Hi folks
I am certainly no bible scholar. I have learned recently though that it is important to check things out for ourselves before we can truly know for ourselves what someone has or has not said. I always believed Paul was something of the mysogynist. However....... when you look at the letter to the Ephesians he tells all to 5:21:
submit to each other, out of reverence for Christ.....
5:22
"Wives and Husbands
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing [a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."
32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself,[b] and the wife must respect her husband.
The great commandment says to love neighbour as self. We are told to seek God first - Love Itself - and in so doing will find the capacity for loving self and neighbour, made in the Image of Love, perfectly, as we are told to do.
I am not pushing the bible here. I have only really looked at some parts of it in the last two years. I can see however that Paul is telling two people - a man and a woman, to love each other as they would love each self, as God would - as Christ would.
Many men, ignorant of many things, would interpret these words in ways that allow men to have power over women, power they misuse and abuse, something God never intended I believe.
Just some little thoughts on this.
I read bits and pieces from many things - biblical and other sources