From: Ephesians 5:21-33
Duties of Husband and Wife
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Commentary:
21. St Paul here provides a general principle which should govern relationships
among members of the Church: they should submit to one another, knowing
that Christ is their true judge. At the same time, the Apostle uses this principle
to say something about relationships in society, specifically family relationships;
in these there is an element of natural dependence — of wife on husband (5:22-
24), of children on parents (6:1-4), and of servants on masters (6:5-9). However,
although there is an inbuilt natural element of authority in these situations, the
Apostle sees it as having a new dimension in the Christian context, for he is
acutely conscious of the dignity that belongs to each, and of Christ’s lordship
over all.
22-24. The basis of the supernatural grandeur and dignity of Christian marriage
lies in the fact that it is an extension of the union between Christ and his Church.
To exhort Christian married couples to live in accordance with their membership
of the Church, the Apostle establishes an analogy whereby the husband repre-
sents Christ and the wife the Church. This teaching has its roots in the Old Tes-
tament, where the relationships between Yahweh and his people are expressed,
in the preaching of the prophets, in terms of the relationships between husband
and wife. The husband loves his wife truly, he is completely faithful to her (Hos
1:3; Jer 2:20; Ezek 16: 1-34). God is forever faithful to the love he has shown Is-
rael, and he is ever ready to pardon her (cf. Is 54:5-8; 62:4-5; Jer 31:21-22) and
to re-establish his Covenant with the people (cf. Is 16:5-63). Jesus also describes
himself as the bridegroom (cf. Mt 9:15; Jn 3:29) and he uses the image of the
wedding banquet to explain the significance of his coming (cf. Mt 22:1-14; 25:1-
13). He brings into being the New Covenant, which gives rise to the new people
of God, the Church (cf. Mt 26:26-29 and par.); and so the relationship between
Christ and the Church appears in the New Testament in terms of husband-wife;
as the Second Vatican Council put it, “The Church is also [...] described as the
spotless spouse of the spotless Lamb (Rev 19:7; 21:2, 9; 22:17). It is she whom
Christ ‘loved and for whom he delivered himself up that he might sanctify her’
(Eph 5:26). It is she whom he unites to himself by an unbreakable alliance, and
whom he constantly ‘nourishes and cherishes’ (Eph 5:29). It is she whom, once
purified, he willed to be joined to himself, subject in love and fidelity (cf. Eph 5:
24)” (”Lumen Gentium”,6).
St Paul is not just using Christian marriage as a comparison to explain Christ’s
relationship with the Church: he is saying that relationship is actually symbo-
lized and verified between Christian husband and wife. This means that marriage
between baptized people is a true sacrament, as the Church has always taught
and as Vatican II has repeated: “Christ our Lord has abundantly blessed this
love, which is rich in its various features, coming as it does from the spring of
divine love and modeled on Christ’s own union with the Church. Just as of old
God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior,
the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sa-
crament of marriage. He abides with them in order that by their mutual self-gi-
ving spouses will love each other with enduring fidelity, as he loved the Church
and delivered himself for it. Authentic married love is caught up into divine love
and is directed and enriched by the redemptive power of Christ and the salvific
action of the Church, with the result that the spouses are effectively led to God
and are helped and strengthened in their lofty role as fathers and mothers”
(”Gaudium Et Spes”, 48).
When St Paul exhorts wives to be “subject” to their husbands, he is not only ta-
king into account the social position of women at the time but also the fact that
a Christian wife, by the way she relates to her husband, should reflect the Church
itself, in its obedience to Christ. The husband, for his part, is asked to be similar-
ly submissive to his wife, for he is a reflection of Jesus Christ, who gave himself
up even to death out of love for the Church (cf. v. 25). In 1930 Pope Pius XI taught
that “the submission of the wife neither ignores nor suppresses the liberty to
which her dignity as a human person and her noble functions as wife, mother,
and companion give her the full right. It does not oblige her to yield indiscrimina-
tely to all the desires of her husband, which may be unreasonable or incompa-
tible with her wifely dignity. Nor does it mean that she is on a level with persons
who in law are called minors, and who are ordinarily denied the unrestricted ex-
ercise of their rights on the ground of their immature judgment and inexperience.
But it does forbid such abuse of freedom as would neglect the welfare of the fa-
mily; it refuses, in this body which is the family, to allow the heart to be separa-
ted from the head, with great detriment to the body itself and even with risk of di-
saster. If the husband is the head of the domestic body, then the wife is its heart;
and as the first holds the primacy of authority, so the second can and ought to
claim the primacy of love” (”Casti Connubii”, 10).
Thus, in contrast with the low regard in which women were held in the East in
ancient times (when they were in general seen as lesser mortals), Christian tea-
ching recognizes the essential equality of man and woman: “Above all it is im-
portant to underline the equal dignity and responsibility of women with men. This
equality is realized in a unique manner in that reciprocal self-giving by each one
to the other and by both to the children which is proper to marriage and the fami-
ly. What human reason intuitively perceives and acknowledges is fully revealed
by the word of God: the history of salvation, in fact, is a continuous and luminous
testimony to the dignity of women.
“In creating the human race ‘male and female’ (Gen 1:27), God gives man and
woman an equal personal dignity, endowing them with the inalienable rights and
responsibilities proper to the human person. God then manifests the dignity of
women in the highest form possible, by assuming human flesh from the Virgin
Mary, whom the Church honors as the Mother of God, calling her the new Eve
and presenting her as the model of redeemed woman. The sensitive respect of
Jesus towards the women whom he called to his following and his friendship, his
appearing on Easter morning to a woman before the other disciples, the mission
entrusted to women to carry the good news of the Resurrection to the Apostles
these are all signs that confirm the special esteem of the Lord Jesus for women”
(Bl. John Paul II, “Familiaris Consortio”, 22).
St. Escriva provides another summary of this teaching: “Women, like men, pos-
sess the dignity of being persons and children of God. Nevertheless, on this ba-
sis of fundamental equality, each must achieve what is appropriate to him or her
[...]. Women are called to bring to the family, to society and to the Church cha-
racteristics which are their own and which they alone can give — their gentle
warmth and untiring generosity, their love for detail, their quick-wittedness and
intuition, their simple and deep piety, their constancy ...” (”Conversations”, 87).
25-27. Love between husband and wife is also founded on Christ’s love for his
Church. New Testament revelation fixes this high standard for a husband’s love
for his wife because the model for this life is nothing less than Christ’s love for
the Church. St Paul, in fact, expresses this in terms of a betrothed couple, with
the bride all dressed up to be presented to the bridegroom: Christ similarly sanc-
tifies and purifies, through Baptism, those who are going to become members
of his Church. The sacrament of Baptism, reflected in the words “by the washing
of water with the word”, applies that redemption which Jesus has brought about
through his sacrifice on the cross.
27. ‘The Church”, Vatican II teaches, “[...] is held, as a matter of faith, to be un-
failingly holy. This is because Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and
the Spirit is hailed as ‘alone holy,’ loved the Church as his Bride, giving himself
up for her so as to sanctify her (cf. Eph 5:25-26); he joined her to himself as his
body and endowed her with the gift of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God. There-
fore all in the Church, whether they belong to the hierarchy or are cared for by it,
are called to holiness, according to the Apostle’s saying: ‘For this is the will of
God, your sanctification’ (1 Thess 4:3; cf. Eph 1:4). This holiness of the Church
is constantly shown forth in the fruits of grace which the Spirit produces in the
faithful and so it must be; it is expressed in many ways by the individuals who,
each in his own state of life, tend to the perfection of love, thus sanctifying others”
(”Lumen Gentium”, 39).
28-32. St Paul alludes to the text of Genesis 2:24 which has to do with marriage
as an institution and applies it to Christ and the Church. He thereby teaches that
marriage, as established by God from the beginning, is already in some way
saved, because it is a kind of reflection and symbol of God’s love for mankind.
“Receiving and meditating faithfully on the word of God, the Church has solemnly
taught and continues to teach that the marriage of the baptized is one of the se-
ven sacraments of the New Covenant [...].
“By virtue of the sacramentality of their marriage, spouses are bound to one ano-
ther in the most profoundly indissoluble manner. Their belonging to each other is
the real representation, by means of the sacramental sign, of the very relation-
ship of Christ with the Church.
“Spouses are therefore the permanent reminder to the Church of what happened
on the Cross; they are for one another and for the children witnesses to the sal-
vation in which the sacrament makes them sharers” (Bl. John Paul II, “Familiaris
Consortio”, 13).
The vocation of marriage is, then, a true way of holiness. The founder of Opus
Dei was always very emphatic about this: “For a Christian, marriage is not just a
social institution, much less a mere remedy for human weakness. It is a genuine
supernatural calling. A great sacrament, in Christ and in the Church, says St
Paul (Eph 5:32). At the same time, it is a permanent contract between a man
and a woman. Whether we like it or not, marriage instituted by Christ cannot be
dissolved. It is a sacred sign that sanctifies an action of Jesus whereby he helps
the souls of those who marry and invites them to follow him transforming their
whole married life into an occasion for God’s presence on earth” (”Christ Is Pas-
sing By”, 23).
The holiness of their family and of those connected with it is very much a function
of the holiness of the married couple: “But they must not forget that the secret of
married happiness lies in everyday things, not in daydreams. It lies in discovering
the hidden joy of coming home in the evening; in affectionate relations with their
children; in everyday work in which the whole family cooperates; in good humor in
the face of difficulties that should be met with a sporting spirit; in making the best
use of all the advances that civilization offers to help us bring up children, to make
the house pleasant and life more simple” (St. J. Escriva, “Conversations”, 91).
See the note on Col 3:18-19.
31. On the indissolubility of marriage see the notes on Mt 5:31-32; Mk 10:1-12;
10:5-9; Lk 16:18; 1 Cor7:10-11.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.