In our homes, us Anabaptists have a genre of instructional literature and media produced in the post-feminist era of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Bill Gothard, Michael and Debi Pearl, Denny and Jackie Kenaston–these teachers and others marketed a large amount of material to an audience hungry for tools and corrective theology to respond to the forces they saw threatening their homes. 

These teachers ran a misshapen trifecta of principles: the dominance of the father, the subservience of the wife, and a heavy emphasis on the corporal discipline of children. These ideas, at least the first two, are not without biblical basis. Wives are called to reverence and honor their husbands, fathers are to be obeyed–but these principles only remain virtuous as integrated parts of a much larger whole. When pushed too far, when orphaned from their family of equalizing and balancing truths, they become malformed aberrations empowering a broad spread of dysfunction. 

Debi Pearl, on page 40 of Created to be His Helpmeet tells the story of her husband Michael, who never took out the trash. On this occasion, he had generously offered to carry a heavy trash bag to the trash trailer. He extended his arm, demonstrating his strength, and at the trailer threw the bag up over the side. The bag tore and all the trash scattered on the ground. He kept on walking without a word, and so as not to add insult to his already injured pride, Debi said nothing and picked up his trash.*

Wives, these teachers tell us, must never criticize or challenge their husbands. Criticism will tear him down, cripple his self esteem, and turn him against you. Biblical submission is complete and absolute affirmation and support of all he does, thinks or says. Even when he’s misbehaving.

Here’s Denny Kenaston:

“Almost every one of your homes has a chair or two where your husband sits. I have one in my house. We call it “Papa’s chair”. Everybody in the house knows that I sit in that certain chair… Now to help you understand the meaning of the verse at hand {Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord}, I want to change this imaginary scene a bit. Instead of your husband walking through the door, greeting everyone, and sitting down in his chair to visit, I want you to picture the Lord Jesus Christ in his place….

“Lord, is the tea okay?”

“Well, it is a little hot.”

“Oh I’m sorry, Lord, I will get an ice cube to cool it down”…

“Lord, I have supper on the table. Would you like to eat?”

“Yes, I am hungry. I’m sorry but I have a phone call I need to make. Could you hold the supper a little while until I get done with my phone call?”

“O sure, Lord. I will gladly do that. I’ll just put it back in the oven and keep it warm. You take your time and make your phone call.”

“Thank you for honoring me in this way.”

This is what you would say isn’t it? I don’t think you would even think some of the thoughts that normally go through your mind when your husband makes such a request. All you would think is that the Lord is in your house, and He can do whatever He wants. You would adapt around His desires because He is the Lord. It would be your delight to wait on Him, look to Him, and hang on to His every word.” ¹

Like God, the husband “can do whatever he wants”, while the wife is to “hang onto his every word”. This is the rhetoric of male dominance and female servility found in Pashtun villages of Afghanistan, or an Idaho trailer park.

Leaving the dubious interpretation of “as unto the Lord” aside, this imaginary scene offends the biblical vision of marriage in many ways: the extreme disparities in the relationship, the author’s framing of his wife’s honor in terms of absolute compliance to his every wish, the willingness to co-opt every dimension of her life for his purposes. None of this belongs in a Christ-centered marriage. 

This genre further instructs wives to:

Keep yourself together around him. Hair done up nice, smile on face, voice sweet and low. Any feelings that could disturb him must be concealed. 

Never talk about yourself. Ask him about his day, squeal in girlish admiration as he talks of his exploits and conquests. 

Make him feel good about himself. Tell him how big and strong he is, how he can do anything. Never criticize or challenge him, that is tearing a man down.

Give him he wants, whenever he wants it, especially your body. Men want lots of it, and if they can’t have it they will go elsewhere for it. 

And so on. To best understand this theology, ask yourself this simple question: what would a 14-year-old boy desire in a wife? What would his rising levels of testosterone demand and what would his elementary understanding of relationships allow? 

The images disturb, do they not? Of a man in his special chair, asking his wife to imagine God sitting there in his stead, after picking up trash he spilled in a fit of childish grandstanding? His requests around tea we must, for decencies sake, allow to stand in as a euphemism for his desires and perceived needs, which his wife must always indulge. 

Marriage, Paul writes, is a mystery. It is the crucible in which the fires of love burn away the spots and wrinkles, and husband and wife become purified and refined. It is the ultimate human interaction, the consummate engagement of flesh and spirit, mind and body. Centered in Jesus, marriage moves husband and wife toward perfection as they grow in mutual humility, intimacy and openness. 

As we mature and grow in Jesus, what we desire in relationships changes. We understand the transformative effects of being close to someone we love. We desire the illuminating feedback of honest, understanding friends. We crave the intimacy of knowing and being known. We need other hearts with which to share our fears, the shadows that haunt us, our weaknesses, our false beliefs. We need help parsing the complexities of what we feel. 

And we need swift kicks to the seats of our pants when we play the childish fool. When we spill the trash and refuse to pick it up. When we slouch in cheap plastic dollar store play throne chairs and demand more sugar for our tea. 

There is nothing a man, or any human, needs less in those moments than a wife who appears out of nowhere to soothe and coddle. What we need instead is wives who have the understanding, strength and maturity to say quietly, without even looking up, “Get up, man. Get up out of that ridiculous chair and pick up your own trash.” We need wives who help us see ourselves, who challenge and resist our ego-centric male impulses. Tough love is real love, we preach–but often from our wives we only want pure, unadulterated affirmation. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk, partiers tell each other, but in a Godly marriage, this material instructs us, a sweet wife hands her drunken husband the keys, strokes his cheeks and tells him how much she believes in his driving skills.

So, husbands, do you expect your wife to enable your immature inclinations? Does it seem good to you to operate with impunity in your home, to never be challenged or criticized? Are you fourteen or grown-up? 

Get up, man. Get up out of that ridiculous chair and pick up your own trash. 

*This is part of a longer story, on page 40 of Created to be His Helpmeet, which ends in play and love, good things. Debi has much good teaching in her book, as does Denny Kenaston in The Pursuit of Godly Seed. I respect the positive contributions both have made in our communities.

1In Pursuit of Godly Seed, 2003, page 310