Yesterday’s post straight out of 1950 where I play the perky, but sometimes discontent housewife got me thinking about our roles as women these days.
Somehow my train of thought led me to start thinking about the wedding of a friend, actually the wedding where I met Tate, where my girlfriend’s part of the vows included saying that she promised to love, honor, and obey her husband. I remember being utterly shocked. Obey?? Really? It was 1998, not 1898.
After the wedding, (not right after, more like a year or two after) I asked her why they included the word “obey” in her vows. She said she hadn’t even realized that and joked that really it should have been her husband who promised to obey because we all knew who REALLY wore the pants in that family.
I’m just going to go ahead and throw this out there that this was a Baptist wedding. Me not being Baptist, I have no idea if this is common practice, or if it’s common amongst different types of Baptists and not others. I also have no idea if other religions include this in their vows, though I’m certain it’s not just a Baptist thing. My Methodist wedding vows did not include the word “obey,” which is a good thing because I wouldn’t have been cool with saying that.
In my opinion, I cannot fathom vowing to obey anyone. Conversely, I wouldn’t want someone to vow to obey me. (Well, okay, I sorta would.) It seems very outdated and has been outdated since the last century. I am aware, though I don’t fully understand that the “obey” part of the vows is not only said, but also adhered to for some. Saying that is in no way meant to be judgmental, but since it is not a part of my reality, it’s hard for me to comprehend.
I’m curious if your vows include the word “obey?” If so, what did you think about it?
I know this topic has the possibility of starting a firestorm in the comments because we may be discussing faith based, personal issues, so I just ask that whatever your opinion, please respect other’s viewpoints.
Never been married, but I’d feel the same as you. Promising to “obey” your spouse, or anyone for that matter for ALL ETERNITY is a little much, I think. It can’t be done. You can try to minimize conflict, find solutions, compromise, listen to each other, but obey? All the time? Naw. Ain’t gonna happen.
That’s my take on it.
I do have some friends who are very conservative Christian, and they most certainly included the “obey” in their vows. The wife is expected to do whatever the husband wants, all the time, even if it means degrading herself, not taking care of herself, putting him first, la la la. It makes me sick, to tell you the truth.
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Ours didn’t include them but if I were to do it over again I would.
That (obey) is a reflection of a bible verse that refers to the husband being the head of the household, like Christ is the head of the church. If you are Christian, if Jesus asked you to do something you’d do it, right? Well, as a married couple, your husband is to love you and the family like Christ loves the whole church, and thus lovingly guide the family in the best direction. Does that make sense?
Anyway, I would use it now because I gladly follow my husbands’ lead in many things because I know that he has my and the children’s best interests at heart. That being said, he also does the same in the areas that I have more knowledge or experience. So even though we ‘obey’, it’s more like respect each other’s areas of expertise.
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While I’m not really big on Christian splitting themselves up into different denomonations and wish everyone could just get along, I go to a Baptist church and married a Baptist family. Our vows didn’t include “obey.” Even though I agree with Headless Mom’s comment–wives should obey their husbands as long as he is directing the family in the way Christ would direct the church–I wouldn’t have said it! I don’t think wives should obey their husbands if their husbands want something done that isn’t right/moral/godly etc.
Anyway, it’s too late for me to remember how I even came across this blog, but interesting post! I’ll have to come back again someday.
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My first wedding was Baptist and “obey” was in the vows. I had NO idea it would be until the preacher said it in the wedding. I was shocked but I repeated it. Second time, no way. I wasn’t vowing to “obey” anyone. It didn’t work out well the first time anyway. LOL
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I wasn’t a Christian when I got married and obey wasn’t in my vows. My husband isn’t very ‘Christ-like’ at times and it is hard to submit to him. But I try to trust God in this. My husband is not a cruel tyrant and has good judgement in most things. I look on it as a way to show my love not only to my husband, but to God. I do my best to follow His commands by submitting to my husband. Actually, I don’t think it’s possible to submit to another unless you are a Christian. It’s just barely possible when you are.
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I said obey in my vows – but then I got married a hundred years ago in a Catholic Church. I think they still use that word in the marriage vows.
I have to agree with you though, I don’t believe that it is appropriate in this day and age. And I don’t agree that a husband is the one who ‘directs’ the family and neither is he the household head. Rubbish, we all contribute something … you can’t just count the financial contribution – and many women contribute handsomely to that.
They should definatly take that word out!!
Our wedding was performed by a ship’s chaplain, but I can’t remember if the words ‘obey’ were in them right offhand. Doesn’t matter; I give as good as I get regardless.
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Two marriages (neither in a church) and obey was purposefully left out of the vows in both.
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We chose our vows, and they didn’t have the word “obey” in them. We are a team, and always have been..sometimes he needs to be the voice of reason, and sometimes I do.
I was somewhat startled at a friend’s wedding when my friend promised to obey but her new husband did not. I shouldn’t have been, but I was. (And that was a Baptist wedding, although I know I’ve heard it at weddings of other denominations as well. For some reason that one just startled me.)
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We just got married in March in a Methodist church. We were both pretty adamant about having egalitarian vows, so we searched around for some that were traditional, church appropriate, yet fitting for both of us. They really just emphasized what we share now and what we hope to gain with each other in the future.
I, _, ask you, _, to be my husband/wife as my friend and my love.
On this day I affirm the relationship we have enjoyed, looking to the future to deepen and strengthen it. I will be yours in plenty and in want, in sickness and in health, in failure and in triumph. Together we will dream, we will stumble but restore each other, we will share all things, serving each other and our fellow humanity. I will cherish and respect you, comfort and encourage you, be open with you, and stay with you, forsaking all others for as long as we both shall live.
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I am in the beginning phases of wedding-planning, and we have already decided there will be no “obey” in our vows. We’re Catholic, and we understand the biblical context – it’s just not for us. I do promise to respect him – but obey? Not so much.
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Sometimes I feel like marriage itself is outdated.
My sister had a baptist wedding and it was in there.
I had a heathen wedding and it wasn’t.
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ours did not.
although my wedding cost 10 bucks (justice of the peace) was held in the basement of a jail (chapel hill nc) and I was wearing a sweatshirt and running tights ( but my parents were in attendance!).
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We were married by a justice of the peace in a very nice small family wedding outside at a country club. There were 50ish people in attendance. The lady does the repeat after me part and she says the obey thing and the photographer gets a picture of my face as she says that word. I have to try to find that picture….it’s SO classic – its a solid mix of horrified and hilariously funny like “are you joking”. Needless to say I didn’t repeat that word and she omitted it when she did the FH’s vows.
Dogs Obey. I. Am not a dog.
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We got to choose (from a list of about 5 sets) what vows we wanted to say. Some had obey, others didn’t. We chose one that didn’t.
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We got hitched in Vegas and requested an non-religious ceremony, but the chapel had a different idea about that. We had to stand through 10 minutes of preaching (and I’m really not exaggerating even though it sounds like it) before he got to the nitty gritty.
I honestly don’t remember what we said to each other. I think we should get married again so I can take notes. I think I was too distracted that we just got preached to for 10 minutes and that even though my husband and I agreed we weren’t having anyone stand with us, there was his cousin standing next to him at the alter.
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No, no, no, no obeying for this Presbyterian-wed couple.
But my dad (a Methodist) tried to tell me after the wedding that someone has to have a 51% vote in a relationship, because there are some things you just can’t compromise on, so if we found something along the way (like c*rcumc*s*on, maybe) where we couldn’t compromise, it was my DUTY to let my husband win – because men need that extra 1% vote to feel manly or something insane.
Needless to say, I didn’t take this ridiculous advice. The fact that dad has been divorced twice played a large role in my decision not to take this ridiculous advice…
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Is it absolutely horrible that I don’t REMEMBER if our vows included “obey”?
I’m going to a Baptist wedding this weekend – I’ll be listening extra close to see if she’s going to obey her husband.
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oh, if I decided to discuss this with my husband we would get in a heated biblical debate for sure that would result in someone not having a comfy bed by the end of the night.
Let’s just say I’m with you. And if my vows had “obey” in them, my fingers were crossed behind my pretty white dress…
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We wrote our own humanist ceremony and there was no g*d and certainly no obey. We had my folks minister do the ceremony and she slipped in two references to g*d. My great aunt and uncle liked the ceremony so much, they began driving an hour each way to her church.
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It’s been 17 years and 2 days since I took those vows – I have NO idea if I said obey. I’m betting not – but ya know… who knows. Now I’m gonna have to call my ex and ask him if he remembers LOL Dammit.
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Jenelle, welcome! Glad you commented!
dysfunctional mom, I wondered if anyone would say that it had been a surprise when the officiant wanted you to repeat “obey!”
I think that I would have said it, too, because I would have been so surprised.
Sarah, I know what you mean about understanding the biblical CONTEXT. But despite the context, I just don’t do submission.
Cass, I’m impressed you didn’t say it. I probably would have because I would have been so shocked and flustered that I would have just blurted it out!
I just have to say that many of these comments truly surprise me. Thank you all for your honesty!
Also, thank you all for being very respectful with your comments thus far.
Before I start my comment, I’ll tell you that I’m writing from the perspective of a Christian woman who is married…who used “obey” in her vows!
I think the obedience vow goes back to scripture. Ephesians 5 instructs wives to submit (or obey) their husbands in the same way that all people are to obey the Lord. Men are instructed to love their wives as Jesus loves the church – in a holy and sacrificial way. There are a lot of parallels between husband/wife relationships and the relationship between Jesus and the church.
” Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”
There are a lot of people who will read that, and assume that a wife is supposed to bow down to her husband and become his slave. Bullcrap. They need to keep reading…
“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. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”
Marriage – the way God intended it – is supposed to be a beautiful cycle of love, respect, obedience to one another, care for one another, etc.
Just my two cents…
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Thanks Katie, for including the rest of the story about a man’s role. It helps soften the blow of the word “obey” and “submit.”
It’s hard for me to get past those words. It’s hard for me to think of marriage where I’m not equal to my husband despite the context of the Bible.
Your comment was very informative, thank you. (by the way, I’m Catholic, so it’s not as if I’m a Godless person, I think we just all have different views and interpretations of the Bible.)
We were married in 1994 (14 years July 2nd) in a Lutheran Church. The Pastor asked if we wanted to write our own vows, or use traditional ones. We chose traditional and he gave us about 4 or so sets of vows to choose from. And I clearly remember one set having obey in it, and I clearly remember we DID NOT choose that particular set.
This is a very interesting subject, I’ll be back to read more comments.
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No obeying at my wedding and none that I have been to and I go to a very conservative, evangelical church. We got to choose our vows. I understand the biblical context but, for me, I obey NO MAN!
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I can’t remember if they were in my vows. Crap. That can’t be good, can it?
I don’t have a problem with it though. I know a lot of people freak because they hear the word obey and suddenly visualize a subservient lap dog for a wife.
That’s not the point.
It’s about respect that you GIVE, not orders that are taken.
I’m not sure I know how to adequately describe it. Or that my husband would believe a word of me saying I try to “obey” him. LOL
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Obey, no I do not obey my husband. Did not have that in my vows and even if I did I wouldn’t obey him. In a marriage you respect your spouse not obey them. If they do not like it when you leave the toliet seat up and they ask you nicely not to do it anymore, you don’t leave the toliet seat up. That is not obeying that is just common decency.
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I’m pretty sure “to obey” wasn’t in our wedding vows. I’m Catholic btw.
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Ain’t nobody obeying nobody around these parts. I can’t get one of the dogs to do what I want, let alone the husband. It’s all good, though.
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I did not say “obey” – Catholic wedding.
There is no obeying – I just cannot deal with that word.
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No obey for us. But the minister that married us walked us through actually thinking about what we were saying to each other and we decided to say “I give myself to this man” instead of “I take this man”. I probably doesn’t actually affect our marriage, but it was a nice touch.
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I had a Methodist wedding, too, through and through, and there was no mention of obedience. My problem, even with the obey stuff in the entire Biblical context, is that obey is (and certainly was in Biblical times) a word of slavery – an obligation – whereas love (what the husband is instructed to do) is a choice of a free person. So the Biblical context, to me, actually complicates the matter more than justifies it. I don’t mind being told to love my husband, but I do mind an assumption on the part of my religion that I am obliged rather than freely choosing.
Here’s something worse than obey, in my mind: I once went to a Catholic wedding in which the couple had to promise to have as many children as God blessed them with. They all but swore not to use any form of birth control. Yikes.
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Sus, yeah, I’m Catholic (we had a Methodist wedding), but MANY of my friends truly believe the part about having as many children as God blesses them with. I admire that, but for me? NO FLIPPING WAY.
I’m probably going to hell for having an IUD.
I don’t really consider myself Baptist (in that I don’t really believe some of the stuff that they do) but I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and that is where I was married. A friend of mine who had already been married by the same preacher warned me beforehand that he would want me to use the love honor and obey vows. I was glad she told me, b/c even though he gave me a ‘script’ of what he was going to say, I know I probably wouldn’t have looked that closely. I politely asked him to change it to “love, honor, and cherish” and he did. I don’t really like the word obey when talking about a spouse. I would probably follow mine to the ends of the earth, and have even let him go with a hairbrained scheme or two without saying a word, but I will not vow to obey him, just as he didn’t vow to obey me. In my opinion, marriage is a partnership, and partners don’t have to swear to obey each other.
We are agnostics so we had a non-denominational wedding, where we choose our own vows.
I think it;s the old-fashioned religious ceremonies that tend to have that kind of worfding.
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I was married in a Catholic ceremony and they gave us this little booklet with al the readings, songs, and things to choose from. Obey was one of the vow options.
Yeah. No.
I also avoided all readings that involved the words helpmate and Eve.
We went with love, honor, and cherish.
Something about obey sits wrong with me. We are a partnership, not a monarchy.
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I’m Catholic – had a Catholic wedding. And I DO remember there being some discussion about whether or not to include those words. I think I remember my husband being the one to say that they weren’t necessary. (Darn right!) And I understand the context. I guess it’s just the way you want to LIVE.
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We had two weddings. The first, we were married by one of our best friends who is a (mail order) minister. We wrote our own vows.
The next day we had a Jewish ceremony. I distinctly remember the vows containing the feeling of “obey” without actually saying it. A lot of “turning to your husband in all things” and “following his lead”etc.
We had them change it so that we “turned to each other” instead.
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The Methodist minister who married us gave us several examples of traditional vows, but asked us to use those as a basis to write our own. I told her, jokingly but not if you kwim, that I absolutely would not say “obey”. She laughed too and said she didn’t say it at her wedding either!
Children obey, dogs obey, adults compromise!
Interesting discussion.
I think we have a knee jerk (and VERY negative) reaction to the word “obey.” Do people always obey God? No. Do wives always obey husbands? No. Do husbands always love their wives the way Christ loved the church? No.
Obey and submit are not dirty words. But in society at large, there are leaders and there are followers. Most parents expect obedience from their children. We don’t think it’s such a bad word when we are mom or dad. Why is that? We need them to be obedient for their best interest, and because we are responsible for their actions until they reach a legal age. It’s not meant to make them slaves, subservient or lesser.
Wives and husbands are different. They are a team, true. They have important roles to fulfill within their family, and I am not talking about who is the bread winner either. Wives are the spiritual heart of the the home. Husbands are the head of the home, not in a dictatorial way, but literally responsible for that family BEFORE GOD. That is a huge, HUGE responsibility to bear. I know that *I* would not want to be the one standing before God with that burden. A submissive wife is not a doormat or a subject of abuse. That woman needs to walk out the door and never look back. A submissive wife is one who helps her husband, and offers her opinion and advice to him regarding all decisions. A good husband has her best interests at heart and knows her desires, and makes decisions with her input. When there is disagreement about a decision (and there will be), a woman who is submissive will let the man make it. He might be wrong, and he will figure that out soon enough, but then he will be even more likely to listen in the future. Especially if you don’t harp about what a bad decision he made.
The word obey was not in my vows, that I recall anyway, but I would purposely put it there now. I am no door mat. I am a strong, educated and independent woman who sees beauty and freedom in a marriage the way God designed it to be. He’s always right, and when I stop stubbornly refusing to do things His way, I am blessed beyond imagination. Culture and society have made those words into dirty, four letter words. That was not what was intended. Just my novel of a comment.
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I think sometimes people who get married may not realize the vows they take…they hire a minister/priest/etc. and just go from there. Our vows were a combination or other vows I had found so we kind of wrote them ourselves. Obey was not in them at all. However, our entire ceremony was very Pagan in theme and we made sure it was more about two equals coming together to share a life (I refused to be “given away” as I am not property to be given).
Many many wedding traditions are steeped in the religious traditions of times gone by and few people actually question them because, well, they are traditions. The white dress didn’t start out about purity or virginity…it was actually a wealthy custom as only the wealthy could afford a white dress that could not be washed (remember, no special fabric soap back in the day) and only worn once. It used to be you just wore your best clothes (I actually had a jewel tone blue dress).
The Bride being given away is because women were property owned by their father’s first, then by they husbands (hence the vow “obey” started). Flowers were to cover up body odor since baths weren’t taken as regularly.
Few people think to question these traditions, including “obey” in the vows as they are usually caught up in the whole wedding thing…the flowers have to be just right, the dressed, the food, etc..sometimes the vows are taken for granted and not realized until the end.
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I agree with the Headless Mom’s comment. The word obey should aso include the phrase “as he obeys the Lord.” It is actually more of a responsibility for the man. I bleieve that it puts the majority of the pressure on him.
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Our Methodist pastor was so cool– she gave us this book full of traditional wedding vows from tons of different religions, and we patchworked together something that fit us to a tee. It DID NOT include the word “obey.” Because the very idea made me barf a little in my mouth.
This pastor was SO COOL that when I uttered the words, “I’d like to take it easy on the Jesus” when discussing our ceremony, she didn’t even balk once.
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We were married by a judge. We didn’t vow to “obey” but we did “plight our troth” …. almost as outdated!
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Great comments. I have no idea if I said obey or not anymore. We had a Catholic wedding (although we are no longer Catholic) and we used the ‘canned’ vows from the church.
Today, I would TOTALLY say it. Don’t get me wrong. I have my own mind. I speak my mind. I have opinions and attitude and my husband loves me for all of that (he better anyway). However, as a Christian today, I TOTALLY feel that my hubby is the head of our house and if there was a MAJOR issue that we TOTALLY COULD NOT COME TO AN AGREEMENT ON after lots of discussion (and yelling and maybe even some plate throwing), in the END, he is the head of the family. I let him lead our family because that is what God wants me to do and that is how he was created. He is a leader in life more than I am. work, etc. So, he is more equipped to lead our house than I am in the end. I can’t believe I just wrote that, but I believe it.
HOWEVER, that being said, he usually sits back and lets me do it my way. He rarely says anything, but when he does, after I am done pouting, I really listen.
KEEP BELIEVING
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