• Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. - Ephesians 5:22

• Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. - Colos 3:18

• Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; - I Peter 3:1

"Subjection" to her husband is a fundamental responsibility of the married christian woman. The wife is to submit to the authority of her husband, not to mankind in general. This does not mean the wife is by nature inferior to the husband. In marriage two people become one through the joining of their intellects, their emotions, and their wills. To keep their special union from fracturing and destroying itself, one member is charged to lead and one to submit.

I Peter 3:1-6

1. Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
2. While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
3. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
4. But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quite spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
5. For after this manner in the old time the adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:
6. Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.


The wife's submission to her husband is her "adorning", which makes her truly beautiful (I Peter 3:3). This inner beauty is of great value in God's sight (I Peter 3:4). The believing women of the Old Testament who hoped to be the human channel for the Messiah to come into the world made themselves beautiful by being in subjection to their own husbands. This is supremely illustrated in the relationship between Sara and Abraham. Wives are exhorted to do what Sara did, to be in subjection to their husbands, letting the consequences rest with God, and thus become Sara's daughters (I Peter 3:6). For the wife who will do this God promises that, if her husband is either an unbeliever or out of fellowship with God, her subjection can be the very means God will use to bring her husband into a proper relationship with God (I Peter 3:1,2). The wife's subjection may lead to the husband's salvation.