Rambling Notes on Gender Norms and the Bible

There’s two separate areas in which the Bible calls for strict gender norms:  Wives' submission to their husbands, and the prohibition on women entering the pastoral ministry.  The other gender norms that are present in nature, that women are called to motherhood and men to fatherhood, is evident naturally and naturally inviolable.  

Craig Blomberg, so far as I’ve read, has the best commentary on 1. Cor. 11.

Women should defer to their husbands.  Why? 

There are women who are smarter than their husbands

Who are stronger

Who are better informed

Who are more decisive

So why should all women defer to their husbands? Maybe the stupid women should, but what about the ones that are smarter than their husbands?

Why is, according to the Bible, headship in marriage based on gender rather than on skill? 

Womanhood can often, though not universally, imply difference in skill and quality.  (Careful here.  Skill and quality should be read as “skill and quality in those areas relevant to headship”?? Maybe.  See below.) 

But this still leaves unexplained the cases of women who seem better fit for headship.  Response: In these cases, a deference to husband may seem unnecessary in their particular case, yet it could show forth as a good example for the general trend nonetheless.

It’s not about the marriage performing in the most efficient, intelligent way possible.  It’s about whether we can submit in the face of knowing that it may not be the most efficient way possible. Submitting even when we think we know a better path is a greater sign of love and selflessness. 

Father and Son have no intrinsic difference with regard to ability--both are fully divine.  Yet the Son defers to the Father.  Why?  1. Cor. 11 is relevant, I think.  Headship as both “seat of authority” and “origin” or “source” seems like it may hold some key.  The Father’s eternal generation of the Son provides him with headship over the Son.  A similar point about women may apply, as they derive from men according to Paul.

Let’s say that the submission relationship is, in itself, a good one, and that it should be exemplified even in the case of totally equal individuals.  There may be no basis for which should defer to which, but the deference relation is itself good and a symbol, and should thus be exemplified.

So grant that there’s no intrinsic difference in ability between the sexes.  Yet a relational extrinsic priority is present between the Father and Son: The eternal generation of the Son.  This makes proper the submission of the Son to the Father.  So too does the submission of the woman to the man; there’s an external extrinsic priority of man over woman.  Man came first.  This is in accord with Paul’s argumentation.

What about “Because Eve was deceived”? Doesn’t this seem to imply that Eve is intrinsically inferior? 

Maybe not.  Two options:  The priority of man over woman is a result of a penalty for woman’s sin.  Maybe.  Second option; The nature of Eve’s sin is involved in her taking the headship from Adam, so Eve’s example drives home the point that woman should submit to man on the basis of source priority.

What does it mean to be a head in marriage:

Man, in a general way, takes the initiative.  Not in every respect or in every detail. Some things may be delegated to the wife given her particular skills.

Man leads, but in view of Jesus’s Lord-servant world reversal.  The master becomes the one who serves. Jesus washed his servants feet.  Died for them.  Served them.  Men being called to be leaders means being called to be active, initiative taking servants to their wives.

A woman who submits to a man who properly and biblically fulfills the role of biblical headship will not be an unhappy woman. These arrangements are for our good.

Men being called to this servant-initiative taker, mutual submission position ties our masculinity down to the family unit.  It’s God’s answer to the particular forms of sin that men fall into.

What does biblical headship look like?

It looks like a case of mutual submission: Husbands submitting to their wives, wives submitting to their husbands, and husbands breaking the pattern with an emergent initiative.  

Headship is like being a servant.  Jesus reversed the master-servant world order.  Masters are now servants.  Husbands are their wife’s chief servant.

But what does it mean practically--day-to-day?

I) Loving and concerned breaking of insurmountable disagreement.  But this is rare.

II) General pattern of initiative-taking.

III) Willingness to sacrifice and defend.

IV) How Jesus regarded his Father; his relationship provides an archetype for women and men.

V) Jesus’ leading of the Church also provides an example.

The general gender norms evident socially also seem to offer some guidance: Men should work, provide, have jobs, defend, and so on.  This is a bit of a fuzzy area, but offers some guidance.  I don’t mean that men should become obsessed with chasing money and providing mere material comfort.  That’s evil.  Workaholism is evil. 

The command to defer is not based on universal intrinsic behavioral traits.  In many respects, some women may be more capable than their husbands.  That a woman should still submit and the man still head can be a call for the man to strive better in servanthood and for the woman to divest herself of self-importance.  Even granting that the arrangement of a wife's submission to her husband is not helpful for every single individual woman, that these particular women are still willing to submit despite this, can provide a good example for the more general group.  Our behaviors do not just affect us.  We should be concerned with the general pattern too.  

God designed us.  Even if we feel that we are more inclined towards male patterns, even as females, or the reverse--we should seek to strive to conform to the patterns of our gender.  God better knows the designs of our hearts than we do.  That we may struggle with conforming is no argument for not conforming.  The struggle may be part of the lesson.

This is a scandalous teaching to our egalitarian culture.  But God is often scandalous.  We shouldn’t expect otherwise.  

Gender norms are biblical.  God designed us in such a way that we flourish when we fulfill our particular gender norms.  “Flourish” does not mean that it’s easy, though.  

The only reason given for the woman’s submission is because the man is her head.  That’s it.  No other reason is given.  It isn’t that man is smarter.  Or stronger.  Or anything else.  Just because he’s her head.

Similarly, children must submit to their parents. Not because they’re under 18.  Or because they’re parents are smarter.  Or anything like that.  But merely because they are the parents of the child.  

Being in the submitting role is what makes the woman weaker (1 Pet. 3:7); and not any intrinsic quality.