Headship in Marriage: Flip of a Coin?

An increasing number of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship girls are saying, “I’m confused about i my role. Magazines say this. Speakers say that. Suppose I get married: what’s a Christian woman supposed to do?” I’d like to respond with a few observations, because I’m worried by what I see, read, and hear. My views are based on Scripture (as best I understand it) and clarified by counsel from my wife, our two married daughters, several IVCF staff wives, and countless college women.

One area causing confusion. I believe, is that of “headship.” In the New Testament the noun “head” occurs 58 times as translated in every instance from the same Greek work: kephale. In 45 of those instances kephale refers to physical anatomy. For example, “the hairs of your kephale are all numbered”; “give me here John Baptist’s kephale …”; “having shorn his kephale in Cenchraea …” (Matt. 10:30; 14:8; Acts 18:18).

In 13 of those occurrences, kephale refers to relationships between persons. For example, “But I want you to understand that the kephale of every man is Christ, the kephale of a woman is her husband, and the kephale of Christ is God”; “… and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the kephale over all things for the church which is his body …”; “rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the kephale, into Christ”; “For the husband is the kephale of the wife as Christ is the kephale of the church, his body, and himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands”; “He is the kephale of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent”; “And you have come to fulness of life in him who is the kephale of all rule and authority” (1 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 1:22; 4:15; 5:23–24; Col. 1:8; 2:10).

Question: How does the foregoing apply to Christian men and women whom God calls to marry? It seems to me that kephale in those references connotes in part love for, concern for, service to, support of, partnership with, participation with, responsibility for, and so on.

So far so good. Probably all evangelicals would agree up to this point. But that isn’t the whole story. The disagreement comes here: kephale also connotes accountability for and authority over. The first marriage that God established illustrates that fact. After the pair sinned, God did not summon both Adam and Eve to give account as coequals in responsibility. He summoned the husband as if to say, “You are the responsible partner in your marriage, and I am calling you to give account.”

There is more. If God gives children, it is the father whom God holds primarily responsible for the behavior of those children. If they are denied sound training in the home, the father cannot alibi by blaming his wife (see 1 Tim. 3:4).

I believe God’s design is “husband headship”: the husband is to be the kephale of his wife and family and will be held accountable by God for the manner in which he fulfills that headship. We violate that design by deviating to two extremes: distortion and abolition.

“Last summer Mary, a Canadian woman visiting a Christian couple in the U.S., noticed that Sheila, the wife, was uncharacteristically silent. Shortly Mary realized, to her astonishment, that Sheila only spoke when Joe, her husband, gave permission. This he did either verbally or by some nonverbal signal such as a nod of the head. ‘What’s going on?’ Mary asked. ‘We’ve discovered what headship really means,’ Joe replied, ‘and how Sheila must show she is a submissive wife in every way. So I decided I must signal when she can speak. Also, Sheila has cut down almost all her church work so that she can devote herself entirely to being a real woman and wife.’ He added, ‘We want to live out the fullest meaning of the gospel’ ” (HIS magazine, May 1978, p. 17).

Such deviation needs to be corrected. But an overcorrection is not a good correction, and I am sobered at what I see happening in evangelicalism by going to the other extreme.

Second, abolition. God’s design is violated by abolition of “husband headship.” This overcorrection can occur in two forms: “coheadship” and “wife headship.” “Coheadship” is sometimes termed “egalitarian marriage” and is widely advocated in numerous evangelical magazines and books and by many evangelical speakers. Husband and wife are equal in authority for decision making and accountability. Let’s admit that in a healthy marriage neither partner makes all the decisions; responsibilities are delegated within the partnership. The crunch comes when the partners disagree on decisions felt by each to be equally significant. Who decides then? Who is the final authority? Suppose Abraham and Sarah belonged to our modern “coheadship” philosophy? 1 Peter 3:6 indicates (1) she obeyed her husband, and (2) her good example is to be emulated. Looking at Christian marriages around America, my impression is that most “coheadships” (or “egalitarian marriages”) evolve into “veto-power-for-the-wife.” Husbands gradually give in on more and more decisions. I believe that “coheadship” (“egalitarian marriage”) is a mistake. It is an overcorrection.

“Wife headship” is even more extreme. Apparently some marriages from the outset are of this type. In some instances it is the woman’s dominant power grasping the headship. In others, she simply receives it by default as her husband passively abdicates his God-given responsibility. In “wife headship” Eve becomes accountable for Adam. (The most extensive book I know written against the “abolition” philosophy is The Castrated Family, by Dr. Harold Voth [psychiatrist with Menninger Clinic]; Sheed Andrews & McMeel, 1977). In view of the new opinion sweeping our society, it is surprising to me that a publisher would have the courage to publish a book such as Voth’s.

God’s plan moves between those two extremes and calls for a Christ-centered husband and a Christ-centered wife to love, serve, and support each other within an authority structure where Christ is kephale of both of them within his body and husband is kephale within the marriage.

It seems to me the world is conforming us to its mold—pressing an increasing number of Christian marriages into the two extremity traps of distortion. Let’s build our marriages according to God’s plan—and train our students (if God is calling them to marry): instructing them and preparing them for “husband headship” marriages under the kephale of Christ, warning them against the dangers of husband dictatorship on the one hand and the pitfalls of “coheadship” or “wife headship” on the other.

Copyright 1979 by Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of the United States of America.

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