Another passage of interest here is Genesis 9:6, where God established murder as a capital sin. It reads:
וְאַךְ אֶת-דִּמְכֶם לְנַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם אֶדְרֹשׁ, מִיַּד כָּל-חַיָּה אֶדְרְשֶׁנּוּ; וּמִיַּד הָאָדָם, מִיַּד אִישׁ אָחִיו--אֶדְרֹשׁ, אֶת-נֶפֶשׁ הָאָדָם
שֹׁפֵךְ דַּם הָאָדָם, בָּאָדָם דָּמוֹ יִשָּׁפֵךְ: כִּי בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים, עָשָׂה אֶת-הָאָדָם
And even your blood for your lives I will require, from the hand of every living thing I will require it. And from the hand of man, from the hand of a man's brother, I will require the life of man.
He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For in His image did God make man.
Now, this is the time of Noah, no doubt long after Adam had died. And yet, the human race bears his name. That the sin here is the shedding of the blood of haAdam - the Adam-ite, the man - is an explicit definition of the human race as descendants of Adam.
So, we find in Genesis itself that the very concept of "humanity" is gendered; it is the race of Adam, mankind. God did not form an amorphous blob and then make male and female through a grand mitosis. He made Adam first, and then Eve. The former was God's primary intention for creation, and the latter a suitable partner (Gen. 2:18).
Think back to the ANE context, particularly of founding ancestors and father-rule in the household. When we assume what the ancients assumed with respect to founding patriarchs and father rule, Adam's inherent authority over Eve and the first humans becomes crystal clear. No "law" is necessary to establish this, nor an explicit statement in Genesis.
Other than Adam and mankind, the other best example of patriarchal foundations is in Israel itself. The nation was founded by the man named "Israel", previously Jacob, and his 12 sons. We all know this, we all read the story, and watched it in TBN cartoons. But when you account for how this was a fundamental element of patriarchy in the ancient world, it becomes clear that patriarchy itself is being assumed as good and normative. The whole narrative assumes that Jacob/Israel and the fathers who come from him will lead the whole nation according to God's will, and that their descendants will be defined under the banner of their names. Israel and his sons are the authoritative heads, not them and their wives together. Gender equality is never even hinted at as part of God's plan.
III - New Covenant Patriarchy
The patriarchy of Graeco-Roman society was still very real, but later on less absolute than Israelite/Ancient Near-Eastern patriarchy with respect to wives. For example, the early form of Roman marriage called cum manu (with hand) saw the wife given over to the absolute legal authority of her husband. This, however, became exceedingly rare in the late Republic and early Empire, with women mostly remaining under their own fathers' potestas, or legal household authority [IX] in a "free" marriage called sine manu (without hand). She would then become an independent entity when her father died, but still needed a male guardian (tutor) to approve most legal and business acts [X]. Regardless, a woman's husband still held exclusive authority over his children through being the Pater Familias (father of the household), and women were all but banned from political activity and office, her primary role instead being the management of the household, as in ancient Israel. The Roman household of the late Republic and Imperial period was less starkly hierarchical between men and women compared to traditional Greek and Judean households. Regardless, as evidenced by the writings of many authors (especially Greek and Judean) on ideal family function [XI] and the rights and role of a husband in wider public activity vs women's expectations in household management, the husband was the household head and the woman was seen as under his authority (sometimes just socially, others both socially and legally).
In this still patriarchal world, the holy scriptures affirm the general attitude of wifely submission and male authority in life, with the primary given reasoning being obedience to God. The chief text on the Christian household order comes from Paul's letter to Ephesus, 5:21 - 6:9, in which he generally affirms the household order as it was in the world around him, but with foundations rooted in the marriage of Christ and his Church.
Numerous debates on the Ephesians passage rage on today; what does κεφαλή (kephale) really mean? What does submission mean? Is it just wifely submission or 'mutual submission'? Important as these discussions may be, I believe it comes from a falsely assumed default. That is, the passage is treated as this blank slate that both sides have an equal burden to prove means what they say it means. But if you accept the ancient and good default of patriarchy within the scriptures and the world around them, then the debate is a non-starter. This passage is a sober, Christ-centered reassertion of the household hierarchy. No good reason exists to interpret it otherwise.
I will comment on a fairly common objection, one I find important to address because it comes from a false view of how Christians ought to view the works of unbelievers, particularly ancient pagans. Understanding the place of pagan thought in light of the scriptures is very important in fully grasping God's truth, chiefly through natural law [XII], which is extremely relevant for this topic (so much so I'm debating whether to make a whole essay dedicated to it). In refuting this claim, I'll kill two birds with one stone.
Some assert that Paul is merely echoing the cultural ideals of Graeco-Roman society. Others will be more specific and claim he is paralleling the assertions of pagan thinkers like Aristotle, who wrote his own "household code" in a structure identical to Paul's; men and women, parents and children, masters and slaves. Therefore, Paul was merely reaffirming cultural norms in Christian imagery, in order to ensure that the Church keeps good appearances with the wider world. But in spite of this, there was/is an egalitarian trajectory in the passage (e.g. that husbands ought to love their wives, masters ought to treat their slaves well) and in the rest of the scriptures; it just needed time to be fully fleshed out.
This argument is typically asserted through a hermeneutic (method of interpretation) called the "Redemptive" or "Redemptive-Movement" hermeneutic. It basically asserts the claim above; Paul did indeed call for wifely submission, but the scriptures point to a trajectory where that would be replaced by full equality. Not all who use the Redemptive Hermeneutic make the argument-ad-ripping off Aristotle, and this hermeneutic is effectively DOA when prior assumptions on Biblical equality are refuted (as my series has done), so I'll simply address the pagan = bad argument. For those interested, a good explanation and critique of the Redemptive Hermeneutic can be found in "Women, Slaves, and the Gender Debate" by Benjamin Reaoch [XIII]
IV - Pagan man bad
First and foremost, the problem with asserting a parallel between Paul and pagans, and that Paul's command was therefore temporal, assumes without argument that the pagan is actually wrong. Truth is truth and falsehood is falsehood irrespective of who says it. For example, when Aristotle says that a man rules over his children like a king and over his wife like a republic [Bk. I, sec. 1259a], is he wrong? Or when he says the male is better fit to rule than the female [1259b], is he wrong? You can screech "sexist white men" all you want, but that doesn't challenge their claims one iota. And dare I say it, the scriptures back them up. Denying these
What makes this claim even more unlikely is what it tells us about Paul's integrity. We are expected to believe that the same Apostle who said "I am not ashamed of the Gospel", who preached one God and Lord, plus the non-existence of all others (which more than ticked off the wider world - just ask Julian the Apostate), who was whipped repeatedly for his alleged blasphemy by the Jewish elite, and who was finally martyred for the faith, was suddenly too beta to defy current gender norms. Suffice to say, this is ridiculously unlikely.
And Paul also tells us when what he says is either his opinion (e.g. in 1 Corinthians 7) or is based on respecting other norms (e.g. Romans 14 and meat eating). Romans 14 is actually a perfect example here because he first establishes the absolute truth, that all food is permissible to eat. Then and only then does he add the caveat of respecting others who choose to abstain from meat. Nothing even close to this happens in Ephesians 5, and features like clear analogy to Christ and the Church make universal application a certainty.
So, no, pagan man not necessarily bad; the scriptures say otherwise. Pagans may be correct at times, because the law is innate even to unbelievers (Romans 2:14 - 15). And Paul himself would, if only briefly, use the words of pagans to bolster his points (e.g. his Acts 17 sermon, against Cretans in Titus 1). Obviously, God's revelation is the chief standard by which all claims must be tested. But these claims, even by unbelievers, can in fact be tested and validated. In this case, I greatly agree and occasionally disagree with Aristotle, and even think some of his observations can bring definition to established Christian truths on the topic.
