call you servants…I have called you friends”, and “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” As Pius XI clarified, the obedience the wife owes her husband is that of a companion, not of a child or servant.

Meanwhile, some women who accept St. Paul’s teaching in theory, but perhaps have not experienced loving male authority in their lives, are afraid that being submissive will expose them to abuse. Of course, one is not obligated to stay in a truly abusive situation—but all the same, it is an inescapable fact of Christian life that that love and obedience do make us vulnerable to mistreatment. And the exercise of loving authority also requires vulnerability, which is why modern husbands and fathers eagerly abdicated their headship for comfort, and why so many young men today are afraid to sacrifice themselves in what could be a thankless marriage ending in costly divorce. But that vulnerability is no less than the template set by Christ.

Thus no one should make the shameful excuse: “I only have to submit to a husband who proves himself worthy of my submission.” Would you accept it if men said likewise, “I only have to love my wife if she respects me?” Of course not. Once you have made vows, it is too late to place such conditions. You may as well say, “I will be faithful to my husband as long as he is faithful to me.” Those who speak like this can hardly be called Christians.

The Christian life is one of heroic virtue; rather than the worldly approach of negotiating between love and self-protection, both husbands and wives should imitate the example of those saints who had difficult marriages, returning gentleness for harshness and offering up sufferings for the conversion of one’s spouse. “Likewise you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, when they see your reverent and chaste behavior.” (1 Peter 3)

It may be complained that I have overemphasized authority and obedience in this article, without discussing the self-sacrificial love owed by the husband.** I am far from denying the centrality of service to the Christian notion of authority, but here I have been concerned with correcting a particular doctrinal error: the denial of authority in marriage, and the replacement of the distinctive roles of husband and wife with a generic mutual service. If it is true that the husband’s authority is ordered toward sacrificial service, it is also true that he serves his wife and children precisely by the exercise of his authority for their good. Likewise, we call the Pope the “servant of the servants of God”, but this does not eliminate his special prerogatives through which he serves.

But admittedly, I have barely touched on the true depth and beauty of St. Paul’s teaching in its theological symbolism and spiritual practice. I leave that, for now, to those holier and more experienced than I. For a beautiful, balanced, and traditional treatment of obedience in marriage in light of the Theology of the Body, I cannot recommend highly enough Mary Stanford’s book The Obedience Paradox: Finding True Freedom in Marriage (also see my interview with Stanford). And for a fuller theological treatment of the teachings of the magisterium and a number of great Catholic theologians on the topic, see Fr. Paul Check’s thesis recently republished by Catholic Culture.

Let both men and women remember that true dignity is found not in protecting oneself but in giving oneself away: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

---

*Interestingly, while St. John Paul II suggested in Mulieris Dignitatem that St. Paul, in telling wives to submit to their husbands, was using language rooted in the customs of the time, Ven. Pius XII said that Paul was making a counter-cultural statement against ancient pagan feminism in Ephesus and Corinth.

**As I wrote recently: “Feminists are constantly warning about how the Scriptural teaching on the husband’s authority is overemphasized or used to justify abuse, but in reality we seldom hear about it at all. That the real imbalance today is primarily in a feminist direction cannot really be debated, given the lectionary’s infamous ‘bracketing’ whereby the New Testament passages enjoining wives to obey their husbands may be omitted in the short form of the day’s reading (this happens on three days in the calendar). When Ephesians 5 is read in its short form, the congregation hears only about the husband laying down his life for his wife, giving the impression that husbands have duties toward their wives but wives have no corresponding duties toward their husbands.”