God Gave Marital Headship to Men, part 2 of 5

Moving from the Gospel to Ephesians, Ephesians could not be more clear in stating that God gave marital headship to the husband:

"Wives, be subject 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, and is himself its Savior. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her…" Ephesians 5:22-25 (RSVSCE)

As many know from basic catechesis, the Church is the bride of Christ and Christ is the head of the Church. Earthly marriage is analogous with Christ and His Church. The Church is not the head of Christ and Christ is not subjected to the Church. This critical analogy is one proof of God giving marital headship to husbands. Just as celibate religious vocations are an eschatological sign of the glory to come in heaven of singlehood in heaven (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 931-933), human marriage is a sign of the relationship of Christ and the Church (Matthew 22:30 (RSVSCE)).

This point is referenced countless times in papal encyclicals—as will later be mentioned in this article. St. Paul’s aforementioned statement of Christian marriage as a sign of Christ and Christ’s church, connects male marital headship with the sacramentality of Christian marriage. It is no surprise that in his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas called marriage-as-a-sign-of-Christ-and-the-church, res tantum, "The third dimension of marriage consists of res tantum (contained and uncontained), meaning the grace in the bond, and the union of Christ and the church, respectively.”

Obedience is an irreplaceable theme in Christianity. The Catholic Church teaches that obedience is beyond important. There would be no Christianity or Catholic Church, had not Jesus substituted his obedience for the disobedience of humankind (Romans 5:19 (RSVSCE)). The Catechism teaches of the importance of civil obedience and obedience to government authorities (CCC, 2242 and 1900). Obedience is an evangelical counsel and Christ wants obedience from all of his followers (CCC, 915). Along with the other evangelical counsels, the profession of obedience distinguishes consecrated life from other states of life (CCC, 915). People in the consecrated life are consecrated “more intimately to God’s service and to the good of the whole Church” (CCC, 945). They are essentially married to the Church, with the Church being their bridegroom.

With those in religious vocations being brides of the Church and vowing obedience, this analogy to earthly marriage is another proof of this argument (i.e. those with religious vocations, both male and female, are brides of the Church and promise to be obedient to their bridegroom the Church, and analogously, literal brides are to be obedient to their literal bridegrooms, their husbands).

The Venerable Fulton Sheen wrote essentially in Three To Get Married, that what matters most is not if a person has a fancy career or is a stay-at-home parent, if a person has ten children or two children, or is rich or poor. He wrote that what matters is keeping one’s focus on God above all things and in all things (Fulton J. Sheen, Three to Get Married (Strongsville, Ohio: Scepter Publishers, 1996)). In marriage, an obvious and critical way of doing that would be hierarchically mirroring the relationship of Christ and His Church, of which marriage is a sacramental sign. In Life Is Worth Living, Fulton J. Sheen wrote:

"When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women." (Fulton J. Sheen, Life Is Worth Living (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999)). 

Sheen’s harrowing last sentence in the above quote calls to mind that contraceptive and abortive culture, by arguably no coincidence, have grown alongside secular cultural messages that present male marital headship as tyrannical or antiquated. As written in Pope John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio:

"...signs are not lacking of a disturbing degradation of some fundamental values: a mistaken theoretical and practical concept of the independence of the spouses in relation to each other…the growing number of divorces; the scourge of abortion; the ever more frequent recourse to sterilization; the appearance of a truly contraceptive mentality." (Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-co nsortio.html, 6.)

Sheen’s writings suggest that he would agree that the twenty-first century secular culture’s condemnation of male marital headship is part of a cultural moral degradation in character, seeing as leadership (i.e. male marital headship) is demanding on men with regards to morality and responsibility. Like many Catholic writers, including popes, before him, the Venerable Sheen referenced Ephesians in writing that Christian marriage is a sign of Christ and the Church, “All love craves unity. As the highest peak of love in the human order is the unity of husband and wife in the flesh, so the highest unity in the Divine order is the unity of the soul and Christ in communion.” (Fulton J. Sheen, Life Of Christ (New York: Doubleday, 1990)).

Part 3: https://www.catholic365.com/article/36883/god-gave-marital-headship-to-men-part-3-of-5.html