Colossians 3:18
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as it behoveth in the Lord.
Open Colossians 3:18 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Mulieres, subditæ estote viris, sicut oportet, in Domino.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Αἱ γυναῖκες, ὑποτάσσεσθε τοῖς ἀνδράσιν, ὡς ἀνῆκεν ἐν κυρίῳ.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine On Marriage and Concupiscence, Why It Was Sometimes Permitted that a Man Should Have Several Wives, Yet No Woman Was Ever Allowed to Have More Than One Husband. Nature Prefers Singleness in Her Dominations
Now, if to the God of our fathers, who is likewise our God, such a plurality of wives had not been displeasing for the purpose that lust might have a fuller range of indulgence; then, on such a supposition, the holy women also ought each to have rendered service to several husbands. But if any woman had so acted, what feeling but that of a disgraceful concupiscence could impel her to have more husbands, seeing that by such licence she could not have more children? That the good purpose of marriage, however, is better promoted by one husband with one wife, than by a husband with several wives, is shown plainly enough by the very first union of a married pair, which was made by the Divine Being Himself, with the intention of marriages taking their beginning therefrom, and of its affording to them a more honourable precedent. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, Colossians 3:18-25
Ver. 18 . “Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” That is, be subject for God’s sake, because this adorneth you, he saith, not them. For I mean not that subjection which is due to a master, nor yet that alone which is of nature, but that for God’s sake.