The head of my life is Christ too. God created me. I love my husband but he's not my creator. I listen to him and respect him, but we work together. We are mutually respectful of each other.
Christ is the Head of the church, but notice that the scripture does not teach that Christ is the Head of the wife. Christ is the Head of the husband, and the husband is the head of the wife.
There should be mutual respect in marriage. But the Greek word used to tell women to respect (also translated reverence) their husbands is a word that could also be translated 'fear.' The scriptures teach Christians to fear God and to 'fear' rulers. It also tells wives to 'fear'.... or reverence... their husbands.
The husband is to honor his wife as the weaker vessel. The way the honoring works is not the same. It's hierarchical, with the man as the head of the wife, and the wife submitting to the husband. The relationship of husband and wife is to depict the mystery of Christ and the Christ laid down His life for the church. He loves the church. But the church isn't supposed to try to boss Christ around. When churches were doing as they should in as we see in Revelation 2, Christ rebuked them, sometimes quite severely. He threatened the sword of His mouth against some. He would cast 'that woman Jezebel' on a bed of suffering, make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely unless they repent, and strike the 'children' of 'that woman Jezebel' with death. Christ is the Head of the church and not the other way around. The way the church treats Christ is not the same as the way Christ treats the church. The issue here is not one of equality or sameness. There are different roles.
I wouldn't say that believers are all equal. If John the Baptist was greater than Old Testament prophets, why would New Testament believers be equal. I'd expect the servant of all to be greater than the one who exalts himself. The one who prophesies is greater than he who speaks in tongues unless he interprets. So I don't see any case at all for all believers being 'equal.' I don't see it taught in the scripture. Equality is just a western socio-political obsession. Jefferson and maybe Franklin mentioned it in Declaration of Independence, and then there was a revolution in France, too. In the US, later, Jackson promoted the common man theory. The obsession with equality, social or political, is not one we get from scripture, and it is not one we read into scripture.
It isn't really the issue, because many people see man and woman as equal, but in different roles. I don't see a reason to think that either male or female as greater in the sense I described earlier. A woman who is more obedient to Christ and a greater servant to all can be greater than a man who exalts himself. I see no reason to think that greatness falls along gender lines. But I don't see a case for equality either. And it is not the issue.
There are many dimensions in which we could examine equality. Are husband and wife equal in terms of value? If so, that's not the issue. Are they equal in terms of taking care of offspring? No, in the earliest days of life a woman's womb can care for the child, and later she can give the baby milk, but a man is not able to care for children in the same way? Are they equal in terms of being able to dig ditches with a mattock and shovel? Usually a man is superior. But women tend to excel more at sewing and other close work that involves that kind of manual dexterity. And who is better at comforting a sick child with a fever? Or even a sick adult? I'd rather have a woman put a cold compress on my head than a man.
Are they equal in terms of decision making role? No. The husband is the head and the wife is called to submit?
Does Ephesians 5 teach 'mutual submission' when it says to submit to one another? That's a really if-y stance. I'll tell you why. 'One anothers' are not always reciprocal. In Revelation, we read of a battle where the men killed each other. If there are a thousand men on the battle field, is it the case that each individual man used his sword to kill each other individual man in battle? That makes little sense. One man kills one man and another kills another.
What about the command to submit to one another? If we look at the context, certain individuals are supposed to submit to others: wives to husbands, children to parents, and slaves to masters. The passage tells wives to submit to their husbands, children to obey to their parents, or slaves to submit to their masters. Was the command to submit to one another really an instruction to parents and children, teaching them that parents and children were to obey each other equally? Did Paul really expect that masters of slaves would walk away from the passage thinking they had to obey their slaves? None of these conclusions makes sense. It doesn't make sense that the passage teaches husbands to submit to their wives either. One of the arguments against the egalitarian interpretation is that hupotasso means to fall in rank under, or to fall in order under, and so it's a hierarchical term. Mutually falling in rank under each other doesn't make much sense, especially when you consider that the word was often used in the context of the military in Greek. In the army, you submit to your commanding officer, not equally to each other person. You submit to the appropriate person, and he does, and so on.
