Submission!

Today we are going to have a real talk about Submission.

So, I saw this video of a young man who I guess is a Christian influencer, you know how there are a lot of these men who are relationship gurus that talk primarily to women. And he was saying that a woman that wants a particular kind of man better be sexy, feminine, hardworking, and submissive. He had a whole list of things, however, the “Submissive” part stood out to me, and I remember thinking “How would you define being submissive when you're not married?” So I started to think about it, and this is a Christian conversation because the word submission comes out of the Christian handbook which is the Bible, and I do think Islam also has it as well.

I want to point some things out around submission using what scripture says. 

Number one, the scripture does not call for women to be submissive in general. So I don't know what he meant by requiring women to be “submissive” if they want a particular kind of man. The first scripture around submission says “a woman should submit to her husband”, and then it's followed up a little later down the line where it says “husband and wife should submit one to another as unto God”. So there are two pieces, but the first piece says a woman should submit to her husband, not even other husbands, just to her husband. Then, both are to submit to one another. 

Now here's the thing I want to point out. Not every man that has a wife is a husband. Just like not every woman who's married, is a wife. Wait, are you with me on this? I have said this multiple times and in different places. I remember saying it to a friend who has an incredible relationship ministry with her husband, and she's like “oh my gosh, this is so profound”. And I can say that from years of not just personal experience, but also from working with so many women and talking to so many men and women.

A lot of women are trained on how to be wives, and a lot of men are not even trained on being husbands, no one talks to them about how to be a husband. The messaging is how to court a woman to get her to be a wife, but very rarely are men taught what to do to be husbands. The term husbandry is an agricultural term. As a husband, you're cultivating, you're caring for your wife, honoring her with love. You lead with love. A husband is looking at his home. He's planning for it. He's doing things. There's a way a husband behaves that naturally leads to a woman who is healed, a woman who is not in a toxic place, whose submission is not coming from a wounded place. 

Also, spouses naturally submit to each other. If you have a couple who are prepared, you will see mutual submission happen. No long story. You will see it. Mutual submission will happen. But this concept that femininity and womanhood mean that we should be submissive, passive, meek, quiet is something wrong.

I was in Nigeria at some point because I traveled to Nigeria quite frequently. And I remember I was having drinks with some people when one of the men said that in his opinion, a woman shouldn't really talk when she's out with her husband. And if she must talk, she should not say more things than he says. So if he's a little quiet, she should be quiet like him, but she shouldn't be the noisy one while he's quiet. Otherwise, people will think the man is weak. Now, the man who said this is educated. He has lived in the US for many, many years. So. I want you to know, he's a modern man, but this was his mentality.

And I remember then thinking “What? Why? What does that have to do with honoring him? What does that have to do with his masculinity if his wife is verbal? Intelligence shows up in so many different ways. What does this mean?” And he just kept holding on and I came to find out that he's not alone in this belief. There are so many people with this opinion and I found it prevalent when I was in Nigeria. A woman might be talking and later on, would have issues with her spouse and he will ask why she was talking so much. 

This concept that you are meant to be just quiet to meek. While, there's nothing wrong with being meek if that's who you are, but there are also times when you're going to have to be a warrior. Even in the Bible, you see it, women took on many leadership roles in the early church. So this idea that femininity means that you have no power, that you don't handle finances, that you don't take up positions of leadership is not true. I don't believe that! So, in the context of marriage, submission happens, and you submit to a husband, however, we also know that not every ‘married man’ is a husband, right?  

Now, there are two more things I have to say about the Submission. 

One, “You really can’t submit if you don’t have any real power”, I heard this from Activator Coaching and she was quoting Jumoke Adenowo, one of the thought leaders in the Nigerian space; and it is the truth! I said this to someone the other day, that there's a difference between letting yourself be led by a man you trust and needing to be led because you don’t know what to do. There's a big difference, right? So, submission does not occur if the other person is disempowered, that's not submission that is subjugation! And so many people conflict the two because there are so many men that are afraid that if a woman has any power she can emasculate them, so they try to subjugate the woman.

Two, Submission is also not subservience. Even if you are not deferential, you can still be submissive, and even if you are, you may not be submissive. There's a big difference between them, they are also conflicted. As an Igbo woman, I love so many beautiful things about our culture, but yes, some things about it are misogynistic, like the mentality that has been passed down around marriage. I know that we don't like to talk about it, but I told you guys, I was just going to have a real talk about it. Also, some of the Igbo culture has been perverted over the years. So some of the elements that were high quality have been taken out and some of the elements that are not high quality are in now, right.

Things have changed ever since the 419 culture came into the country, a lot of change. Because I remember what it was like when I was a child, there was honor and dignity and some of those things have been lost. And as a result, you're seeing behavior that is just intolerable. That being said, we'll move on. It's not just about being equals. It's across the board and we're pointing out some elements of any culture that are challenging. And it's not even just in Nigerian culture, it's across the African culture, American culture, Caribbean culture. You'll see it. And it happens..

Another thing about submission, you can be a husband who believes he is doing the right thing and have a wife who refuses to submit. Some men ask me “Well, what if you're doing everything right?” 

First of all, let’s clarify what submission means because if you grew up seeing images of submission that resembled an education on subservience, well that is wrong. After all, we submit all the time. You submit every day when you get out onto the road and there are rules that you follow, you submit because you could choose not to follow the rules. You submit to the rules of the land when you go into your office and there are rules of the office and you have a boss, you submit. We submit every single day, both men and women, we submit because for the society to function, there has to be a measure of submission you give on to Caesar. So we submit, we do that all the time and that's really what it means, it doesn't mean that you're disempowering someone. It means that there’s a structure that this person has decided that “Okay, I am going to work within the structure”, and you say “I am going to submit to this leadership, right?” 

The scripture says, submit one to another because leadership should have flow in a marriage. However, I will say that if you have only seen submission in a very toxic way, then even the word will irritate you. Are you that woman? I have been that woman irritated by the word “submission” before, so I am not pointing fingers. You also should not point fingers at such women. 

So, why are they irritated by the word submission? Firstly, we have a broken paradigm around submission, and this is a very common place. Secondly, you could be deeply wounded, and thus will have a hard time processing the concept of submission. 

So I'll explain one thing. If you are a wounded woman and you're manifesting wounded and feminine energy, then you are more likely to be in the subjugated state. And typically you will connect with a man in wounded masculine or toxic masculine. So he will attempt to dominate and oppress because he is aggressive and he puts on that toxic masculinity. So the woman who is a wounded feminine sees herself as victimized and disempowered. And what happens typically in these situations is there is some manipulation here and it is not a healthy relationship. He's trying to oppress and she's handling it by you know, hiding money and doing those weird things that make you go “but how could she do that?” Well, this happens in the wounded or the toxic feminine state.

Then you have a woman who is in the wounded masculine state, when you tell her something about submission, she's ready to fight. She is not tolerating it. She's demanding, pushy and aggressive. Now, she is in the toxic masculine, right? And she can be emasculating, which is why sometimes men fear because they think “Oh if a woman has power, she's going to be emasculating”. It is neither power nor money that makes her emasculating. It's the woundedness that makes her emasculating. Just like it is not necessarily money or power that makes a man toxic. If he's in the toxic masculine state, it is woundedness that makes him toxic.

This is why doing the inner work and healing is so critical. When you begin to do that, you get better. You are better, your relationships are better, even as a parent, you're better. 

Now someone said, “When you're in an unsafe relationship, right, you cannot submit”, and it is true. I have had people say to me “I feel like I am always in my masculine and I want to shift into my feminine” and this is possible because as I always say a woman cannot shift into her feminine if she does not feel safe and secure. She has to protect herself if your behavior makes her unsafe. I have had men reach out to me and say “Please talk to my wife, talk to her. She doesn't understand. It's like I am married to a man” And I can say that I understand their wives because even while talking to them I feel a little stressed out. 

Some of the practices that we've learned on how we express ourselves are a problem, for instance, yelling, many of us have especially never learned how to process our anger, pain, and issues because we tend to project and you push things out there. If you are a man behaving that way, the woman is not going to feel safe. So how can she then submit, how can she then be in her feminine? She cannot, and because masculinity is about protection, she shifts into her masculine immediately. If she's living in a world that feels unsafe, and if she cannot come home and feel safe if you are constantly being shady, you're shucking and jiving or hiding your phone, password, and all then she cannot and should probably not trust you.

It's always amazing to me that if you cannot trust your wife with your phone, why do you want your wife to trust you with her life? She can not, and perhaps should not because if you are not trustworthy, why should she submit her power under your leadership. If you've not shown that you're willing to lead and if you cannot lead with integrity? 

I spoke on length on this topic on an Instagram live which you can watch here. And let me know if you agree with my opinions on Submission.