The Husband Is The Head Of His Wife

“The husband is the head of his wife.” It’s a favourite refrain in complementarian circles, particularly when the conversation turns to biblical manhood, leadership, and a husband’s supposed God-given authority over his wife, commonly called “headship.” The explanation usually goes something like this: Christ has authority over the Church, and since Paul compares a husband to Christ, a husband likewise has authority over his wife. Ephesians says so, and that’s that.

And by authority, they mean primary financial, spiritual and relational decision-making. More say-so than a pastor or policeman but, you know, also way more loving.

As one online blogger, who sure likes to reference Doug Wilson a lot, puts it:

“A husband has much greater responsibility for and authority over his wife than civil magistrates, bosses, pastors, and her parents and in-laws. A boss once told me, “Always assume the authority to do your job”. Yet husbands today are expected to do their most important job without authority.” | Daniel Huilt, Embracing Biblical Patriarchy

Except that’s not quite what Ephesians says.

There’s a little bait-and-switch that happens in this comparison, one that takes Paul’s words and uses them to mean something they aren’t actually saying. Ephesians doesn’t say a husband is like Christ. It says the husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the Church.

Maybe you’re reading those two sentences and thinking, I don’t see the distinction. Isn’t she saying the same thing, just twice over?

Subtly, but crucially, no.

The comparison is specific. The conclusions that are often drawn from it aren’t. Paul isn’t comparing a husband to Christ. He’s comparing head to head. A husband is the head as Christ is the head.

The problem is that this passage is often interpreted as though we’re supposed to treat a husband (“the head”) as though he were like Christ in every respect. But that’s an extraordinarily broad comparison. It asks us to take everything we understand about Christ’s relationship with the Church, including his authority, lordship, and the Church’s obligation to obey him, and transfer it to the husband.

But Paul doesn’t talk about lordship. He talks about headship. He’s making a particular comparison within a particular argument.

So? You might still be asking. Aren’t I quibbling? Aren’t lordship and headship the same thing? Isn’t Paul speaking here about authority? Isn’t that what biblical headship is all about?

Actually, no. Authority and headship are not the same thing.

We seem to have an almost unnatural obsession with authority, status, and who gets to wield power over whom. It’s where our heads (pun intended) go first. Class, gender, social standing, who’s in charge and who’s expected to fall into line. We’ve been arguing about these things for practically all of human history. And apparently, we can’t resist bringing the same preoccupation to Paul’s words.

But shouldn’t we know already from Jesus’ own teaching that authority and hierarchy aren’t the point? When his disciples were concerned with positions of greatness in his Kingdom, Jesus pointed to the rulers of the Gentiles, who lorded their authority over others, and told them plainly, “It shall not be so among you” (Matthew 20:26). Instead, he positioned himself as the example of true greatness, the Son of Man, who came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus explicitly rejected the Gentile model of leadership, in which greatness is measured by authority over others, and presents his own sacrificial service as the example to follow. Which, rather inconveniently for the complementarian argument, is precisely the example Paul holds before husbands in Ephesians.

When we follow Paul’s comparison through to its conclusion, the argument that a husband’s headship confers authority becomes even harder to sustain. Because there’s another assumption we’ve yet to examine: what exactly does Paul mean by head?

What Does Paul Mean by Head?

The Greek word Paul uses is kephalē, translated into English as head. But while ‘head’ is frequently interpreted as authority or leadership, understanding it as source or origin, as in, the head or source of a river, makes considerably more sense in this context when we examine how Paul develops the imagery elsewhere in Scripture. Although its meaning is widely contested, many scholars agree that source or origin is a defensible interpretation of head.¹

Interestingly, Paul had another word available to him if he wanted to speak explicitly about authority: exousia. He even uses it in 1 Corinthians 7:4, where he describes the mutual authority husbands and wives have over one another’s bodies. Yet here, he chooses kephalē.

In 1 Corinthians 11:3, Paul describes God as the head of Christ, Christ as the head of man, and man as the head of woman. The language of source makes sense of all three relationships. The Son is eternally from the Father; humanity was created through the Word, who was with God in the beginning and became flesh in Jesus Christ; and woman was taken from man.

Paul develops this language of origin just a few verses later. He explains that woman came from man, before reminding his readers that man is subsequently born of woman and that everything ultimately comes from God. The language of origin is hardly incidental to his argument.

And when we return to Ephesians, the imagery becomes even more significant. Paul doesn’t simply introduce the word head and leave us to decide what he means in this context. He develops the comparison throughout the passage.

Christ is the head of the Church, his body, of which he is the Saviour (Ephesians 5:23). He loves the Church and gives himself up for her. He nourishes and cherishes her, just as a man cares for his own body. Paul then takes us back to Genesis, where a man leaves his father and mother, is united to his wife, and the two become one flesh.

This isn’t the first time Paul has used the imagery of Christ as head and the Church as his body. Earlier in Ephesians, he describes Christ as the head from whom the whole body grows, joined and held together as each part does its work (Ephesians 4:15–16). In Colossians 2:19, he uses similar language to describe the body being nourished and held together through its connection to the head.

This language is concerned with the relationship between the head and the body, its source of life, nourishment, and growth. Authority isn’t the subject of Paul’s teaching here. To interpret headship as a husband’s authority over his wife is to introduce an idea that the surrounding argument and context simply doesn’t establish.

Now, none of this means that Christ doesn’t have authority over the Church. Of course he does. Paul explicitly establishes that in Ephesians 1:22, where God places all things under Christ’s feet and appoints him as head over everything for the Church.

In fact, Paul uses the same word, kephalē, for head in this passage. But notice what he actually says. God places all things under Christ’s feet AND appoints him as head over everything for the benefit of the Church. His authority is explicitly established through the language of subjection, while his appointment as head is presented as a gift to the Church. And when we come to Ephesians 5, that same concern for the Church’s welfare is unmistakable. Christ is the Saviour of the body, who loves the Church, gives himself up for her, and nourishes and cherishes her. It’s this relationship Paul holds before husbands.

This is precisely the distinction we overlook in Ephesians 5. Christ’s authority over the Church is beyond question, but that doesn’t establish that authority is what Paul means by headship in this passage, much less that husbands inherit it. Nor is authority the particular characteristic Paul instructs husbands to imitate here.

And before anyone points to Paul’s instruction for wives to submit to their husbands, it’s worth remembering that the verb ‘submit’ is carried over from the preceding verse, where Paul instructs believers to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Mutual submission is the context in which Paul’s instructions to husbands and wives are given.

And there’s another distinction worth making here. Paul’s instruction to wives isn’t a command to husbands. A wife may respect her husband, support him, defer to his judgement, and willingly follow his lead. But her posture towards him doesn’t automatically confer authority upon him. Just as a husband can defer to his wife’s judgement without making her his governing authority, a wife’s submission doesn’t establish her husband’s right to rule, particularly when Paul has already instructed them both to submit to one another. I’ve talked about this elsewhere, so I won’t labour the point here, but you can read more in the article ‘Husbands and Wives‘.

Also, submit might not mean what you think it means. Check out ‘The Lost Warriors of Ephesians 5′ here.

The imagery of head and body establishes that this language is relational. Paul’s instruction to husbands tells us how that relationship ought to be expressed. And the characteristic he emphasises isn’t authority, but sacrificial love.

Headship And Sacrifice

Paul identifies Christ as the head of the Church, the Saviour of the body, and then tells husbands exactly what they’re supposed to do with this comparison.

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” | Ephesians 5:25

Notice what Paul doesn’t say.

He doesn’t instruct husbands to govern their wives as Christ governs the Church. He doesn’t tell them to exercise Christ’s authority or establish themselves as the final decision makers within their households.

They don’t get the deciding vote when there’s a disagreement about where to live, which church to attend, how to spend the family finances, or whether their wives should pursue a particular career. They don’t get to veto a decision simply because they’re ‘the man of the house’. And they certainly aren’t responsible for managing their wives’ relationship with God, approving their theological convictions, or deciding what spiritual direction they ought to take.

And before you get too hot under the collar, marriage should be a collaborative partnership, chock full of mutual respect, submission, love, and sacrifice. If someone’s bossing the other around, ignoring their spiritual or relational needs or generally just being a jerk, they’re not being a good spouse, irrespective of whether they’re the husband or the wife.

But being a husband doesn’t make a man his wife’s pastor, boss, or personal representative of Christ.

A husband is to nourish and cherish his wife as he would his own flesh, because the two have become one. The comparison is not an invitation to assume Christ’s position, but a call to imitate his love.

Is Biblical Headship A Real Thing?

Absolutely it is. And in Paul’s comparison, it’s the husband who occupies that particular place in the analogy.

Adam was formed before Eve, who was subsequently taken from his side. Christ, the eternal Word through whom all things were created, existed before the Church. And just as God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep before bringing forth the woman, Christ gave himself up so that his bride, the Church, might have life.

The imagery is striking. But notice where Paul takes it. He doesn’t use Adam’s priority in creation to establish a husband’s authority over his wife. He points to Christ, who gave himself up for his bride. The husband’s place in this analogy is not a position of power to be claimed, but a call to sacrificial love.

And this brings us back to the little bait-and-switch we started with. How does Christ’s lordship over the Church get transferred to the husband, and an entire doctrine of male leadership get built around it? Yet when Paul explains what husbands ought to do, he points not to Christ’s authority, but to his sacrifice.

Reading headship as authority isn’t entirely without merit. The Greek word kephalē literally means head, but its figurative uses are debated, with scholars arguing for meanings including source, origin, prominence, and authority. A word can carry different associations in different contexts. The question, then, isn’t simply what kephalē might mean elsewhere, but what Paul means by it here.

If Genesis is the foundation of Paul’s analogy, why should we assume that head means authority when authority isn’t the relationship Genesis 2 describes? When we approach the passage already convinced that God has appointed husbands “to lead”, it’s hardly surprising that we see male authority in Paul’s words. But is that conclusion drawn from the context, or have we brought it with us?

It’s the context of Ephesians 5 that should determine how we understand headship and, more importantly, what Paul actually instructs husbands to do as the head of their wives. He isn’t telling them to step up, make the tough calls, and lead like a man. He’s telling them to love their wives.

A note on AI: AI was used to assist with editing and refining this article. The arguments, theological position and conclusions are my own.