Thanks Chaste & welcome to the site.

I find it interesting that you called out your christian faith in your post. Please don't take this they wrong way, I am very direct so I apologize in advance. I had a christian upbringing as well and in several places of the bible, it states that the woman shall obey the man in all things. Obviously that is not the relationship that you lead and I am just curious how you justify it. Do you simply acknowledge that times have changed and chock this up as an antiquated interpretation? 

We welcome anything that you can add to our conversations and I'd be happy to do a blog about you and your wife and your experience over the last 5 years. Let me know if you are interested!

Hello Emma!,

No, we take our faith quite seriously.  To see us in public, we would appear as any ordinary couple, a queen and her doting knight.  I am not aware of anywhere in Scripture that, "the woman shall obey the man in all things."  Actually, this was the result of the fall.  Look at Genesis 3:16.

There have been several prominent women in Scripture.  Deborah was a judge in ancient Israel.  As such she was the government.  And Phoebe was a deaconess in the New Testament Church.

We do not subscribe to Female Supremacy, however, Elise Sutton, in her book, "Female Domination", has several very sound arguments.  I can highly recommend her book. Men and women are different: we each have complimenting strengths and weaknesses.

Lastly, Gary Smalley's book, "If Only He Knew", is highly recommended.  

So, how did we arrive at our current arrangement?  That is a long story...but after 30 years of marriage, having tried the patriarchal model and the equals model, and both being miserable, we now are convinced the FLR model is best for us.

Posted by: ChasteKnight

Hello Emma!,

No, we take our faith quite seriously.  To see us in public, we would appear as any ordinary couple, a queen and her doting knight.  I am not aware of anywhere in Scripture that, "the woman shall obey the man in all things."  Actually, this was the result of the fall.  Look at Genesis 3:16.

There have been several prominent women in Scripture.  Deborah was a judge in ancient Israel.  As such she was the government.  And Phoebe was a deaconess in the New Testament Church.

We do not subscribe to Female Supremacy, however, Elise Sutton, in her book, "Female Domination", has several very sound arguments.  I can highly recommend her book. Men and women are different: we each have complimenting strengths and weaknesses.

Lastly, Gary Smalley's book, "If Only He Knew", is highly recommended.  

So, how did we arrive at our current arrangement?  That is a long story...but after 30 years of marriage, having tried the patriarchal model and the equals model, and both being miserable, we now are convinced the FLR model is best for us.

Ephesians 5:21-24 New International Version (NIV)

Instructions for Christian Households

²¹ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

The Biblical references to male dominance over the female are ONLY in the context of marriage and even then, husbands must act in accordance with the will of God, not their own egos.

However, who is to say that a husband cannot decide his wife is a better leader and his contribution to leadership is to put his wife in charge?  I interpret this passage to be more about having one person in charge who is best able to run the family.  Men traditionally have been the leaders, but Christianity is a flexible and tolerant faith as compared to some others.  This letter of Paul was written to an ancient audience.  I think the principles contained in it are more important than the precise words and things have changed a lot for women.  There is nothing saying individual women are not better at decisionmaking than men.  

Spank

Great interpretation. I've had quite a few unapproved comments from people quoting that exact verse and hating on this site as "feminist propaganda". Maybe I'll approve the next one and give them an opportunity to discuss it - assuming they are willing to do so in a respectful manner. I grew up in the church but I am not religious now, I don't reject religion outright so I'd probably consider myself agnostic. I DO consider myself spiritual and my relationship with the world around me is very important to me. I try to do right and act well. Sorry to hijack your intro thread, ChasteKnight. We appreciate you and certainly appreciate the Christian perspectives that you can bring to the site. I respect your faith and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Greetings Ms. Emma!

No need to apologize.  You are a most gracious hostess.  I will endeavor to be a polite guest at your forum. I am not here to proselytize or judge anyone.  I only wish to participate in your dialogues and maybe, someday meet another Wife Led Marriage (WLM) couple.

Yes, I understand the passage from Ephesians 5 is commonly taken out of context and used to support arguments against WLM.  However, I believe that all Scripture must not be taken out of context.  What these people commonly omit from this passage is that men are to submit to the wives (verse 21) and it is all a mystery (verse 32).  The Bible is "self-authenticating" and must be taken in context, or else contradictions will be found.  I do not believe that God contradicts himself.  Similarly, I do not believe that a WLM is for everyone.  But it does work for us.

I will leave you with two things:

Proverbs 31 verses 10 through 31 describe a woman leading her household.  She is also a business person.  Read it for yourself, but there doesn't appear to be any reference to her submitting to her husband.  If anything, he submits to her!

In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for help is "ezer".  Specifically, it is "help from a position of strength", or "strong help".  This word "ezer" is used in reference to only two people: God and the woman he created.  Woman was created to be an "ezer" to the man (Genesis 2:18).  As I mentioned above, Elise Sutton's book devotes a whole chapter on this topic.

My wonderful and I have reconciled our faith with our WLM.  They are indeed compatible.  Oh, and by the way, we are what some would call, "very conservative".   Yes, I am kept in permanent (?) chastity and she disciplines me.  We never experienced the happiness we now have before we became a "Queen and her Knight". 

In fact, Paul writes almost twice as much about the husband's duty to take care of and love his wife than he does about women obeying the husband.  Paul's clear meaning was to emphasize the permanent and serious nature of marriage.  

Wow, the scholarly discussion here is quite interesting. I do enjoy reading reasonable people discuss what could be controversial topics is a measured and gracious way. Kudos to everyone for being polite. Emma ,you'regrowing a great community here. I'm more of a lurker myself but just wanted to give everyone a shout out for being an example of how discussion on the net should be as opposed to what it has become.

I also forgot to say welcome aboard ChasteKnight!

Posted by: spinpole2001

Wow, the scholarly discussion here is quite interesting. I do enjoy reading reasonable people discuss what could be controversial topics is a measured and gracious way. Kudos to everyone for being polite. Emma ,you'regrowing a great community here. I'm more of a lurker myself but just wanted to give everyone a shout out for being an example of how discussion on the net should be as opposed to what it has become.

I want women to have tools that empower them to stay committed to the relationship choices they make and the anecdotal evidence is there are plenty of men who would enjoy submitting their sexual power to women.  Emma is a good spokesperson for this lifestyle as she seems to embrace both science and a more pragmatic, as opposed to dogmatic, approach to finding solutions which work.   Women are the simple majority in most societies which don't practice sex selective abortion.  Men are the minority in those same societies and men have to accept that the future may not go well for us if we are not supporting women.  

Spank

Posted by: Emma

Thanks Chaste & welcome to the site.

I find it interesting that you called out your christian faith in your post. Please don't take this they wrong way, I am very direct so I apologize in advance. I had a christian upbringing as well and in several places of the bible, it states that the woman shall obey the man in all things. Obviously that is not the relationship that you lead and I am just curious how you justify it. Do you simply acknowledge that times have changed and chock this up as an antiquated interpretation? 

We welcome anything that you can add to our conversations and I'd be happy to do a blog about you and your wife and your experience over the last 5 years. Let me know if you are interested!

Sure, if we can be of assistance.