By Gary C. Redding
He also is to express caring love for his wife (
Ephesians 5:28-30). Paul told the husband that his love for his wife is to be similar to the love he has for his own body. He is to care as much for her as He does for himself.
Another passage which illustrates this relationship is
I Corinthians 7:3-5. According to Paul, the husband has needs and rights assumed in the marriage covenant which the wife is to honor by giving herself to him sexually. That is an idea which is widely held and accepted in our male-dominated society.
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However, Paul goes beyond that and suggests that the husband needs to be concerned about his wife's needs and rights also. They are equally responsible for meeting each other's needs. Each exists for the other.
Finally, his concern that the husband love his wife means that he must also develop the art of understanding (
I Peter 3:7). Some have suggested that the words "weaker sex" in this passage refer to the female's spiritual and emotional weakness as well as physical. Such an interpretation is based upon Eve's succumbing to the temptation of the serpent in the Garden.
However, the same word is used in other places in the New Testament and only describes physical weakness (see
Matthew 26:41). Nowhere does the Bible teach feminine inferiority based upon the sin of the woman in the Garden.
The passage in I Peter is simply a warning to the husband against taking advantage of his wife's physical weakness in order to dominate her. She is to be respected as an equal partner in the grace of life, even though she is physically weaker. Her weakness, however, does not make her inferior. She is to be given the highest worth or value in her husband's life because of who she is and because of equal partnership in God's grace.
It must also be kept in mind that Paul had just as much to say about the wife's responsibility to her husband. In the New Testament period, the man had legal authority over his wife. She had no choice but to accept that authority. Women were regarded as minors by the law, and thus, a woman's person and property were always controlled by a male guardian.
Thus, the husband's authority over the wife was a legal fact before any of the New Testament was ever written. Just as the New Testament reflected the civil establishment of slavery, it also reflected the context of a male-dominated society.
Therefore, its teaching about the husband's dominance over the wife is cast in an entirely different light. Male authority was not established by some scriptural mandate, but by the legal codes of that era.
In Ephesians, Paul set forth a new interpretation of authority and required that the Christian wife develop a new and better attitude toward her Christian husband, given the legal requirements of that day.