I haven't found anyone online who helps men understand patriarchy better than Will Knowland. You should follow him.
This is probably the biggest misconception about traditional marriage.
It confuses a wife's duty of submission with an obligation to obey every request her husband makes.
Yes, Ephesians 5:24 teaches that wives should submit to their husbands. But it doesn't follow that every preference a husband expresses becomes a morally binding command, such that refusing him constitutes a sin against God.
5 points tend to get ignored on this topic:
1. Submission isn't unlimited obedience.
St Thomas Aquinas asks the question in Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 104, a. 5 of whether subjects must obey their superiors in everything.
No, he answers. Human authority only binds within its proper sphere. He explicitly explains that scriptural commands to obey human superiors in all things refer to matters within their legitimate authority.
He says that when the Apostle says "in all things," he refers to matters within the sphere of a father's or master's authority.
And the underlying principle applies to marital authority as well.
A command can be perfectly lawful in itself, yet impose no obligation of obedience because the person issuing it lacks authority over that particular matter.
2. A husband has authority, but he doesn't have authority over everything his wife does.
McHugh and Callan's Moral Theology, §2626, recognises the husband's authority in domestic affairs while distinguishing these from the wife's personal affairs, such as her conscience, political judgments and property.
It also insists that a husband should consult his wife on important family decisions and seek mutual agreement.
Even traditional Catholic moral theology doesn't turn the wife into someone who must carry out every instruction her husband gives.
A husband has limited authority over his wife as his wife, not total authority over her as a woman.
3. A request isn't necessarily a command.
If a husband asks his wife to bring him a drink, and she declines, has she sinned against obedience?
Not necessarily. The fact that he asked doesn't establish that she was morally obliged to comply.
McHugh and Callan make precisely this distinction in §2366: disobedience concerns the violation of a lawful command issued by legitimate authority, rather than the refusal of every request or piece of advice.
Her refusal might be uncharitable, depending on her circumstances and intentions. But that's an entirely different moral question.
4. Submission must be understood within the whole of Ephesians 5.
St Paul begins with mutual submission in verse 21 and commands husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church in verse 25.
John Paul II, in Mulieris Dignitatem, §24, explicitly teaches that marital submission is "not one-sided but mutual."
This doesn't erase the distinct responsibilities of husband and wife. He's still the head. But it establishes that marital authority exists for the good of the marriage and must be exercised through charity rather than arbitrary demands.
5. Even obedience can become a vice when it exceeds its proper bounds.
McHugh and Callan's Moral Theology, §2365, notes that servile submission in matters requiring one's independent judgement is a distortion of obedience.
Obedience is a virtue governed by reason and justice, rather than the indiscriminate surrender of one's will to another human being.
It's true that a wife can sin by wilfully refusing to fulfil a legitimate marital obligation, including an obligation of obedience within its proper sphere.
But it's false that whenever a wife refuses something her husband asks her to do, however small, she necessarily disobeys God and commits sin.
This matters enormously in marriage coaching because it converts ordinary disagreements, personal preferences and differences of judgement into accusations of sin.
It also encourages husbands to mistake their own wishes for the will of God.
A husband's authority is real, but it's ordered to the common good of the family, not to the satisfaction of his every preference.
55
35
864
83,126
Behind the scenes with Jay Stringer! He joins the show, emphasizing that lasting freedom from porn comes from grieving the origin stories behind our desires, not from white-knuckling and will power. Out Now!
2
5
22
2,190
Matt Fradd retweeted
Working Wives
“In every society, wives have always worked, and worked very hard. The modern problem is their employment outside the home. This is a complex problem for which no ready answer can be supplied.”
— The 1957 Cana Conference
Social media craves simplicity.
But in marriage coaching, I’ve found that the reality is usually complex.
And actual Catholic teaching requires careful distinctions.
The traditional Catholic view certainly gives a wife’s duties towards her husband, home and children a very high priority.
For example, the Catechism of the Council of Trent tells wives to make the formation of their children in virtue and the care of domestic affairs particular objects of their attention.
It then says:
“Unless compelled by necessity to go abroad, they should also cheerfully remain at home.”
Here “go abroad” means to go out or leave the home. And obviously this is a broader statement about domestic life, rather than a specific judgement about modern paid employment.
The traditional moral theologian Dominic Prümmer makes another important distinction.
Discussing women’s emancipation and their capacity for professions commonly exercised by men, he says:
“Per se igitur nihil obstat” — in itself, therefore, nothing prevents it — before giving such examples as doctor, lawyer and teacher.
Prümmer is speaking here about women generally, not specifically married women.
But he immediately adds that a woman’s principal duty concerns the good of domestic family life, and he condemns forms of emancipation which excessively draw women away from the family or seriously damage family life.
McHugh and Callan make a similar distinction in their pre-Vatican II manual Moral Theology.
They say that ordinarily the husband should attend to the family’s external affairs, including its support and protection, while the wife should attend to its internal affairs, including housekeeping and the training of the children.
They regret that inadequate wages often compel wives to work outside the home and say that women should certainly not be pushed into occupations which “interfere with the supreme duty of motherhood.”
Pope Pius XI taught along the same lines in Quadragesimo Anno in 1931:
“Mothers, concentrating on household duties, should work primarily in the home or in its immediate vicinity.”
He calls it an “intolerable abuse” when a father’s inadequate wage forces a mother to engage in paid work outside the home to the neglect of her proper duties, especially the education of her children.
So the older tradition places enormous value on the wife and mother being centred upon the home and children.
But we need another distinction.
The Church doesn’t therefore teach that employment outside the home is intrinsically sinful for a married woman.
Later Magisterial teaching makes this especially clear.
In Familiaris Consortio, St John Paul II says that the equal dignity and responsibility of men and women justifies women’s access to public functions. He says that women have “the same right as men to perform various public functions.”
At the same time, he insists that society should be structured so that wives and mothers aren’t compelled to work outside the home and so that a family can live with dignity when a mother devotes herself full-time to her family.
Likewise, in Laborem Exercens, he says women shouldn’t be excluded from jobs for which they are capable, while insisting that employment must respect their family responsibilities and their irreplaceable role as mothers.
So both of these positions are too simplistic:
“Wives should never work outside the home.”
and
“Whether a mother works outside the home has nothing to do with her duties as a wife and mother.”
Instead, we have to face the complexity.
A wife’s duties towards her marriage, home and children are real, and paid employment *can* conflict seriously with those duties.
But we also can’t look at a wife, discover that she has a career outside the home, and conclude from that fact alone that she’s neglecting her husband or children.
That requires a judgement about the actual circumstances.
In marriage coaching, I often ask questions like these:
- How old are the children?
- What are their needs?
- How many hours does she work?
- What does the job demand from her?
- What are the family’s financial circumstances?
- What is her husband able to provide?
- How is the household actually functioning?
- What effect is the arrangement having on the marriage and children?
Personally, based on what I see in marriage coaching, I think outside employment is often damaging to the common good of the family, particularly when the children are very young or the family is large.
But in other circumstances, a wife’s employment can contribute positively to that same common good. For example, it may provide needed income, relieve excessive financial pressure on the husband or otherwise help the family fulfil its obligations somehow.
That’s why the individual case requires prudence.
Ultimately, the question is whether the whole arrangement serves or undermines the common good of this particular family.
I don’t claim that outside employment for wives is intrinsically wrong.
The Church herself doesn’t teach that.
“In every society, wives have always worked, and worked very hard. The modern problem is their employment outside the home. This is a complex problem for which no ready answer can be supplied.”
— The 1957 Cana Conference
Social media craves simplicity.
But in marriage coaching, I’ve found that the reality is usually complex.
And actual Catholic teaching requires careful distinctions.
The traditional Catholic view certainly gives a wife’s duties towards her husband, home and children a very high priority.
For example, the Catechism of the Council of Trent tells wives to make the formation of their children in virtue and the care of domestic affairs particular objects of their attention.
It then says:
“Unless compelled by necessity to go abroad, they should also cheerfully remain at home.”
Here “go abroad” means to go out or leave the home. And obviously this is a broader statement about domestic life, rather than a specific judgement about modern paid employment.
The traditional moral theologian Dominic Prümmer makes another important distinction.
Discussing women’s emancipation and their capacity for professions commonly exercised by men, he says:
“Per se igitur nihil obstat” — in itself, therefore, nothing prevents it — before giving such examples as doctor, lawyer and teacher.
Prümmer is speaking here about women generally, not specifically married women.
But he immediately adds that a woman’s principal duty concerns the good of domestic family life, and he condemns forms of emancipation which excessively draw women away from the family or seriously damage family life.
McHugh and Callan make a similar distinction in their pre-Vatican II manual Moral Theology.
They say that ordinarily the husband should attend to the family’s external affairs, including its support and protection, while the wife should attend to its internal affairs, including housekeeping and the training of the children.
They regret that inadequate wages often compel wives to work outside the home and say that women should certainly not be pushed into occupations which “interfere with the supreme duty of motherhood.”
Pope Pius XI taught along the same lines in Quadragesimo Anno in 1931:
“Mothers, concentrating on household duties, should work primarily in the home or in its immediate vicinity.”
He calls it an “intolerable abuse” when a father’s inadequate wage forces a mother to engage in paid work outside the home to the neglect of her proper duties, especially the education of her children.
So the older tradition places enormous value on the wife and mother being centred upon the home and children.
But we need another distinction.
The Church doesn’t therefore teach that employment outside the home is intrinsically sinful for a married woman.
Later Magisterial teaching makes this especially clear.
In Familiaris Consortio, St John Paul II says that the equal dignity and responsibility of men and women justifies women’s access to public functions. He says that women have “the same right as men to perform various public functions.”
At the same time, he insists that society should be structured so that wives and mothers aren’t compelled to work outside the home and so that a family can live with dignity when a mother devotes herself full-time to her family.
Likewise, in Laborem Exercens, he says women shouldn’t be excluded from jobs for which they are capable, while insisting that employment must respect their family responsibilities and their irreplaceable role as mothers.
So both of these positions are too simplistic:
“Wives should never work outside the home.”
and
“Whether a mother works outside the home has nothing to do with her duties as a wife and mother.”
Instead, we have to face the complexity.
A wife’s duties towards her marriage, home and children are real, and paid employment *can* conflict seriously with those duties.
But we also can’t look at a wife, discover that she has a career outside the home, and conclude from that fact alone that she’s neglecting her husband or children.
That requires a judgement about the actual circumstances.
In marriage coaching, I often ask questions like these:
- How old are the children?
- What are their needs?
- How many hours does she work?
- What does the job demand from her?
- What are the family’s financial circumstances?
- What is her husband able to provide?
- How is the household actually functioning?
- What effect is the arrangement having on the marriage and children?
Personally, based on what I see in marriage coaching, I think outside employment is often damaging to the common good of the family, particularly when the children are very young or the family is large.
But in other circumstances, a wife’s employment can contribute positively to that same common good. For example, it may provide needed income, relieve excessive financial pressure on the husband or otherwise help the family fulfil its obligations somehow.
That’s why the individual case requires prudence.
Ultimately, the question is whether the whole arrangement serves or undermines the common good of this particular family.
I don’t claim that outside employment for wives is intrinsically wrong.
The Church herself doesn’t teach that.
4
5
39
4,913
Behind the scenes for Last Call! Fr. Anthony Mourad, a Coptic Orthodox priest, explains how Christians can love Muslims while disagreeing with Islam, and why he believes living witness, not debate, is the most effective way to evangelize. Out Now!
1
2
22
2,112
