This is part of a series on patriarchy, headship, and submission. See this index.

On December 1, 2013, Dalrock posted this classic article. This was long before I even knew who Dalrock was. He wasn’t even on my radar. Yet, so typical is this of the Manosphere in the following decade, that I think everyone would benefit from reading it. Because I don’t care about the length of my articles, I’m just going to quote the whole thing here so you can read the unabridged version before I make any further comments:

I’ve read lots of people commenting on Ephesians 5:22-27 and 1 Peter 3:1-6, but to my knowledge none have successfully condensed and expressed this view quite so well as Dalrock did here. Having read the whole thing, we can now proceed to commenting on it.

We begin with the religious fundamentalist’s mantra of interpretation:

This is can be applied quite remarkably to all manner of fundamentalism, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, religion, or political persuasion. It is found in fanatics everywhere.

We are careful to note that this is not an ad hominem. It is logically possible that Dalrock might be the ultra-lucky one who just happened to be right this time around. Or maybe not. We’ll see.

So we must start with this simple claim…

…by noting that Dalrock has committed his first serious error. He has split Ephesians 5:18-21 from Ephesians 5:22, slicing the sentence into a sentence fragment just as he asserts the theology that he derives from it: “headship and submission.”

For someone who is concerned with rationalizations, it is rather curious that he is starting the discussion by relying on a sentence fragment. As I pointed out in Part 7…

…we are not surprised to see that Dalrock is not taking a tone of sober reflection on this one. You’ve read what he wrote, would you describe him as soberly, meekly, humbly, or graciously approaching the possibilities of what might or might not be?

Now, as Dalrock failed to do but I have done repeatedly for years now, I will now cite what Paul actually said.

I have now untwisted the sentence. Now let’s sample one of the clauses of the sentence:

What, do you think Paul very clearly wrote? I think he wrote “submitting yourselves to one another in fear of Christ, wives to their own husbands as to the Lord.” And so, without any twisting at all, I see that husbands and wives are to submit themselves to each other and that wives are to submit to their husbands. I see that the latter is an example of what he was saying in the former portion of the same sentence. As far as Paul is clear about anything, this seems like a rather clear and straightforward explanation without any twisting required.

And, to be clear, you can, if you choose, cite the entire chapter of Ephesians 5, or the entire book of Ephesians as context, and the above statements would remain true. The context of what Paul wrote doesn’t challenge this clarity. Do you know what I consider twisting? This:

Because without including v21—as I did above—the sentence fragment is nonsensical: it lacks the verb. Dalrock is claiming that others are twisting scriptures, but when you see precisely what Dalrock has done, you see quite plainly that he is obviously twisting scripture. This is only hidden because Dalrock is using English translations that have been pre-twisted in a variety of ways to hide the original Greek.

You might pause here to give Dalrock the benefit of the doubt: maybe he didn’t know. But in the years that I’ve been pointing this out to others, I have had hardly anyone engage with me on this issue. Most just continue to say precisely what Dalrock has claimed while ignoring this argument (most recently here). If Dalrock really explored this topic well enough to conclude…

…then he must have, by pure necessity, been aware of this argument.

A completely reasonable counter to what Dalrock has claimed is that Dalrock’s citation of a sentence fragment twists what Paul clearly said in order to rationalize away his teaching on mutual submission.

This may sound like a “he said, she said” argument, except for one key difference: mutual submission is a logical consequence of citing the whole sentence, while headship is a logical consequence of citing a sentence fragment. You decide which is more in keeping with looking at the full context.

Dalrock is implicitly claiming that the “mutual submission” doctrine is a fallacious Appeal to Consequences. The idea is that the motivation behind the doctrine of mutual submission is because they don’t like how the headship doctrine opposes feminism. Here are the problems with that:

First, as shown above, the view that Paul teaches mutual submission is derived from the actual words of Paul that he wrote in Greek, not from a manipulated English translation. An Appeal to Consequences is simply not required.

Second, Dalrock does not provide any evidence to back up his claim. He simply accuses feminists of fallacious reasoning without proving it.

Third, Dalrock engages in the False Dilemma fallacy. There are people who are not feminists who read what Paul wrote in Greek and conclude the same thing I do. As many readers are aware, commenter Sharkly has also made this claim on many occasions. Even if you discredited every feminist who ever existed as an intellectual fraud, their would still be non-feminists who—having no feminist motivations—believed that Paul taught mutual submission.

Fourth, Dalrock is committing an obvious ad hominem. Rather than addressing the idea, he is addressing personal motivations. Formally, this is the Genetic Fallacy. Even if feminists like one view and hate another, this is completely irrelevant. Dalrock errs in bringing it up. It is an unforced error.

This chapter, which I’ve written about many times, does not, in fact, trouble me at all—a ‘modern’ Christian who thinks Paul clearly wrote “submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.” This is just more of the same fallacious reason above. Dalrock is not well-served by his failure to stick to ideas.

This is more fallacious reasoning. It wouldn’t matter even if what Paul said goes against modern sensibilities.

Did you notice how Dalrock loaded “modern sensibility” with the implication that his view is ancient while the view he hates is “modern?” That might be clever, except for one thing. The historical explanation goes against Dalrock. He’s the one who holds the anachronistic viewpoint. Let’s make that clearer:

This would, in my opinion, be completely true. But it would also be irrelevant. In rejecting my version of this argument, you should also be rejecting Dalrock’s version. They are both equally invalid.

Dalrock quoted 1 Peter 3:1-6, but he left out the surrounding context. I wrote about this back in Part 1. Immediately after giving instructions to wives, Peter says this to the husbands:

Peter had just got done explaining that…

…only to say that husbands should in the same way dwell (or live) with their unbelieving wives. The word Peter uses is synoikountes, which refers to domestics cohabitation and sexual intercourse between a husband and wife. The alternative to domestic dwelling is divorce. Peter is telling husbands that if their unbelieving wife is abusive, cruel, etc. that he must remain married to her. Husbands are instructed to respond to failing wives with more of the same thing that wives offer to their failing husbands. Peter is telling both husbands and wives that they may not divorce. Rather, they must find a way to endure the situation. Peter’s instructions are aimed at that purpose.

The Christian patriarchy likes to talk about how wives should reverence (i.e. render honor) their husbands, but they rarely tell you that after Peter told wives to submit to their unbelieving, failing spouses, that Peter told husbands to, in the same way, render honor to their unbelieving, failing wives.

When you look at the Manosphere, particularly of the devotees of Dalrock, do you get the sense that those men are rendering honor to their failing wives? Why not? Peter, like Paul, was clear enough, wasn’t he?

Dalrock—in speaking in more general terms than we are—appears to be making a point that is irrelevant to our discussion on mutual submission. But we want to take the opportunity to note that we agree with Dalrock’s general principle: husbands and wives should submit regardless of whether or not their spouse reciprocates.

In a discussion where Dalrock claims that his opponents are twisting the words of Paul, it is vital to note that Paul does not tell husbands to “lead their wives by washing them with the water of the word.” This is actually a very egregious misrepresentation. Here is what Paul says of Christ:

Paul only ever explicitly tells husbands to love their wives. All of the other actions are assigned to Christ. Dalrock is making an inference that Christ having love the church, gave himself up (in death) to her, making her holy, cleansing the church by the washing of water with the word, and presenting the church to himself as a glorious bride, is precisely and exactly what husband do with wives. But this is absurd at the start because husbands do not, in general, give themselves up in death for their wives.

Dalrock has to twist the acts of Christ to try to normalize them as actions commanded of husbands. But Paul doesn’t do this. He just tells husbands to love as Christ loved.

When John Chrysostom wrote in the late 4th century, he failed to come to the same conclusion that Dalrock came to. See, Chrysostom said that the “washing of the word” referred to baptism into the church. There is no such corresponding ritual between a husband and wife. Chrysostom explicitly stated that husbands should not try to make their brides unblemished, but rather should focus on that within:

I cite Chrysostom because he solidly believed in patriarchy, in husbands having a higher authority than their wives. He was demonstrably not a feminist, yet he still concluded something that opposes Dalrock’s view of Paul being “clear.” Dalrock’s viewpoint falls afoul of both the ancient and modern viewpoints!

I wonder, how else would Dalrock suggest that you win over an unbeliever? Does he prefer something other than simply living out one’s faith out faithfully for all to see? This is not the “gotcha!” moment that Dalrock seems to think it is. If a husband wishes to win his wife over to the faith, he better also let purity prevail!

In any case, what Dalrock is leaving out is the background to Sarah and Abraham. But, we’ll discuss that in a bit.

There is nothing to be uncomfortable with regarding Peter’s instructions. But there is a lot to be uncomfortable with regarding the twisting and torturing of words required to come to the conclusion that mutual submission is not in view. Dalrock has mistaken discomfort with bad theology for discomfort with scripture. These are very different things.

Nope.

Dalrock has committed his worse instance of fallacious reasoning yet: begging-the-question. Dalrock takes the very thing under debate—the contested nature of Paul’s ‘clear’ instruction—and both presumes and concludes what it is. It is plainly circular.

Dalrock then takes his presumption and concludes that anyone who disagrees with him lacks faith in God.

This is not a rational position. But notice that there is no other rational response that one can give to such a claim as his besides the one that I just gave. He has attacked the core faith of his opponents by assuming that his viewpoint is true. He could not do so if he considered his viewpoint to be a matter of debate. All I can do is reject his fallacious claim outright without consideration.

Dalrock thinks he’s winning here, but he’s completely lost the argument. He’s done a grave disservice to anyone else who defends his position. And, sadly, too many of his gullible fans and devotees just cheer. But as I noted, a few bloggers called him out.

The answer is “None,” but I do like the strategy of reversing the subjects. I did that myself above to show the absurdity of Dalrock’s position, so I’m pleased to see him use the exact same strategy. It’s a good one. Let’s see if it works.

The problem with Dalrock’s claim should be fairly obvious. His statement is loaded. The implication is his alternative wording—switching “husband” and “wife” around—is that the two formulations are at odds with one another. The way Dalrock views submission, as a unidirectional hierarchical authoritarian arrangement, the two views are necessarily at odds with one another. In his mind, it’s not possible to have both true at the same time, and so he thinks to trap the feminist “churchian” into enthusiastically agreeing that men should be servile towards women while forcing them to implicitly deny that women should be servile towards men.

This is so obviously loaded with his assumptions that it’s hard to believe that anyone actually falls for this. Now let’s complete this word game by making it mutual:

…and…

And that, dearest readers, is mutual submission. Having removed Dalrock’s trap, there is now nothing about his claim that is offensive. Or rather, there is enough to offend the Christian patriarch, the feminist, and the mainstream “churchian” alike. Consider how that must be and you’ll begin to understand mutual submission.

This is just meaningless posturing. Lots of impressively sounding prose that doesn’t accomplish anything. No argument is made nor anything submitted as evidence. It’s just a bunch of assertions.

Dalrock seems to be taking a victory lap after losing the race.

Dalrock may be right that therapists, pastors, and other leaders tell husbands to submit to their wives while refusing  to tell wives to submit to their husbands. In my limited experience, pastors rarely talk about submission at all, so I have no evidence one way or the other, and Dalrock doesn’t provide any. He’s just making an assertion that may or may not match reality. If anyone has anything to add, please use the comment section. Please try to avoid anecdotes, especially those that cannot be validated.

I have not read or seen either, so I have no idea if Dalrock’s criticism is accurate or not. If you have, let me know in in the comments.