My Aunt Mary once told me that there are day people, and there are night people. "You know how to find them?" she asked me, and without waiting for a reply she told me that they were married to one another. I guess that generally speaking, she was right about that. She was a pretty smart lady.

I wouldn't want to imagine what it was like being married to someone other that my wife, and no, she doesn't really read this blog. I'm happy to be married to her. Our marriage isn't perfect, as neither one of us is perfect and we have very different personalities. We each have gifts in some areas where the other doesn't, and ultimately, I'm more practical. If you're trying to keep score, good luck.

Even though two people are married, they're still individuals. If you have two married people who are united in perfect agreement upon a mutual goal, they may still have vastly differing ideas about how to achieve that goal, because they are individuals. In situations where you have individuals united to achieve a goal, there has to be a leader. If no one person is leading, individuals tend to only be able to see their own way of doing things as the best and only choice for achieving goals. So who should be the leader in a marriage?

I've had a few questions put to me repeatedly over the years when this subject has come up in discussions about Christian marriage. Question #1 "Aren't men and women all equal in Christ as demonstrated in the Book of Galatians, chapter 3?"
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

There is neither male nor female, and Genesis 1:27 states that both man and woman were created in His image, so there you go. So Question #2 almost always follows, "Doesn't that mean that if we're all the same, that there is no designated leader in a marriage?" That might be a good argument if it weren't for a passage in Ephesians chapter 5;

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

There you have it. Over. Done. And it would be overdone by some men if it weren't for some following verses from the same chapter;

28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.

And we're not done with the questions. I have usually gotten Question # 3 next. "So how can we be equal if the man is in charge in the marriage? We're supposed to be the same." Why the apparent inconsistency? Well it really isn't inconsistent. We are the same in Christ in that Jesus died for all of our sins. He died once, for all of us. Male or female, married or unmarried, we all have access to eternal life with God through Him, because of what He did for all of us. We are the same in this. However, as believers, in our sojourn through this life on earth, while we are equally saved, we have different roles to play.

Question # 4 is usually a asked by a younger Christian woman, but not always. "How is that fair? Why do men get assigned the leadership role?"

This is so unnecessarily complicating. I feel really sorry for the woman who asks this question. Maybe she has a husband who is either too weak or too lazy to lead in their marriage and she is so exasperated that things are falling apart that she just can't bear to wait for him to actually lead. Her husband may not know his Bible very well. He probably doesn't. It might also be that she has such an independently minded personality that she refuses to let anybody lead her anywhere and she is fighting her husband's leadership every step of the way, in which case, she either doesn't know her Bible very well or she does and doesn't care. If the latter is true I feel less sorry for her but in whichever case, the marriage will not be a terribly happy one.

I strongly encourage married people to study and return often to those passages that define their roles as husbands and wives. Godly direction is so important to fulfilling our roles as believers whether we're married or unmarried. Why would we want to ignore something that comes directly from the mind of God? Has pride ever gotten us anywhere positive? Men should be doing everything they can to provide their wives with a Godly environment within which to live. Women should be making the most of that that they possibly can, for their husbands and if they have them, for their children. If men and women do this, they will both excel, equally.