I sat so many times in the pew, Sunday after Sunday, listening to those words that pierced into me like a fingernail into an overripe apple:
“Let the woman be submissive.”
“If her husband is not faithful, she should win his heart through her pure behavior. She should not answer back, she should not provoke him.”
I heard women sighing between prayers and growing silent between slaps. Women who cried in secret, yet were applauded for their “holy” patience. Women lifted onto a pedestal of suffering while their hearts slowly crumbled.
I know, because I was one of them.
And we recognize each other without words, by the way we hold our breath when someone raises their voice, by the way we apologize for daring to feel.
At some point, I began to ask myself:
Did God really say that?
Did He really give us a Gospel that asks the woman to die daily in contempt, and the man to remain in comfort, head held high?
Could Christ, the One who spoke to the Samaritan woman, the One who lifted the woman caught in adultery, the One who sent women first to proclaim the Resurrection, be the same Christ who asks me to stay silent and swallow injustice, abuse?
I began to study, to search.
In the Bible.
In theological studies.
In history.
In myself.
And I began to find another kind of truth: more alive, closer to the heart of the God I’ve known than anything that was preached to me or taught in school.
“Man is the head of the woman.”
“I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ.”
(1 Corinthians 11:3)
I heard this verse so many times used as proof that a woman must blindly submit.
To accept.
To stay quiet.
To follow.
But looking at Christ, I understood that to be “head” does not mean to dominate, but to serve.
He bent down to wash the disciples’ feet.
He sacrificed Himself for those He loved.
He forgave even the one who betrayed Him.
He did not demand silence. He did not demand blind submission.
He loved first.
For me, this means that being “head” is not a position of power, but a calling to responsibility, to sacrificial love.
Not “I decide, you stay silent,” but “I die first, I serve first.”
Therefore, if a man is “head” after Christ’s model, he does not despise his wife.
He does not demand her silence.
He does not ignore her.
He does not treat her like a servant.
He does not demand submission without offering the part of love that sacrifices.
Otherwise, he is not a “head”. He is a tyrant.
“The woman should win her husband through her behavior.”
“…so that, if any of them do not believe the Word, they may be won without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.”
(1 Peter 3:1-2)
I heard this text dozens of times quoted as justification for silence.
To endure.
Not to “break the family.”
But the Apostle Peter was speaking to women living in times when their husbands did not even believe in Christ.
It was an invitation to “preach” by example, not a condemnation to silence.
It was a spiritual strategy to witness through the way they lived, not a manipulation method ripped from context.
For me, this text says that a woman’s influence can be profound, even in silence.
That authentic love transforms more than moralizing ever could.
That a life lived with respect and integrity has power without needing sermons from the altar.
And I know for sure what it does NOT say:
It does not say that a woman must endure contempt, abuse, humiliation.
It does not say that a man is excused from responsibility just because she prays and lives a holy life.
It does not say that a woman must stay in a place where she is destroyed and killed every day.
“This is the woman’s cross” is, I believe, the most toxic theological lie:
A man’s contempt is not the cross of a believing woman.
If he does not love her, she does not have to endure.
If she is hurt and crushed daily, the solution is not to pray harder; nor is it “a sign” that she hasn’t prayed enough.
It is a lie that a tortured life, domestic violence, is a woman’s cross and God’s will for her.
No.
Christ died so I could be free, not chained or beaten with the chains.
Ephesians 5:28 says that a man must love his wife as his own body. And that if he despises her, he despises his own flesh.
Contempt is not a spiritual stage.
It is a violation of the covenant.
Staying in an abusive relationship “because God hates divorce” means forgetting that God hates injustice, violence, lies, and scorn first.
“Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church.”
(Ephesians 5:25)
This is the center of all theology about marriage.
Christ did not dominate the Church.
He loved it.
He gave Himself for it.
I used to believe that the spiritual woman is the one who endures.
The one who stays quiet.
The one who sacrifices herself without pause.
But I realized that is not true.
I believe my duty as a spiritual woman is to love, but with discernment.
To live in Truth.
To be gentle, but have healthy boundaries.
To say “enough” when love becomes a constant wound.
I do not have to lose my voice and spine so the abuser can shout and stand tall.
I do not have to shrink so he can feel big.
I do not have to let myself be trampled in the name of a holiness that heals no one and helps no one.
No. I do not have to endure contempt to be spiritual.
I do not have to stay silent to “win” a man who already self-proclaims himself a man of God.
My God is not a dictator.
He is a Father.
He is a Redeemer.
And I believe that if He calls me to love,
He always does so in the context of my dignity.
Because love without dignity is not Gospel.
It is slavery.
And I no longer want to call my chains “faith.”
I believe in a God who does not want me silent, but alive.
Who does not want me small, but upright.
Who does not want me perfect, but true.
Who does not ask me to endure abuse, but to rise from it.
That is why I believe that when I leave a place of contempt, I am not breaking God’s will. I am honoring it.
Because the God who said “I hate divorce” is the same who said: “I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
And an abundant life cannot grow on the soil of fear and abuse.
And I firmly believe that women who rise do not rise against God, but with Him.
This is a text I started many years ago, when I found the courage to leave an abusive relationship. I found it again recently, as I connected with many women who are where I once was.
This is my perspective. I know it will stir controversy and that I will be attacked, but I accept that, and I hope it helps at least one woman believe that God wants her happy.
I also want to add that leaving the hell of abuse is not an easy decision. It can take years! It is the hardest thing I have ever done, but also the one that brought me the greatest freedom and strength. But it begins with awareness.