SUBJECTION IN 1952 w52 8/15 pp. 511-512 Questions from Readers ***
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what extent must a wife be subject to her husband? For example, one sister has her house cluttered with plants, and the husband says if she were properly subject to him she would get rid of them. Another wife invites someone to dinner without consulting the husband, and he objects because he knows nothing of it. Again, a wife corrects her husband at a study, and he objects to her procedure. The Jewish women must have felt very inferior under the dictates of the Talmud. Must we sisters in the truth now feel the same way??M. M., British Columbia, Canada.The full meaning of a married woman?s "subjection" to her husband is something that a married woman who is dutiful would have to experience rather than for us to explain it in all its scope. You mention the "dictates of the Talmud", and that is what we have tried to avoid compiling for married women or for married men by specifying in great detail what they may or should do or not do under this and that circumstance. To our mind the first two examples you raise in your question are good illustrations of how endless it would be to try to compile rules for all circumstances, and shows how we would involve ourselves in rather childish and petty bickerings that should involve no difficulty for married persons in the truth and who are guided by divine principles, rather than wanting a specific definition of their "exact rights". As for a wife correcting her husband at a meeting, this has been specifically answered in the May 1, 1949, Watchtower, particularly in paragraph 27. Good counsel for both husbands and wives is found at Ephesians 5:21-33, 1 Timothy 2:9-15, and 1 Peter 3:1-12.
The expression of subjection is something the wife has to work out for herself, having in mind what the apostle Paul says at Ephesians 5 that she should manifest, namely, "deep respect for her husband." In apostolic writings women of old times are commended for displaying deep respect for their husband because of his theocratic position. Sometimes some expression of subjection may be distasteful to a wife because of the humiliation involved, but if she nonetheless subjects herself, not to please herself and not to please just her husband, but doing it as to the Lord Jesus whose bride she pictures, then she can swallow the humiliation better and know a reasonable reason for it and it becomes a virtue to her, as 1 Peter 3 states.
Wifely subjection, where it hurts, is a thing that a wife brings upon herself by saying, "I do." This is part of the "tribulation in their flesh" that Paul warned marrying couples they would expose themselves to. (1 Cor. 7:28, NW) The apostles say we are to be subject, if slaves, to cantankerous masters as well as to agreeable masters, all for the sake of the recommendation of the truth to our masters as well as to outside observers. The apostles like to link this with child obedience and wife obedience, as Paul did in his letter to the Ephesians, dealing consecutively with wifely subjection, child subjection and slave subjection. (Eph. 5:21?6:9) But in this connection Paul also counseled husbands, showing them that they should guard against being overbearing or unloving toward their wife, but treat her as their own flesh. So wifely obedience is something wives must work out for themselves, but in accord with divine principles and in love.