Christian Marriage

Of course, I am not going to write this post. I am going to allow more adept, more experienced, and more wonderfully verbal people to write it for me. In other words, I am going to exploit some scholars (and some who are not scholars) to say some things that I agree with but that I cannot say with the alacrity with which they speak. So, disclaimer aside, here we go.

First, the text in question:
"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."
Ephesians 5:22-33

Second, a quote from C.S. Lewis:
"Something else, even more unpopular, remains to be dealt with. Christian wives promise to obey their husbands. In Christian marriage the man is said to be the 'head'. Two questions obvoiusly arise here. (1) Why should there be a head at all - why not equality? (2) Why should it be the man?
(1) The need for some head follows from the idea that marriage is permanent. Of course, as long as the husband and wife are agreed, no question of a head need arise; and we may hope that this will be the normal state of affairs in a Christian marriage. But when there is a real disagreement, what is to happen? Talk it over, of course; but I am assuming they have done that and still failed to reach agreement. What do they do next? They cannot decide by a majority vote, for in a council of two, there can be no majority. Surely, only one or other of two things can happen: either they must separate and go their own ways or else one or other of them must have a casting vote. If marriage is permanent, one or other party must, in the last resort, have the power of deciding the family policy. You cannot have a permanent association without a constitution.
(2) If there must be a head, why the man? Well, firstly is there any very serious wish that it should be the woman? As I have said, I am not married myself, but as far as I can see, even a woman who wants to be the head of her own house does not usually admire the same state of things when she finds it going on next door. She is much more likely to say 'Poor Mr X! Why he allows that appalling woman to boss him about the way she does is more than I can imagine.' I do not think she is even very flattered if anyone mentions the fact of her own 'headship'. There must be something unnatural about the rule of wives over husbands, because the wives themselves are half ashamed of it and despise the husbands whom they rule. But there is also another reason; and here I speak quite frankly as a bachelor, because it is a reason you can see from outside even better than from inside. The relations of the family to the outer world - what might be called its foreign policy - must depend, in the last resort, upon the man, because he always ought to be, and usually is, much more just to the outsiders. A woman is primarily fighting for her own children and husband against the rest of the world. Naturally, almost, in a sense, rightly, their claims override, for her, all other claims. She is the special trustee of their interests. The funciton of the husband is to see that this natural preference of hers is not given its head. He has the last word in order to protect other people from the intense family patriotism of the wife. If anyone doubts this, let me ask a simple question. If you dog has bitten the child next door, which woud you sooner have to deal with, the master of that house or the mistress? Or, if you a married woman, let me ask you this question. Much as you admire your husband, would you not say that his chief failing is his tendencey not to stick up for his rights and yours against the neighbors as vigorously as you would like? A bit of an Appeaser?"
That, of course, is not all Lewis has to say on the matter, but I think that it applies to the matter at hand more closely than the rest of his chapter in Mere Christianity about Christian marriage - the matter in question being the submission of the Chrisitian wife, not the state of being in love or the promise made by a marriage 'contract' with which the rest of Lewis' chapter is primarily concerned.

Then, for the sake of brevity, not reproduced in its entirety here, a blog entry that I think succinctly addresses the subject without beating anyone over the head with it. But first, a note from the aforementioned blog to whet everyone's appetite:
"The decision to submit is a voluntary one - it cannot be forced on the wife or husband. It has to be voluntary because it is an expression of obedience to God; and He looks at our heart." (emphasis in original)

Okay, just some food for thought during this wedding season (I feel like I have been to so many weddings in the past few months! And I have more to go to before the year is out!).