Journal: Bulletin for Biblical Research
Volume: BBR 25:4 (NA 2015)
Article: 1 Peter 3:1–6: Biblical Authority And Battered Wives
Author: Caryn Reeder

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BBR 25:4 (2015) p. 519

1 Peter 3:1–6:
Biblical Authority And Battered Wives

Caryn Reeder

Westmont College

Counsel given to battered women in the church has too often relied on 1 Pet 3:1–6 to encourage women to stay with an abusive husband for the husband’s sake. This article argues that, while this teaching may be the message of 1 Pet 3:1–6, its use by the church is an abuse of biblical authority. Historical, literary, and canonical contexts suggest that the surface message of the text—submission to even an abusive husband—is not its complete message.

Key Words: 1 Pet 3:1–6, intimate violence, wives in Roman antiquity

Author’s note: This article was a paper presented at the Biblical Studies Conference at Denver Seminary, February 7, 2015. I would like to thank the participants for their questions and comments that helped sharpen my thinking on 1 Pet 3:1–6.

In Conf. 9.9.19, Augustine presents his mother as a model wife. Monica served her husband as her lord, attempting to win him for Christ with her conduct and God-given beauty. When her husband’s temper flared, she endured without opposition in word or deed. The battered wives of her community wondered how she avoided displaying the shameful marks of physical abuse on her body despite her fierce husband. In reply, Monica taught these women to be enslaved to their husbands as masters.1 According to Augustine’s narrative, this enslavement entailed accepting a husband’s extramarital sexual liaisons, being silent before an angry, violent husband, and adopting a servile attitude (rather than one of haughty independence).

Though Augustine does not make the connection explicit, his narrative of his mother’s marriage and marital counseling echoes 1 Pet 3:1–6.2 For a

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wife to submit to a husband, whether he be gentle or violent, whether he be a Christian or not, means to serve him without opposition and to be silent before him in his rages. Following Augustine, the wives of 1 Pet 3:1–6 are comparable to the slaves of 2:18–25, completely under the authority of and at the mercy of a master. Christian wives are to submit even to a violent, abusive husband.

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