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| Mary Stanford, who asks... Are you up for trust and for risk-taking? |
American writer and college professor Mary Stanford answers such a question in a podcast drawing on her book The Obedience Paradox: Finding True Freedom in Marriage. She discusses her insights during a discussion with Thomas Mirus. This post uses the content of the podcast to convey Stanford’s ideas.
Stanford, a wife and mother of seven children, finds “obedience” is usually associated in the modern mind with a lack of freedom. We think of obedience as something where your freedom is taken from you because someone else is ordering you around.
However, to obey is a significant marker of human status. Since we don't assign agency and responsibility to a non-personal creature like a dog or with regards the planets obeying the laws of nature, it is clear that if only personal creatures obey, dignity must be involved. This understanding forced Stanford to consider in what way obedience expresses the highest form of how we relate to each other, and her book looks at authority and submission through the lens of giving and receiving.
In that context, when we think about the giving and the receiving of a gift a lot of times we talk about how noble it is to give, with an offering freely made. But if it isn't received well, a gift fails, it's not complete, it's not a success.
So if authority, in its most authentic sense, is a kind of sacrificial gift of service, one that serves the whole, then obedience is the receiving of this offering with a welcoming, or at least open, disposition, exercising an ability to recognize the significance of the act of offering and to freely accept what is offered. Of course, we know that when a gift is offered it's not just an item, it is a relationship being confirmed.
Only a person can recognize the significance of a gift and only a person can freely enter into a relationship; you can't be forced into a relationship. Likewise, obedience is an exclusively personal act in response to another person’s gift of self.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” – Philippians 4:8
What's interesting about looking at the fall of Adam and Eve is that it tells us a lot not only about obedience and disobedience in humanity’s relationship with God, but also about the relationship between spouses. Problems arise with Eve's unwillingness to trust that God is truly a giver and that God's commands are part of his gift rather than something he's trying to take or keep from her.
The command given to Adam and Eve, to not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is a command provided for their protection. That knowledge would have involved deciding for themselves what is good and what is evil, a claim to moral independence by which the human refuses to recognize their status as a created being, so disfiguring their ability to relate to God in a way that reflects reality.
Stanford emphasizes that Eve has to make a choice: Do I trust God? [….] That's the disposition that's necessary to receive a gift. It is trust. You're trusting that this other person is offering you something that is for your good, that is offered out of love and in accepting it you're accepting this relationship, this union with them. That disposition of trust is huge and it's very scary. We're all feeling very vulnerable right now because in the world our trust is broken a lot.
Eve's distrust of God ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy in the context of her relationship with man. She doesn't want God to control and manipulate her, but the fallen man often does so. She has misinterpreted God’s gift, which is for her flourishing and that original lack of trust continues to have consequences.
That sinfulness is exposed in marriage as in every sphere of our lives is not denied, but the dynamic of authority and submission is letting God's design for a married couple's life come to fruition.Stanford talks about the risk factor in a relationship, especially in one so intimate as between wife and husband – or husband and wife, as each puts their life in the hands of the other. But to obey involves a risk, which makes submission to authority a challenge to the strength of any relationship.
The concept of equality is often reduced to sameness, “identicalness”, celebrated in Saint Paul’s words that there's neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave nor free man but all are equally offered union with God.
When two things are identical you lose so much. One of the concepts Stanford talks about in her book is the concept of asymmetry. Jesus uses examples in his teachings about the conditions necessary for the bearing of fruit and he talks about there has to be a union of seed with good soil. Seed and soil are non-identical things, but unless these two different things come into receptive union there will be no fruit. So, too, with a branch with the vine. Unless they're in union, there will be no fruit.
From these examples from organic reality we see that there cannot be a union unless there are two distinct non-identical elements. There is the generous element and the receptive element. Without a voluntary offering and a voluntary reception you simply can't have union.
The pattern of married life begins with obedience and submission to the God of love
When it comes to trust, we have to accept the challenge of being in a state of vulnerability, putting ourselves in a position where we are willing to say “yes” to what is being offered – for the sake of unity – preserving the union at the centre of a commitment.
Marriage is unlike friendship because it is “an exclusive union par excellence”. The man and woman become one flesh: It's a true oneness. That oneness is then made visible in the child, and you realize this is not just any kind of union. This oneness is going to be the formative atmosphere for this child, a union that's going to reveal God to this child.
The dynamic of giving and receiving well is central. “A woman does give to her husband but often her generosity is precisely in receiving well what he does for her. A woman can do many nice things for her husband but unless she is also simultaneously receiving what he does in an appreciative, grateful, respectful way, there's not going to be unity in that marriage. It doesn't mean women aren't generous and men aren't receptive but the primary mode is such that a woman can give all sorts of things to her husband but the union won't be there unless she receives him in a particular way.”
It’s worth noting that Paul says, “Husbands love your wives”, and places this in the context of the way Jesus Christ loves the Church, dying for it, and leaving a model of self-sacrificial behaviour.
Stanford notes: “Sometimes the test of things is time and the church throughout its history, and I quote several popes in the book looking at these passages and saying both ‘husbands you've got to love your wives in a sacrificial manner and be the head of the family’, and ‘wives be submissive but don't obey in a way that is below your dignity’. They don't always specify what that means but they do say that and so they've looked at it throughout history and interpreted it through the Church's tradition, which is that there is a principle of authority within marriage.”
Saint Peter and Saint Paul both urge wives to obey husbands. But are they just echoing what they regard as practical advice, or useful custom, from their era?
In terms of being a product of the culture, the early Christians were known for being counter-cultural. They were the ones who didn’t believe in discarding babies, refused to eat the sacrificed meat, and didn’t share their wives. So Christians weren't afraid to be counter-cultural.
Mirus remarks that this is another example of the asymmetry between the sexes Stanford discusses throughout her book. Nevertheless, why are there different modalities of love in marriage? Why don’t we just take it that each of the partners in marriage show love and respect for the other, without any distinction, as all Christians are expected to do.
Stanford says the bigger argument is that throughout time what the Church in her teaching authority, her magisterium, has taken from key scriptural passages and very assertively handed down that there is and needs to be a principle of unity within the family. Unity is made possible by having a principle of authority.
All this is not true in just a religious context but is essential on the natural plane for each woman, man and their children. Secondly, this principle of authority in the family is not the product of our fallen sinful nature. Stanford says that whereas Adam knew the created objects before Eve was made, from her start in life Eve was in a relationship, that is, with Adam. Crucially, both Adam and Eve knew they lived under the authority of God the Creator. Also, the popes have spoken of the primal “order of love”, involving God, Adam and Eve. So the basic structure of headship/authority and obedience was already established before the fall. Submission to another is not part of God’s punishment of Adam and Eve’s sin.
God's authority as described in Genesis in the context of him as the Creator, the Giver, the Generous One. Then, before we get to Ephesians 5, we see Jesus in his full authority at the Last Supper washing the feet of the apostles.
Jesus says, ‘If you want to be like me, this is what you’ve got to do.’ The leader is someone who gives and serves. “So to me it's not a new form of leadership. It's just hearkening back to the original form of authority that we see with God in the garden [in] displaying his power through gift,” Stanford says.
In Ephesians 5 we have “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church”. How did he love the church? He laid down his life for her. So for wives to be submissive means nothing other than to receive and accept well what the husband is offering her and the family.
In no way are we talking about dominating power or a structure whereby one party uses the other. That’s a bastardization of authority.
The issue is that Adam and Eve were afraid to trust that God was loving them and that everything that he had offered them would enable them to flourish.
Throughout the covenants of the Old Testament, in particular before the Covenant at Mt Sinai, God is inviting them into a covenant of trust: “I am the Lord your God, the one who led you out of slavery in Egypt”. He would remind them often of all the good that he had done, the gifts that he had given them, before inviting them to trust in a New Covenant of love and service.
The image of God in the Old Testament and in the New is not this controlling, manipulative God. That's what Eve was afraid of, and that fear was what the devil preyed on.
Explaining headship in this way doesn't let us off the hook from explaining what submission means.
Stanford says one of the important things she talks about in her book is the element of risk. When a problem arises in a family, or when a decision has to be made that will serve the family the couple need to discuss the options. Such times are a test — does each trust the other? They listen to each other and work at doing that, but when it comes down to it the family needs the father to be a man, to step up, to engage, to lead this family.
“That's really risky and it's hard and sometimes he might not quite get it right and that's precisely where [a wife’s] submission saves the unity of the family because the point is to try to preserve this unity. There's no guarantee that a man in his logical nature is going to always get it right, that every effort on behalf of the family, even if it is sacrificial, is going to pan out the way he hoped.”
So this is part of what submission looks like. It’s joining with the husband in formulating policy, but also accommodating the decision the husband makes when there is a difference on what should be done.
Stanford makes clear the wife does not have to be happy with a decision and never have a conversation with her husband about how this or that isn't working. Again, this is what being willing to take a risk is all about, taking a risk for the sake of the marital union.
There is also the “What’s good luck, what’s bad luck?” perspective that’s needed when outcomes seem to demonstrate the husband’s decision was flawed. Further, a sense of Providence being active and personal is an asset when things seem to go wrong after the husband’s exercise of authority. Maybe in the longer term, or in a different way, things will work out for the good.
Stanford says it’s easier for women “to separate our love for my husband than for what he did. I can say ‘Okay, you failed at this, but I still love you. You're not defined by that failure.’ Women have a gift of being able to distinguish who a person is from what they do, though you can't take that distinction too far.”
A wife’s support for her husband comes into play in these situations: “A man identifies with his deeds so what he's doing for his wife and family…if those things aren't received well he feels that he's not being received well. Because women have this gift of being able to distinguish him from what he does — that's a tremendous gift — we have to employ that in our submission.
“The little everyday submission of appreciating him and appreciating what he does and not criticizing every little thing — that can be much harder for some women than the occasional final-say decision.
“In the book I talk in a way that is equally challenging and encouraging for husbands and wives to try to look at the everyday ways in which they can do what they're called to do better because if they do that they're both going to feel more satisfied and more personally affirmed in the process.”
Mirus points out that in his encyclical letter Casti Connubii, Pope Pius XI talks about authority and obedience in marriage and qualifies the concept of subjection of the wife. The pope says it doesn't take away her liberty or her dignity as a human person. It doesn't mean that she has to obey every request of her husband if it's not in harmony with right reason or with her dignity. It doesn't mean she should be treated as somebody who doesn't have mature judgment.
But then the pope says that this qualification relating to submission “forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family. It forbids that in this body which is the family the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin” (para 27-29).
💢 From: OBEDIENCE IN MARRIAGE. Catholic Culture Podcast, YouTube, October 12, 2022: Thomas Mirus speaks with Mary Stanford, who is a speaker, teacher, and writer on Catholic marriage and family life. She is an adjunct professor at Christendom College and has a master's degree in theological studies from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. She and her husband, Trey, have seven children.
💢 Mary Stanford, The Obedience Paradox: Finding True Freedom in Marriage (2022). Go here for details and to read a sample.
💢 Pope Pius XI on marriage: Casti Connubii
💢 Find all Catholic Culture podcasts here
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