Calvin and Knox on the Doctrine of Male Headship
Editor’s Note: The Reformers of the sixteenth century did not acquiesce to the radical egalitarianism that has become the rage in Evangelical circles in our day, but rather affirmed the doctrine of male headship and female submission as taught in the Scriptures. While male headship is not a popular doctrine in the twenty-first century, it is one that has been affirmed by orthodox commentators for millennia. John Calvin and John Knox are two torch-bearers of this position from the Protestant Reformation.
But as for women, this reason holdeth which Paul brought before, that God hath set an order which may in no wise be broken, and must continue even to the world’s end. Seeing man is made to be the woman’s head, and the woman is a part, & as it were an accessory of man, we must follow that order, and as well great as small must submit themselves unto it.
Woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not to rule and command him: as Saint Paul does reason in these words, “Man is not of woman, but woman of the man.” And man was not created for the cause of woman, but the woman for the cause of man, and therefore ought the woman to have power upon her head (that is a coverture in sign of subjection). Of which words it is plain that the Apostle meaneth, that woman in her greatest perfection should have known, that man was Lord above her: and therefore she should never have pretended any kind of superiority above him, no more then do the angels above God the creator or above Christ Jesus their head.