They told me I was equal, but trained me to be subordinate

How 'The Marriage You Want' can help us learn partnership instead of hierarchy

I was just 22 when I learned I wouldn’t really matter in marriage.

My fiancé and I were college seniors, excitedly planning a wedding for after graduation. As we worked on papers and final exams, we met for premarital counseling with the pastor of our college church. He gave us a book to guide our discussions: “Reforming Marriage,” by a pastor from Idaho named Doug Wilson.

The book opens with what sounds like a beautiful goal: a call to create a Christ-like “spiritual aroma” in your home, one that would come from a healthy marriage.

All family relationships will depend on the health of the marriage, Wilson writes, “and the key is found in how the husband is treating his wife.” (pg. 10)

I wish I’d stopped reading right there, just a few paragraphs into the book. But I was too young and lacking discernment to see what was really happening on the pages in front of me.

Photo by Gianni Scognamiglio on Unsplash

All that matters in a marriage is how a husband treats his wife. In other words, who she is and what she does is insignificant.

You may wonder if I’m reading far too much into a single phrase — surely Wilson isn’t really saying that only the husband matters?

I wish I were exaggerating. But on page after page, Wilson almost exclusively addresses his remarks to men, while making it clear there is a hierarchy of value and purpose before God. God calls men to do important work, and calls women to help them: “the man is established by God as the authority in the home. Under God, he is defined by the work to which he is called, while she is defined by the man to whom she is called.” (pg. 30)

As a result of this, Wilson explains, women are to bear children “for” their husbands, to have sex frequently enough that the men will be protected from sexual temptation, to be “disciples” of their husbands rather than learning about the Bible on their own.¹ A woman must submit to her husband at all times, even when she knows more or is stronger than her husband in a particular area, and should be careful never to usurp his spiritual leadership — which means she shouldn’t even encourage him to be a spiritual leader if he’s failing in that area.²

Because he is the leader and authority, she should never directly address anything he does that offends her, but should ask for his permission to speak about it first. (pg. 95) If he thinks she asks her father for advice too often, she must stop. (pg. 83) She ought not speak to a counselor about their marriage without his knowledge. (pg. 81) She is called to primarily be a homemaker, and if the burden of childbearing and housework gets to be too much, she should not complain, because this is “fruitfulness.”³

A wife should understand that her husband is her “lord.” After all, “(God) has created us as male and female in such a way as to ensure that men will always be dominant in marriage.” (pg. 24)

There’s plenty more where that came from, but you get the idea. And if you’re not familiar with Wilson and his teachings, you may be wondering why I didn’t just throw the book in the trash. But I couldn’t see how bad it was.

Toxic teachings are hard to see under ‘Biblical truths’

The 22-year-old me couldn’t recognize the unhealthiness of Wilson’s teaching, because what’s summarized above was surrounded by plenty of language that softened and obscured the overall message of male dominance.

Wilson is careful to explain that men should not be tyrants in the home, but instead practice “loving and constructive dominion.” His repeated calls for men to take responsibility in the home can sound healthy — and are, at least in part — except that while doing this he continually diminishes and dehumanizes women.

We were still kids when we read this, kids who knew very little of the Bible and who were just starting to get into reformed theology, with a desire to study and apply the scriptures more diligently. We were easily taken in by Wilson’s appeal to “creation order” and traditional values, along with his use of Bible verses and straw-man arguments against modern marriage and feminism.

And if “Reforming Marriage” had been the only time I encountered these ideas, they may not have had much of an effect on me.

But what Doug Wilson introduced before I was even married created my mental framework for “Christian marriage,” one that other pastors and authors added to over the years. The concepts and vocabulary in “Reforming Marriage” — headship, submission, creation order, love and respect, spiritual leadership, etc. — were reiterated to me by many more well-known teachers, and almost all of our pastors.

Some of you may be familiar with Doug Wilson, and dismiss him as an extremist (which he is) who doesn’t represent mainstream evangelicalism. Some of you may have never heard of him, and are wondering how he made an impact.⁴

The problem isn’t Wilson alone, as offensive and absurd as he can be. The problem is how mainstream evangelical speakers and teachers conveyed the same messages — of male dominance and “headship,” female submission and insignificance — only in softer, more marketable language.

They may have discussed marriage as a “partnership,” but the practices they taught didn’t encourage us to actually relate as partners.

Christian marriage means playing a ‘role’

I decided to dig up our old copy of “Reforming Marriage” recently, after finishing Sheila Gregoire’s excellent new book, “The Marriage You Want.” The most important theme of the book (to me) is partnership. It encourages the reader to think of marriage as something you and your spouse are creating together, rather than a relationship where each person is called to a separate role and behaviors based on gender.

This encouraged me, but also left me wondering: why is this so different from what I’ve always been taught? Shouldn’t I expect to hear marriage described as a partnership?

There’s also a study guide version, which could be great for small groups.

These questions prompted me to look back through the Christian marriage books we still have. By now, I knew enough about Doug Wilson and was prepared for the worst. But as I skimmed through his book, I realized he wasn’t all that far out of the mainstream. Wilson’s teaching was essentially the same as what I heard from names such as John Piper, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, and a host of other teachers, along with the infamous “Love and Respect,” which I read during a difficult season in our marriage.

These authors share the same essential framework for teaching about marriage. It is not a partnership of equals. As a man, my husband was called to be a leader in our marriage, in our family, and in the world. As a woman, it was my privilege to be his helper.

These Christian teachings on marriage may have talked about partnership as a concept, but they didn’t encourage us to actually live as partners. Instead, we had “leadership” and “submission.” We had “roles.”

Here are just a few examples of how husbands were consistently prioritized in the Christian resources recommended to us:

• “God’s remedy for a man’s thirst for sex is sex – overflowing sexual joy with his wife … A man’s wife is his own personal, divinely approved wellspring of endless sexual satisfaction.” (Ray Ortlund, “Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel,” 2016)

• “What of a case where both parties cannot agree, but some kind of decision must be made? Someone must have the right to cast the deciding vote and (thus) take the greater responsibility for the decision. This should be the place where the one the Bible calls ‘head’ [the husband] takes the accountability.” (Tim and Kathy Keller, “The Meaning of Marriage,” 2011, pg. 243)

• John Piper speaks repeatedly of a husband’s “headship” and a wife’s “submission” in sermons and books.

All these concepts were reinforced by Sunday sermons. Headship and submission were woven into every discussion of marriage. Our pastor in North Carolina loved to talk about how this hierarchy allowed “the husband to thrive and the wife to flourish,” a phrase I liked less and less each time I heard it. (A friend and I joked that we didn’t really want to “flourish” like houseplants.)

Over the years, I learned my lesson well: male headship and female submission were the foundation of a God-honoring marriage. What I didn’t realize, however, was how this arrangement trained me to erase myself and my desires, to treat my time as less valuable, to ignore and dismiss my own thoughts and feelings. He was the one with the calling to be a spiritual leader. He was the one who deserved respect as a “servant leader.” It was important that he feel respected; that his needs be met.

This kind of marriage was not a partnership. It was a hierarchy, a corporate structure with the husband as CEO and the wife filling multiple subordinate roles. And despite the many pastors and authors who argued that “headship and submission” means husband and wife are still equals, I took in the implicit message: my husband was more important because he was a man.

It took me nearly 15 years of marriage to start becoming aware of my own beliefs. Complementarian teaching said one thing but did another. I was told explicitly that we were equal partners, but was trained to prioritize my husband’s “needs” while denying my own. (It’s important to mention here that my husband didn’t push these beliefs on me. Unlike him, I had grown up evangelical and was primed to go along with the culture’s practices.)

It wasn’t until 2021, when I read Sheila Gregoire’s “The Great Sex Rescue,” that I began to see some of the problems with what I’d been taught.

That book changed my life⁵, and I’ve recommended it many times over the last few years. But I didn’t realize how many additional layers of unhealthy beliefs I needed to dig up. Gregoire’s new book, “The Marriage You Want,” is helping me identify these while pointing to a better way.

What partnership actually looks like

It’s been surprising to realize that while I believed we were functioning as partners, I’d actually placed myself in a subordinate role in many aspects of marriage. Again, my husband didn’t push me towards this. Instead, it was the combination of unhealthy Christian marriage advice and conservative evangelical culture that set me up to dismiss my own feelings and ignore my own needs, which wasn’t just a “me” problem: a lack of true partnership harms the marriage overall.

If a couple believes the man has “authority over” his wife, they will both suffer because of it. As Sheila Gregoire and her husband Keith explain, “A marriage in which only one person matters is not a thriving marriage because it’s not a true partnership.”⁶

A few of you still reading might argue this isn’t a fair presentation of complementarian teaching: Husbands aren’t “more important;” they’re called to be servant leaders, to sacrifice. Women are just as valuable as men.

I get it. I heard that and believed it, too. But I can’t anymore. Every one of the pastors I mentioned above — and all our pastors over the years, too — always made a point to emphasize that a husband’s headship didn’t allow for abuse, that it shouldn’t encourage a man to be domineering. But a lack of abuse isn’t the same as a healthy marriage.

When a couple’s fundamental assumption is the husband’s automatic, God-ordained, authority over his wife, it creates division instead of unity. It does this even if the husband never takes advantage of his role or abuses his power in any way. Belief in a gender hierarchy within marriage will subtly affect how the spouses interact, training the wife to see herself as less important, less valuable than her husband.⁷ That’s what it did for me, even though we heard nothing but “good” advice about how a husband’s leadership means serving, not domineering.

Following prescribed gender roles prevents both spouses from authentically expressing their own desires, and this disconnect will spill over into decision-making, sex, household chores, childcare, family communication, handling conflict, etc. Playing “roles” in marriage promotes division, not partnership.

Since we read “The Marriage You Want,” my husband and I have been talking about how to improve our partnership. I’m trying to be more attentive to what I want and need, instead of ignoring or suppressing my feelings. I’m asking him for help with things I’d been trained to see as “a woman’s role.”

If marriage is organized around who has power and who needs to submit, we’re going to miss the beautiful opportunities God provides in bringing us together as partners.

As the Gregoires explain:

“Your unique gifts are all part of how God can bless his creation through you, not just as individuals but as a couple. God has a unique calling on your marriage too. And it depends on each of you showing up with your personalities, your strengths and gifts, your interests. You can’t have a thriving marriage if one of you is holding back or trying to be someone you aren’t.”

1

• “…it is the wife’s duty to submit to the will of God and gladly bear children for her husband.”

• “Sexual protection” is one of the purposes of marriage, and “there needs to be quantitative protection, particularly for the husband.”

• “God has given the sexual relationship in marriage as a protection against immorality. It is important that this purpose be remembered, especially by wives. Women have a tendency to be insulted at their husbands' temptations, and an insulted and offended wife is no protection at all.”

• The Bible also teaches that a wife should be a disciple of her husband (1 Cr. 14) A husband should be instructing and teaching his wife. She should not make this duty of his superfluous by going elsewhere for instruction.”

2

• “The husband must be a source of strength to his wife even when she knows far more about something than he does. And even when the wife is stronger than the husband in some area, he must be emotionally and spiritually strong enough to assume responsibility in that area.”

• “Wives must be careful not to try to usurp spiritual leadership in this (Eph 5:24) … Pushing a man to become the spiritual leader will not make him one. He may not be much of a leader, but he is enough of one not to be led into leadership by a woman… a marriage cannot be spiritually consummated if the husband acts the part of a spiritual eunuch. … such spiritual eunuchs are almost always nice guys… As Peter teaches, women need to understand they are being led by a lord. (1 Pet. 3:6)” pg. 78

3. If you’ve been reading these footnotes, you’ve already seen a good sampling of Wilson’s ideas and style. I wanted anyone unfamiliar with him to see I’m not making this stuff up! I’ve attempted to cite page numbers above, but since I don’t want to spend more time in Wilson’s book than I already have(!), I’m going to stop the full quotations here. If you want to know more about a particular quote, feel free to message me.

4. If you’re unfamiliar with Wilson, this article (“Inside the Church that Preaches ‘Wives Need to be led with a firm hand’”) provides an overview of some concerns. There’s also the website “Doug Wilson Says” and the “Examining Doug Wilson and Moscow” account, on X and other social media platforms.

5. My encouraging other women to read “The Great Sex Rescue” was one reason our church in North Carolina decided to, as the lead pastor said, “run me out of town.”

6. Sheila and her team surveyed thousands of couples and used multiple other peer-reviewed studies to assess the impact of specific practices and teachings on marital satisfaction.

7. As the Gregoires explain in The Marriage You Want: “… if he has the final say, then his opinions, for all practical purposes, matter more than hers. While it may not be the intention, this means that the wife’s responsibility is to follow her husband rather than following God directly. We’ve replaced a partnership paradigm with a power paradigm.” (26) … “When people don’t feel that their opinions have as much weight in their marriage as their spouse’s, marriages suffer.” (30) They have the data to back this up.