Chris and I recently crashed a wedding. No, let me take that back, we attended a wedding that Chris was the date of a former co-worker (with my blessing!) and I tagged along, with the grooms approval. That isn't technically considered crashing a wedding, right?
The ceremony was very religious, which fit perfectly with the couple; however, Chris and I consider ourselves to be spiritual people but not religious. One of the biblical readings during the ceremony was from Ephesians 5:22 "Wives, be subjects to your husband as you are to the Lord." WHAT! I grimaced as this passage was read, while Chris looked at me and snickered. He keeps teasing me that he is going to slip our pastor a $20 to put obey in the vows, not to be malicious, but to be the adoring scoundrel that I love and admire! But really, "Wives be SUBJECTS to your husband as you are to the Lord!"
In college I studied theatre, but I concentrated my final year on feminism in performance. I was inspired by the so-called French Feminist Luce Irigaray , Julia Kristeva, and especially Hélène Cixous and her theory of écriture féminine. Side Note: My senior thesis was directoring Cixous' Portrait of Dora based on Sigmund Freud's Portrait of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria and the enigmatic female character Dora. The picture above is from my production. Although Cixous has an impressive body of work, she is mostly known in academia for her essay Le Rire de la Meduse (The Laugh of the Medusa) in which she theorizes that we all are all born into language, which is inscribed with convoluted power structures that traps women into logocentrism and phallogocentrism definitions; therefore, women must write herself as she was meant to be written thus her shattering entry into history. As Cixous says, "By writing herself, women will return to the body which has been confiscated from her...Second, women seizing the occasion to speak, hence her shattering entry into history, which has always been based on her suppression." I know this is very academic, please bear with me.
Back to the bible and Ephesians 5:22, "Wives, be subjects to your husband as you are to the Lord." I have a huge problem with the semantics of the passage! The definition of subject is to be under the control of somebody or something such as a ruler or a law, and obliged to obey. I've found research speaking to the discrepancy in the translation of this biblical passage to a reflective rather than transitive verb in earlier Greek biblical versions, which would equate the objectivity of women and men to the subjectivity of the Lord, but the damage in language has already been perpetuated historically – making the passage’s hierarchical structure a convoluted justification for male dominance and female objectivity.
Now, thinking about writing my own wedding ceremony with a Christian minister, and the language we want to use in our vows, I do not want to be a willing participant in perpetuating an archaic notion of subject vs. object dualism. Even in the traditional “giving way of the bride.” I want to rewrite it so that my father is not giving, but rather, I am choosing to enter into marriage with Chris because of our deep love and respect for one another. I do not want my role in marriage to be that of the virginal mother/wife; rather, I want our marriage to be a mutal partnership -- each an equal and willing participant in this lifelong journey together. I am a subject in my own right and capable of choosing to love, honor, and not to obey my future husband!
The ceremony was very religious, which fit perfectly with the couple; however, Chris and I consider ourselves to be spiritual people but not religious. One of the biblical readings during the ceremony was from Ephesians 5:22 "Wives, be subjects to your husband as you are to the Lord." WHAT! I grimaced as this passage was read, while Chris looked at me and snickered. He keeps teasing me that he is going to slip our pastor a $20 to put obey in the vows, not to be malicious, but to be the adoring scoundrel that I love and admire! But really, "Wives be SUBJECTS to your husband as you are to the Lord!"
In college I studied theatre, but I concentrated my final year on feminism in performance. I was inspired by the so-called French Feminist Luce Irigaray , Julia Kristeva, and especially Hélène Cixous and her theory of écriture féminine. Side Note: My senior thesis was directoring Cixous' Portrait of Dora based on Sigmund Freud's Portrait of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria and the enigmatic female character Dora. The picture above is from my production. Although Cixous has an impressive body of work, she is mostly known in academia for her essay Le Rire de la Meduse (The Laugh of the Medusa) in which she theorizes that we all are all born into language, which is inscribed with convoluted power structures that traps women into logocentrism and phallogocentrism definitions; therefore, women must write herself as she was meant to be written thus her shattering entry into history. As Cixous says, "By writing herself, women will return to the body which has been confiscated from her...Second, women seizing the occasion to speak, hence her shattering entry into history, which has always been based on her suppression." I know this is very academic, please bear with me.
Back to the bible and Ephesians 5:22, "Wives, be subjects to your husband as you are to the Lord." I have a huge problem with the semantics of the passage! The definition of subject is to be under the control of somebody or something such as a ruler or a law, and obliged to obey. I've found research speaking to the discrepancy in the translation of this biblical passage to a reflective rather than transitive verb in earlier Greek biblical versions, which would equate the objectivity of women and men to the subjectivity of the Lord, but the damage in language has already been perpetuated historically – making the passage’s hierarchical structure a convoluted justification for male dominance and female objectivity.
Now, thinking about writing my own wedding ceremony with a Christian minister, and the language we want to use in our vows, I do not want to be a willing participant in perpetuating an archaic notion of subject vs. object dualism. Even in the traditional “giving way of the bride.” I want to rewrite it so that my father is not giving, but rather, I am choosing to enter into marriage with Chris because of our deep love and respect for one another. I do not want my role in marriage to be that of the virginal mother/wife; rather, I want our marriage to be a mutal partnership -- each an equal and willing participant in this lifelong journey together. I am a subject in my own right and capable of choosing to love, honor, and not to obey my future husband!
5 comments:
Paul also says something similar in Colossians 3:18, but the next verse goes, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them."
Now that I look it up, I see that the Ephesians verse is followed by something similar: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." Now there's a sentiment I can get behind.
I remember this only because there is an episode of The West Wing where Abbey and Jed go to church and the priest is preaching on Ephesians. She wants to skip the wives be subject line and go straight to the husbands be subject line; Jed wants to know why and she says it's because the first part is stupid.
-KCB
here here to this post! i personally like to replace "obey" with "behave". :)
My mom pointed that out the rest of the Ephesians verse when I talked with her about the post; however, at the wedding I attended only the first part was read, and the minister's sermon was about wives subjective role to her husband. Problematic, right?
If a couple wants to use Ephesians in a wedding, without perpetuating the subject vs. object dualism, than the second verse must be read, otherwise it is exactly what Cixous states in The Laugh of the Medusaabout the embedded objectivity of women in language.
Elizabeth,
Thanks for leaving a comment. I read you blog along with my other daily digests for wedding inspiration! Great site!
We had a similar chat.
Not a horror story, but a warning: my sister's good friend didn't check with the minister about his sermon for the wedding, and it veered into something on that vein which she DID NOT appreciate being surprised with.
Post a Comment