Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she respect her husband.
Read Chapter 5
Gaius Marius Victorinus
AD 400
Already he has given instructions generally to men concerning their wives and to women concerning their husbands. He now applies the same principles specifically to the Ephesians…. He has added the connecting word however. This shows that even as Christ and the church are one body, so are husband and wife one flesh. The husband’s maxim is to love his wife as if she were his own flesh. .
How, one may say, is there to be love when there is respect? Love is most powerfully present when accompanied by respect. For what she loves she also reveres, and what she reveres she also loves. She reveres him as the head and loves him as a member of the whole body. God’s purpose in ordering marriage is peace. One takes the husband’s role, one takes the wife’s role, one in guiding, one in supporting. If both had the very same roles, there would be no peace. The house is not rightly governed when all have precisely the same roles. There must be a differentiation of roles under a single head. .
For indeed, in very deed, a mystery it is, yea, a great mystery, that a man should leave him that gave him being, him that begot him, and that brought him up, and her that travailed with him and had sorrow, those that have bestowed upon him so many and great benefits, those with whom he has been in familiar intercourse, and be joined to one who was never even seen by him and who has nothing in common with him, and should honor her before all others. A mystery it is indeed. And yet are parents not distressed when these events take place, but rather, when they do not take place; and are delighted when their wealth is spent and lavished upon it.— A great mystery indeed! And one that contains some hidden wisdom. Such Moses prophetically showed it to be from the very first; such now also Paul proclaims it, where he says, concerning Christ and the Church.
However not for the husband's sake alone it is thus said, but for the wife's sake also, that he cherish her as his own flesh, as Christ...
