Unpacking the Mental Load of Female Submission

Many Christians believe in male headship and female submission in marriage based on a few isolated Bible verses (see Eph. 5:15-33; 1 Cor. 11:3; 1 Pet. 3:7-8).[1] But there’s more to the idea of wife-only submission than just the question of what submission means. 

If, as many churches teach, the biblical ideal of submission means obedience, and wives owe it to their husbands (but not husbands to their wives), then we (intentionally or unintentionally) equate a wife’s ability to obey her husband with her holiness before God.  

And that comes with all kinds of baggage.

This baggage—otherwise known as the mental load of submission—is the weight a wife feels when her godliness is attached to her ability to submit to her husband. 

In general terms, a mental load is the mental and emotional burden, or “cognitive labor,” that is attached to a relationship. It is “a mostly invisible combination of anxiety and planning” for one’s family and household that, statistically, is primarily carried by the woman in a marriage[2].

In the context of female submission, that mental load is the weight a woman feels in emotionally and mentally navigating her marriage, parenting, career, and so forth while always making sure she is living in submission to her husband. It is a million little questions and decisions that seem to have monumental consequence, because they determine whether or not she is doing a good job being a godly wife.

In other words, the mental load of submission equates a wife’s holiness and success as a wife with her ability to subvert her own beliefs and desires. So, essentially, to push back or to stand up for herself is to disobey God. People don’t teach it that way, but that is often how it is understood and applied.

Consider a few of the implications of this teaching.

This belief—that submission equals holiness—often makes it much harder for a wife to openly speak her mind, especially in disagreement with her husband, because disagreement with him seems ungodly. In essence, it puts the husband in the role of mediator between wife and God and makes his interpretation of God’s leadership authoritative.

It encourages women to look to their husbands for spiritual leadership instead of looking to Christ, because the husband’s leadership becomes more dynamic in her life. If godliness means submitting to her husband, then his leadership is the compass for her obedience to God.

It teaches women that the godly response to a husband’s sin or abuse is to pray more and to submit more (and even to have sex more). If she practices her submission faithfully, certainly God will advocate for her in convicting her husband, but standing up for herself is not her job.

I hope you can see the trouble with each of these implications.

Every person’s voice matters to God. One of Jesus’ stated goals for his ministry on earth was to set the captives free (Luke 4:18-21), and he persistently showed honor toward the marginalized groups of his day (women, children, the poor, racial minorities). This shows his value for each person’s autonomy. The oneness of marriage does not mean that the woman disappears into the man’s shadow, but that man and woman learn to operate in togetherness—equally powerful, equally submitted. A woman’s married status should not remove her individuality before Christ. His leadership comes first. As the apostles boldly declared, “We must obey God rather than human beings!” (Acts 5:28-29 NIV). And when a husband treats his wife in an ungodly way, God wants her to know that her voice matters, and she can hold her husband accountable in meaningful ways.

So often we accept what we’ve heard from pastors and read in books without weighing whether it fits with the overarching message of the Bible. But if we aren’t careful, we may end up believing and teaching ideas that completely misrepresent God’s heart.

In the case of female-only submission, this misrepresentation is real, and it places women in a hierarchy that defies the truth of Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (NIV). And that is not God’s heart for women or for marriage. Instead, he wants us to learn how to mutually submit to one another (Eph. 5:21).

I spent years feeling that disagreeing with my husband and holding my ground in a disagreement, instead of simply giving way to his opinion, meant that I was not being a godly wife. (This was not because my husband required me to submit, but because I’d been taught in the church and in certain books and magazines that submission was my duty as a godly wife.) Recently, I heard the story of a woman who stayed with a physically and emotionally abusive husband for years because she believed speaking up for herself would be shameful. This should not be, but because of the mental load of submission, it too often is.  

God showed us his ideal for marriage in the relationship between Adam and Eve in Eden before sin entered the world: Oneness. Co-leading to fill and subdue the earth for the glory of God together. Co-leadership in marriage allows each person to fully bring their gifts and calling to the marriage. It allows both people to have a voice—to have a space to be heard and to have influence. Co-leadership removes the mental load of female submission, so that both husband and wife can discern God’s leadership in their life together. 

Notes

1. I recently wrote about the biblical ideal of submission and what Paul meant by it in a blog post titled “Reconsidering Marital Submission,” so I won’t rehash that discussion here.

2. Jessica Grose, “Why Women Do the Household Worrying” The New York Times (April 21, 2021); https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/parenting/women-gender-gap-domestic-work.html.

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