Submission as a Freedom?

Jan 10, 2012 by desiringvirtue

“In assuming the relation of a wife, the woman surrenders much; still, it is a surrender. There was a moment when her independence was undisputed; if it be resigned, it is through the election of her own will. The considerations which were addressed to her judgment, or to her fancy, led her to prefer the new condition; where, if her freedom be restrained, certain advantages accrue, which, in her esteem at least, more than compensate its loss. In the comparison between the two, she deliberately chooses to be less free in order to be more happy, and therefore, she submits herself.

In this, there is manifest reservation of all her original dignity. No sense of degradation can attach in the voluntary surrender of what she might easily have retained; and in all the friction of will she may hereafter experience, there is a pleasant recurrence to this fact. She retains a sense of freedom in the conscious freeness with which it was resigned and with which it continues to be resigned. The absolute freedom of her own surrender of freedom comprehends within it all the acts of subsequent submission; and it makes them as free as the very freedom which she has for ever renounced. So far from vein dishonored in her subordination, it is throughout life a conscious consecration of herself to the condition of her choice; and the sentiment is one by which she is consciously ennobled.” (The Family by B.M. Palmer)

In other words… the very act of submitting implies that we, as wives, actively lay down certain freedoms when we become wives. This purposeful submission is an expression of freedom that is granted through Jesus Christ and is continually used to sanctify us.

Good food for thought isn’t it?