The Editor, Sir:
In The Sunday Gleaner of July 30, Mr. Gordon Robinson asked: "Can a Prime Minister be a submissive wife?" He used his interpretation of 1 Peter 3:1-2 to conclude that she is not meant to. However, his understanding of the scripture is totally flawed, for the verses mean precisely what they say, and not the opposite. God gives the same instruction in Ephesians 5: 22-24, "Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and He is the Saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."
The key to 1 Peter 3:1-2 is given in the first word of the text, 'likewise'. That is to say, just as is stated in chapter 2:13, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man", and verse 18, "Servants, be ye subject to your masters with all fear", so it is in Ch. 3:1, "Likewise, ye wives be in submission to your own husbands." In this context God is instructing on wives' submission, not family unity. The scriptural rationale is that by the submissive, meek, chaste and quiet spirit of the Christian wife, the non-Christian husband might be won to the Lord.
Furthermore, God opposes sham and hypocrisy, where publicly the wife is submissive but privately in charge. Peter is indeed charging the wife to be submissive, not to usurp leadership.
Can Portia be submissive to Errald? If she is submitted to God and His word, she can, even though Errald might not be. This is the true meaning of God's word, and those who disagree with his word should contemplate taking it up with Him - privately.
I am, etc.,
FRANCIS HILL
P.O. Box 13
Kingston 19
