Abstract
This analysis explores the complex interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11, particularly regarding women’s head coverings and gender roles in early Christian and contemporary contexts. The passage, often read as endorsing male headship and female subordination based on Genesis, is shown to reflect specific cultural concerns of the Corinthian church rather than timeless doctrine. Paul’s nuanced language challenges simplistic patriarchal readings by affirming the woman’s hair as her glory and highlighting mutual dependence between men and women in Christ. The chapter likely includes Corinthian quotations, further complicating direct attribution to Paul.
Transitioning to Ephesians 5, Paul’s teachings on marriage are contextualized within the oppressive Greco-Roman family structure, characterized by male authority and limited rights for women and slaves. Rather than overthrowing this system, Paul subverts it by redefining “headship” through Christ’s example of sacrificial love, calling husbands to love their wives selflessly and view them as equals in one body under Christ. This strategy reflects Paul’s broader approach of gradual cultural transformation rooted in gospel ethics.
Together, these passages reveal Paul’s intent to engage and redeem existing social norms rather than impose rigid, culturally bound hierarchies. Contemporary application invites Christians to embrace mutual respect, giftedness, and flexible roles in marriage, transcending traditional patriarchal frameworks.
Paul and Women
“The man is the head of the woman and the home.”
This phrase is a familiar refrain, often delivered with divine finality at Christian weddings. Of course, the idea is not new for a couple—it has been absorbed over years of teaching and reinforced through sermons, family norms, and church culture. But what if this foundational message is, at best, incomplete—or at worst, a misreading? The dominant framework for Christian marriage rests heavily on the writings of the Apostle Paul, whose epistles are frequently cited as the authoritative blueprint for household structure. But have we engaged his letters carefully, contextually, and with the interpretive humility they demand? Since so much weight is placed on Paul’s words, it is only fitting to begin where so many start and end—with Paul. Consider the following:
Galatians 3:27-29 ESV
[27] For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. [28] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. [29] And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
It is vital to begin with why Paul wrote the letter to the Galatians. Galatia was a Roman province in central Asia Minor, today’s central Turkey. Paul took the message about Jesus to this area and helped establish the church during his three missionary journeys. Some years later, some “agitators” – likely Jewish Christians – began to teach the Galatians that they must do more to inherit the promise. In other words, these agitators claimed that Jesus was not enough. They wanted the Gentile Galatians to embrace some aspects of Jewish mysticism involving the observance of special days (4:10), circumcision (5:2), and general Torah-observing (5:4). None of these things is wrong per se – after all, the church today continues to do them selectively: we mark Easter and Christmas, boys get circumcised, and we select what portions of Torah we like. The problem was doing them because they believed they would add to what Jesus had done and complete their redemption.
Paul was annoyed and gave a three-part argument. He begins by reminding the Galatians that there is only one gospel and that should any human or angel teach another version, that person or angel is cursed (1:6-9). Next, he tells his audience that the gospel he preached to them was not obtained from a human but that he received it directly by a revelation of Jesus (1:11 – 12). (See our extended treatment of this topic here.) Then, crucially, he tells the Galatians that the gospel he preached is precisely what Peter and the other pillars in the Jerusalem Church also preached (1:18 – 2:10).
Paul ensured to mention that on one occasion while visiting the pillars of the Jerusalem church, he had an uncircumcised gentile, Titus, with him (2:3). He brought Titus up because nobody in the Jerusalem church thought a gentile needed to be circumcised to be a Christian properly. So, the guys who walked with Jesus for three and a half years – and one of them knew Jesus for over 30 years – and who began to proclaim the gospel message in his name did not think Titus needed circumcision in service of the gospel. The implication is that the agitators in the Galatian church are fraudsters with an inauthentic “gospel.” They neither got their gospel from Jesus nor church pillars. As Paul says, they are “false believers” who “had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves” (2:4). These agitators wanted to uphold a distinction Jesus had nullified – circumcised vs uncircumcised. And no, it was not merely about phallus mutilation. It was about ethnicity and race. “Circumcised” meant Jews. Circumcision was a Jewish thing.
Here is the context in which Paul provided the quote relevant to our subject. Interestingly, Paul could have restricted himself and said, “In Christ Jesus, there is neither circumcised (or Jew) nor uncircumcised (i.e., Gentiles).” No, he did not restrict himself to only this category. There are other dividing categories Jesus is dissolving:
Galatians 3:28 NIV
[28] There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Paul says that male and female categories do not count in Christ. Race, gender, political status, ethnicity, and the like are never grounds for disqualifying (or qualifying) anyone. The point is that in Christ, we no longer relate or define one another by gender. The only category that matters is the new creation Jesus ushered in.
This idea opposes the traditional Christian marriage narrative that erects a hierarchical structure with the man on the top. Think about it from the woman’s viewpoint. A single Christian woman has the same status as any Christian man in Christ until she marries. Then, she becomes inferior in status. Indeed, a typical preacher is aware of the problem Galatians 3:28 poses for the traditional marital narrative. Hence, the usual pulpit answer is, “In Christ, there’s neither male nor female, but in marriage, there is a man and a woman.” This formulaic response is, however, very problematic. It implies that “in Christ” does not include Christian marital unions. The man is in Christ, and so is the woman, but their union is not. That is quite bizarre.
Preachers teach that “man is the head” of a family because they believe the Bible teaches the idea. We indeed find this idea in some of Paul’s letters. But as we shall demonstrate shortly, Paul arguably did not teach this idea. Also, I know some couples have fashioned excellent marriages under the prevailing theological beliefs; indeed, the traditional way may be most suitable for some couples. But I worry that the vertical marriage structure is anti-Christ. I do not mean that it is devilish with “666” on its forehead. I merely mean to say it does not represent Christ well. It can and has been oppressive to women. It is also an excellent recipe for making a narcissist out of a man.
Let me offer an example of how the traditional view can be oppressive to women in often overlooked family planning conversations. In many households, the responsibility for contraception tends to fall disproportionately on women. This usually means undergoing more invasive and potentially risky interventions. One of them is tubal ligation—a surgical procedure that requires anesthesia and recovery time. When not opting for surgery, women may rely on intrauterine devices (IUDs) or hormonal birth control pills, both of which carry potential side effects, including but not limited to uterine perforation, ectopic pregnancy, mood disturbances, increased risk of blood clots, and, in rare cases, cardiovascular complications. While these risks can often be reduced through proper screening and medical support, they remain part of the physical and emotional toll many women bear in managing fertility.
By contrast, vasectomy—an outpatient procedure for men—offers a comparably effective method of contraception with significantly lower medical risk. It is minimally invasive, more affordable, and typically completed in under 15 minutes with local anesthesia. The most concerning long-term complication, which is rare, is chronic scrotal pain. Given the lower risk profile and comparable effectiveness, vasectomy can be a more equitable and medically prudent choice for families. Yet, this option is often a non-starter because of traditional gender roles and theological-cultural assumptions about who should carry the burden of contraception.
The key reason for exploring this subject is a worry that we may not be treating half of the human population as Jesus might want us to. Centuries of Christian socialization claim that God designed men as the head and that, thus, women are not being maltreated in their subordinate roles; they are merely playing the supporting roles divinely assigned to them. But is that so? Let us now interact with relevant passages upon which the traditional marital edifice is erected to see what we can learn. We begin from the beginning.
What Exactly Does Genesis 2 Teach?
As argued at length elsewhere, Genesis 2 does not teach that woman was created for man. We cannot rehash the arguments here but will give a high-level summary. Below are crucial points emerging from Genesis 2:
Hebrew Grammar Rules
Just as in English, a proper noun does not follow the definite article; the same is true in Biblical Hebrew. For instance, a competent speaker would not say, “I saw the Ade over there under the tree.” Ade, being someone’s name, doesn’t require a definite article.
Why does that matter? In Genesis 2, the word “adam” serves multiple functions. Ordinarily, the word means “human.” However, the account also uses the word as a proper name for the male human in the story. Interestingly, this latter word use does not occur until verses 22-23 in the story. However, sloppy English translations, perhaps influenced by the patriarchy in the air, have given the wrong impression. Consider the following:
Genesis 2:7 NIV
Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
In Hebrew, the text literally says, “formed ‘the’ adam.” The problem is that in English storytelling, you cannot introduce a new character with “the” or readers would wonder if the character was introduced earlier. Also, translating “adam” as “man” is interpretive. It is true that “man” can sometimes mean “human” in English, but it is a word that privileges one gender over the other; hence, “woman” never means “human”. It is a word that has suggested to readers over centuries that the creature God made was a human with a phallus. Once again, the story does not introduce gender terms until verse 23.
Ezer – “Help meet”
Various versions struggle with translating the Hebrew word used to describe the woman God was going to fashion out of the human he had made. The King James versions say, “Help meet.” The NIV says “suitable helper,” the ESV says “fit helper,” and the CSB says “corresponding helper.” What’s up with these subtle variations?
The Hebrew word “ezer” means “helper” or “help.” Now, whereas the word often brings up images of professional cleaners or house help in our minds, the opposite was often the case in biblical times. Yahweh himself is often described as an ezer of humans in the Hebrew Bible:
Psalm 30:10 ESV
[10] Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me! O LORD, be my helper!”
Psalm 54:4 ESV
[4] Behold, God is my helper; the LORD is the upholder of my life.
In both verses, God is described with the same root word used to describe the woman in the garden. So, if “helper” suggests subordination or lower status to us, it may be because our lived reality differs from the context of the Genesis 2 passage. Indeed, Genesis 2 qualifies “ezer” with another word, perhaps to prevent readers from believing that the woman was superior! The qualifying compound Hebrew word is “kenegdo,” which Richard Middleton, an Old Testament scholar and creation theology specialist, says “conveys the sense of being face-to-face with an equal” (153). One of the most unfortunate things that has happened to theology is that people have used a text that almost suggests one thing to establish the opposite. The woman being the man’s helper doesn’t connote inferiority.
The Power of Naming
Even in our day, we still recognize the power of naming. Usually, the superior person does the naming. (Think of the Gulf of Mexico/America naming fight.) Here is Genesis 2:19:
Genesis 2:19 ESV
Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
The adam names the animals because he is ontologically superior. God was not even going second-guess whatever the adam came up with. Notice, however, that the same is not true for the pre-Fall woman:
Genesis 2:21-23 ESV
[21] So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. [22] And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. [23] Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Here is where we finally get gendered language in the text. Notice the following crucial points:
A. The woman was not brought to the man for naming. So, whatever power and right the human exercised over the animals doesn’t apply here.
B. The man’s description of the new partner does not constitute naming. “Woman” (“isha” in Hebrew) is a gendered term. This strongly suggests that what is happening in this scene is a recognition. The man, Adam, recognized another creature that was suitable and fit in ways the animals in the Garden were not. It’s after the Fall that the woman will finally be named Eve.
Material Cause Argument
It is sometimes suggested that the human in the Garden was male and that the woman derived from him. A verse from Paul is often used to buttress this point: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:13 ESV). This text appears to assert that the first human God created was male, with the woman subsequently deriving from him. In this reading, the woman would exist for the man; she would be created for the man.
However, things are not that straightforward. First, as we have seen, the exegesis of Genesis 2, in its own literary terms, does not paint the picture of the woman being subordinate. Second, if we grant the argument that 1 Timothy 2:13 suggests at face value, we have a new problem. If we say that because the woman was made from the man, she is subordinate, then the man and woman would be subordinate to the dirt on the earth’s surface. Why? Because the man was formed from the dirt. Indeed, there is a sense in which the man was formed, not created, first: the time interval when God took a rib from the human he had created to fashion the woman. This would be the sense in which the man was formed first. It does not follow, however, that, she is subordinate. (See our lengthy entry addressing 1 Timothy 2 in detail here.) On the evidence of Genesis 2 itself, the woman is not inferior. The first human was plausibly a genderless being until the woman was split from “it.” Then, the words of Genesis 1:27 become true.
Paul on Marriage in 1 Corinthians 11: The Man is the Head?
As mentioned earlier, Paul’s letters contain the idea that the man is the head. His letters to the Corinthians, the Ephesians, and the Colossians feature this idea. But if our argument is correct that Genesis 2 doesn’t teach the inferiority of the woman, what then is Paul doing, and how do we proceed?
I suggest we do so with care. Let us begin by driving home a point we often forget nowadays. Paul’s writings are personal letters. The eternal truth about such documents is that the writer could take common knowledge shared with the recipients for granted precisely because they are personal. If I wrote a letter to my wife that later became a public document and contained words like Sebi, Nana, Kibena, and Roary, only a handful of people would know what these things mean. In the letter, I would not feel a need to explain these terms, either, because I would know the recipient knew what they meant.
The same applies to Paul. Take the Corinthians correspondence, for example. What we call 1 Corinthians was a letter Paul wrote in response to an earlier letter the Corinthians wrote him. That now-lost Corinthian letter itself might have been a response to a yet even earlier letter. Both parties had intimate knowledge of the background of the matters being discussed – details essential for complete understanding, which we now often cannot be sure about. So, I meant every word when I said we should proceed with care.
Besides, 1 Corinthians 11 is one of the most challenging passages in the New Testament. Indeed, if we begin with the assumption that Paul asserts (or teaches) everything in this chapter, there is no escaping the fact that the image of Paul that emerges is one of an embarrassingly incompetent Pharisee who could not even correctly handle an elementary doctrine from the first page of his Bible. This conclusion would emerge from the text itself, not an outside ideology. I have written a longer blog entry on this chapter and can now only selectively interact with it. Consider the following:
1 Corinthians 11:3-6 ESV
[3] But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. [4] Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, [5] but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. [6] For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head.
There is much to unpack here, but I must be selective. Readers interested in a more detailed treatment should see our more thorough treatment here. Below are some central points to bear in mind:
Woman or wife?
The exegetical challenge begins with Paul’s word choices. Koine Greek, the old Greek Paul wrote in did not have separate words for “wife” and “woman.” The same is true for man and husband. Scholars, therefore, rely on context to determine the best translation. In this chapter, however, there are no decisive reasons to pick one meaning to the exclusion of the other. In many instances, “woman” is just as appropriate as “wife.” This is why some translations use “wife” in verse 3.
The chapter says in verse 4 that if a man prays or prophesies with his head covered, he dishonors his head. (Oh, Paul’s word choices here could also be translated to refer to hair length or hair style rather than head covering, another complication.) Now, verse 3 informs us who/what the head of every man is: Jesus Christ. So, a praying man with an uncovered head dishonors Jesus.
Verse 5 then says every wife (or woman – remember the word can mean wife or woman) who prays with uncovered head dishonors her head. But again, verse 3 tells us who a woman’s head is: a man. So, when a woman (or wife) prays with an uncovered head, her offense is less weighty because she sins only against another human. Recall that when the man does it, he sins against Jesus. It is interesting to note that the ESV’s choice of going with “wife” in verse 5 conceals a problem. If we go with “woman,” as some translations do, it wouldn’t be clear what man the praying woman dishonors. If she were unmarried, it couldn’t be a husband. And if her daddy was deceased, it can’t be her daddy either. Dead people tend to not care about honour.
Now, here is where things get interesting (or confusing – take a pick). Even though the praying man with an uncovered head sins against Jesus, we don’t read additional comments spelling out the weight of his offense. But when the woman does it, we read:
“For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. [7] For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.”
Two observations are worth making here. First, the opposite of verse 6 seems to be true in many church cultures today. Also, in some cultures today, it is not disgraceful for a woman to sport short hair. When I was a boy, it was not atypical for girls in my socioeconomic bracket to have their hair cut very short. This observation suggests that whatever this passage addressed was peculiar to that Corinthian culture and time. Second, all over the world today, people actually carry on church services without caring one bit whether a woman covers her head, regardless of the length of her hair. In other words, many church traditions implicitly grant that it is challenging to establish such doctrines from this passage. They decided to err on humility, love, and respect for women’s dignity. Verses 7 to 10 have a direct bearing on our subject:
1 Corinthians 11:7-10 ESV
[7] For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. [8] For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. [9] Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. [10] That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.
Verse 7 says that man is uniquely God’s image and glory while woman is man’s glory. Apparently, this is so because of a particular way of reading the Genesis 2 creation/marital passage: the woman was made both from and for the man. So, it looks like it is the man’s show, and the woman is merely a supporting minor character. But this is problematic for many reasons. First, this reading goes against Genesis 1:27 ESV:
“So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.”
Second, the idea that the woman is subordinate because she derived from the man does not work with 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Genesis 2. If the man is the head because she came from him, then Christ cannot be the head of the man, as verse 3 says. Why? The man did not derive from Christ but from dirt in Genesis. Besides, the idea that Christ is uniquely a man’s head – and not the woman’s – seems to be a phallus-respecting gospel we do not get from Jesus or even Paul in historical accounts like Acts and the four Gospels. Lastly, Paul seems to undercut this idea anyway ultimately:
1 Corinthians 11:11-12 ESV
[11] Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; [12] for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.
Things get even more interesting. Given all that we have read thus far in this passage, one would expect a different answer to the question asked in verse 13:
1 Corinthians 11:13 ESV
Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered?
We have read how the man is the woman’s glory and head. We also read how a woman praying with an uncovered head dishonors her head, a man, and that this was a bad idea that even some policing angels care about. So, when we come to this question asking whether it’s proper for a woman to pray with an uncovered head, we expect a resounding NO! But the opposite is what the passage claims:
1 Corinthians 11:14-15 ESV
[14] Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, [15] but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering.
WHAT?! The passage used 13 verses to lead us in one direction, only for the final verses to make a volte-face. Paul says here that the woman doesn’t need to cover her head when praying because her hair is a good enough covering. Oh, one more thing. Paul also couches a little easy-to-miss detail here, too. Verse 15 says the woman’s hair is her glory – not a man or husband. Furthermore, Paul also seems to put his feet down on this conclusion firmly:
1 Corinthians 11:16 ESV
If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.
He says that his ruling concerning a woman’s hair being a sufficient covering and her glory is the correct ruling embraced by all the churches.
So, What’s up with this Chapter?
As I said earlier, 1 Corinthians 11 is one of the most difficult passages to exegete. However, scholars have fleshed out the contour lines of what likely happened in Corinth. It seems like the men in that church sought a theological grounding for wanting their women, especially wives, to behave one way or the other. They found an answer in the Genesis narrative. Though we often read Genesis as a creation narrative, it is also a marriage narrative, etiologically explaining why a man leaves his parents to unite with his wife. It also seems like some of the Corinthian men’s theological reasoning may have been informed or influenced by Paul’s teaching. They misunderstood the teaching but were at least trying to live it out. This observation explains why Paul was diplomatic in this passage compared to how he addressed the Galatians (“O Ye foolish Galatians”), who were quickly deserting the very center of the Gospel message.
One key hypothesis emerging from scholarship is that this letter and this passage are full of quotes from the Corinthians. The debate now concerns identifying which parts are Paul’s and which portions are the Corinthians’. It may help the reader to remember that when Paul wrote this letter, quotation marks were not yet invented. See the blog entry for examples of Corinthian quotes in the letter that scholars have recognized.
We may not use this letter to argue against the reading of Genesis 2 defended earlier. Genesis 2’s own literary evidence supports that reading. The argument from derivation in the 1 Corinthians 11 passage is quite feeble. We may not say the woman is subordinate because she derived from the man since that would subordinate the man to the dirt on the earth’s surface. Paul closes the chapter by saying the woman’s hair – not a husband or daddy – is her glory. As we shall see later, Paul is undermining the Greco-Roman idea of a man being the head of the woman.
Finally, the traditional reading of the argument of this passage does not paint Paul in good colors. First, if we begin with the assumption that everything in this chapter consists of Paul’s teaching, then we get a misogynistic apostle who was strangely uncomfortable and inconsistent in his misogyny. Second, notice the language in verse 7 that says man “is the image and glory of God.” This is close but not quite what Genesis says. In Genesis, the humans were said to be made in “God’s image and likeness” – not “image and glory.” So, we either have to believe that Paul misquoted a basic idea from page 1 of his Bible or, more likely, this is a claim the Corinthians made that Paul gently corrected in verses 11 and 12.
Ephesians 5: Paul Masterfully Dismantled Male Superiority
Let us begin by considering a historically relevant event in Sub-Saharan Africa. The New Testament preserves evidence of Black people being part of the Jesus movement. Acts 13:1 tells us that Black men were teachers and prophets in the church before Paul properly began his ministry. Nevertheless, it does not seem like that initial wave penetrated the interior of Africa. Particularly, it did not seem to have traveled to Sub-Saharan Africa. I often entertain a counterfactual question: what might have happened had Paul taken his gospel message to Sub-Saharan Africa? Specifically, what might Paul have said about the prevalent and acceptable practice of polygamy in the land? One cannot be sure about things like this, but we have enough sprinkles in Paul’s letters to make an educated guess. Consider the following:
1 Corinthians 7:20-22 ESV
[20] Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. [21] Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.) [22] For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ.
Surely, Paul knew that being free is better than being enslaved. Indeed, he would later write a letter to a slave-owner who had become a Christian to forgive and accept a runaway slave not as an enslaved person but as a fellow brother in Christ. Yet, in this passage, Paul charges enslaved people (and everyone else) not to be overly concerned about their present status in life. However, he made sure to tell the enslaved people to grasp any opportunity to end their enslavement. But if such opportunities didn’t exist, he wanted slaves not to be overly concerned. What was he thinking, and what’s the logic?
Paul discovered and embraced the slow-but-steady approach in ministry. He knew it would take a while for people to be transformed and then, in turn, transform their cultures. In the meantime, Paul planted seeds in people and waited, hoping for a proper harvest in due season. Besides, there are practical and political reasons behind his ministry’s approach, too. Paul could not have gone around overtly saying slavery was bad and must be abolished. That would be unwise because it would amount to fighting multiple battles simultaneously. The Apostles had already crossed the boundaries by preaching that Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord. Everyone else knew that Caesar was the Lord of heaven and earth. So, the message of Jesus being Lord was politically charged. But, at least in the early days, it was also a message the Empire could ignore. Jews had special privileges in the Empire, where they were allowed to worship their God (and not Caesar) but then prayed for Caesar. So, the message from Jews that another executed but resurrected Jew was Lord wouldn’t have been too threatening. Indeed, as Paul realized, it was foolish to proclaim an executed man as your Lord. The Empire could look away.
But an overt message against slavery (or any other core component of the Empire) would have been a different reality. Much like in the United States, the entire Greco-Roman economy and politics depended on it. Unlike in the US, where some rapacious elements invented the idea of slavery for gains ad hoc, the Romans always believed that slavery was a necessary design of nature, at least as far back as Aristotle. While a battle worth fighting, that was not a good time to fight slavery. Remember also that at that time, Christians were a minority in the Greco-Roman world. They might have been less than 8 % with no sympathizers in the government.
So, what would Paul have done in Sub-Saharan Africa? The same thing he did in the Roman Empire. It is unlikely he would have condemned polygamy, even though he would not have thought polygamy was ideal for believers. (For Paul and Jesus, the ideal marital status is singlehood, not monogamy. See our entry here.) Almost certainly, he would not have torn families apart in Jesus’s name like the European missionaries did when they required the married men to divorce all their wives except one. He would have preached Jesus and taught the people to observe the golden rule, leaving the rest to the Spirit. Indeed, this was how Paul handled things in Ephesus and Colossae.
Churchgoers are familiar with the Household Codes passages in Paul’s letters, and the Ephesians version is likely the best known. However, the traditional Greco-Roman family structure is generally less well-known among churchgoers. At least 400 years before Paul was born, the Greeks (and later the Romans) built their city-states around a family structure consisting of a man, one wife, children, and enslaved people. In his Politics, Aristotle argued why this was the best way to order a family and society. (For more detail, see our entry here.) In other words, apostle Paul did not have any fresh revelation about the family structure when he wrote to the Ephesians and Colossians.
This point is worth reiterating. When Paul says the Greco-Roman husband/man was the head of the woman, he momentarily agrees with what the Greco-Roman man already knew, believed, and practiced. Greco-Roman men generally understood their headship over women as a natural and hierarchical authority rooted in philosophical, legal, and social traditions. Influenced by thinkers like Aristotle and Stoic ideals, they believed that men were rational, self-controlled, and fit to rule. At the same time, women were emotionally driven and needed guidance. In the household, the man held legal and moral authority over his wife, children, and slaves. He was expected to govern wisely, maintain order, and uphold family honor. This headship was seen as a duty and a sign of masculine virtue.
So, the Greco-Roman family structure, contrary to the impression churches generally give, was an asymmetric and terrible arrangement for the inferiors, especially women and slaves. Indeed, the women were only marginally better than slaves. The family structure maligned women, saying they were irrational, emotionally driven, unfit to rule, and needing guidance. However, readers should note that women in the Greco-Roman world generally married at 14 or 15, while men married at about 30. In other words, by today’s standards, the wives were children when they married. They were still adjusting to the new reality of hormonal assaults in their bodies. So, it should be no surprise that they would be emotional and need the guidance of their older and more experienced husbands! That is the way the system was designed. Hence, it is patriarchal gaslighting to blame women for turning out the way the system intended them to turn out. It is also interesting to point out that centuries before the Greeks, women ruled in Egypt. The Egyptian women were rational and ruled. The Egyptians did not discriminate against women.
It is important to stress that the Greco-Roman man was the traditional head of his household. By “head,” I mean he had the power of life and death over his family. He had the patria potestas. Furthermore, the family structure legally recognized one wife, but this did not mean the men were faithful to one woman. Indeed, the opposite was culturally expected. The Greco-Roman man was not even required to love his wife and often slept with whomever he wanted – male and female. In Greek culture, pederasty was practiced as a form of education for young men. So, a man would leave his wife at home and would have sex with boys away from the house. And all of this was culturally acceptable. The women knew their men were sleeping with boys. It was just the way things were. It is crucial to spell out all these background details so readers may better understand what Paul did in the Household Rules he laid down for the Ephesians (and Colossians).
In Ephesians 5:22 – 6:9, Paul characteristically sought to redeem for Jesus the Greco-Roman family structure that undergirded the whole society. He was not going to bulldoze the structure, but he would strategically undermine it by baptizing it into Jesus. I have written on this matter before, but I will briefly dwell on the relevant portions here:
Ephesians 5:22-24 ESV
[22] Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. [23] For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. [24] Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
These are very strong words. Paul admonishes Christian Greco-Roman wives to submit to their husbands as to the Lord. What is going on here?
First, notice that Paul has not said anything here that the wives did not already know society expected of them. The women knew that men had patria potestas, the father’s power, over them. On the contrary, Paul has given Greco-Roman Christian women a good reason to do what is required of them. Now, and this is very important, this does not mean Paul prescribes this for all Christian women for all time in all cultures. It does not even imply Paul thought it was a fair practice.
Verse 23 is directly relevant to our subject. Paul repeats what we saw in 1 Corinthians 11: “the husband is the head of the wife.” By saying this, Paul has not said anything novel. Greco-Roman husbands were heads of their homes before Paul was born. But again, we notice how Paul immediately subsumes the Roman family structure under Christ: “as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” He will soon flesh out the logic, but he is here preparing the ground for what he would say and require of the Christian Greco-Roman husbands. If the traditional Roman husband is the head of the wife, Paul wants the Christian Roman man to henceforth be a head as Jesus is the head of the church – and that is a scandalous and anti-cultural request. Why? As Paul would soon explicitly clarify, Jesus died for his church! So, though the non-Christian Roman man was not even required to love his wife, Paul here asks Christian Roman men to be prepared to die for their wives:
Ephesians 5:25-30 ESV
[25] Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, [26] that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, [27] so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. [28] In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. [29] For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, [30] because we are members of his body.
First, let us not lose sight of the overall result of this logic. Paul has not asked the women anything more than the culture already required, but he is asking the Roman husbands to go far beyond what is required of them. In a real, practical sense, Paul asks the husbands to stop being the heads in the traditional sense. Paul has redefined what headship means. Whereas the conventional Greco-Roman conception of headship was simply the exercise of political power within the household, Paul here asks the men to stop being that and, instead, look to Jesus as a new and better model.
Second, the language of verses 28 and 29 is reminiscent of Jesus’s golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Paul has masterfully required the husbands to get off the pedestal their culture placed them on and to stop thinking of themselves more highly than they ought to. He seems to be trying to bring the man down to where he truly belongs—at the same level as the woman. He tells the men in verse 30 that they and their wives are now members of the same body whose head is Jesus, and no other. Of course, as he tells the Galatians, there is no male or female in Christ; instead, we are all one in him, and he alone is the head. It is an excellent and masterful way of undermining and redeeming a culture for Christ.
One more point is worth noting in this passage. Just as it is true for the 1 Corinthians 11 passage we explored earlier, we see that Genesis 2 is also behind Paul’s thinking in Ephesians 5. Interestingly, however, we do not read the down-letting, arguably misogynistic, and text-unfaithful idea that the woman was made for the man. (This is another reason to suspect that this language in 1 Corinthians 11 is not Paul’s.) Instead, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24:
Ephesians 5:31 ESV
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
It is interesting that this is the verse Paul used here because it is a verse that could suggest power asymmetry in favor of the woman. The man, not the woman, leaves his parents to become one with the woman. Perhaps to avoid such a misunderstanding, Paul quickly offers an application informed by the golden rule:
Ephesians 5:33 ESV
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Here we are, then. This very famous passage may have been largely misunderstood. Paul is not here prescribing what a Christian marriage should look like. Instead, he prescribed what a Christian Greco-Roman marriage ought to look like. He is inserting Jesus into a cultural norm with the hope of redemption. Paul deliberately adapted Greco-Roman ethical discourse, using familiar paraenetic (moral exhortation) forms while subverting them through a Christ-centered ethic. Instead of the familiar domination, Paul urged mutual love and submission. Paul has completely undermined the Greco-Roman conception of headship through Jesus.
Practical Life Applications
So, what does God and Paul expect of marriages today? The headship language was “forced” on Paul because of the context in which he engaged. He had to interact with the culture as it was. In other words, “headship” is incidental to Paul’s message to the Ephesian church. The goal was Jesus and how the church could become more like him. Paul does not want non-Greco-Roman men to be “heads” of women in 2025. We have had women presidents, heads of government, directors, and CEOs. Surely, women can rule, and the assumptions behind the Greco-Roman family structure have since been proven false. Aristotle might have been sincere, but there is nothing natural or divine about the roles assigned to women and enslaved people in Greece. As it turned out, the ability to govern is not connected to a phallus. And, of course, no sane person argues for slavery today.
Many Christian couples are already figuring things out in real-time. I aim to provide Scripture-driven permission so people can do what God may want for them. I’m convinced that it is okay to do marriage differently—as long as you do it in a way that honors God and strengthens your relationship. Couples do not have to follow a script written by tradition or culture. They do not even have to follow what worked for their parents. What matters is that a man and a woman walk in unity, love, and wisdom—leaning into each other’s strengths without being bound by rigid, gender-based roles.
I have seen men who are incredible cooks—some even professionally trained—yet they are expected to step back so the woman can “own the kitchen”? Why? If he is gifted and willing, and she would rather focus her energy elsewhere, why not flip the script? Likewise, if the woman is more career-driven and the man is content and capable of nurturing the home and raising the kids, let him thrive in that role. There is no shame in doing what works—there is only grace in obedience. Society, not the Bible, teaches that men ought to be the breadwinners. Paul expects women in 1 Timothy 5:16 to care for their family financially, and women financed both Jesus’s and Paul’s ministries (See Romans 16:1-3 and Luke 8:1-3, for example).
God did not assign gifts according to gender. He assigned them according to His purpose. Couples often end up frustrated and out of sync when they try to force each other into roles that ignore their strengths. But something powerful happens when they make space for each other’s God-given abilities and approach marriage as a team. So, pray together. Communicate often. Get creative. Seek God for wisdom as you navigate your unique path. Blow off the lids that restrict strengths and highlight weaknesses. Do not try to mimic someone else’s marriage—build your own. And as you do, aim not to be traditional or trendy, but faithful.
Work Cited
Middleton, J. R. “From Primal Harmony to a Broken World: Distinguishing God’s Intent for Life from the Encroachment of Death in Genesis 2–3.” Earnest: Interdisciplinary Work Inspired by the Life and Teachings of Benjamin Titus Roberts, edited by Andrew C. Koehl and David Basinger, chap. 7, Pickwick, 2017, pp. 145–73.
