Lol Miranda - for a non specialist you've not done bad!
I'll try and let you in on my views (sorry if this seems a bit of shop talk to others)...
"short answer: wrong!!!! (ooh, nice and controversial) "
It was in jest, I know, but if you want to hold onto the canon as authoritative, you just can't do that! (As well you know!!) What is the standard by which you say it's wrong? (i.e. what is the norming norm - the key question of ethics!)
"They are a product of their time. "
Spot on - for more reasons than you realise.
"Paul was trying to not make Christianity more controversial..."
Agreed - he didn't like revolution, but what he was doing in terms of gender and the household was highly subversive and reforming, not revolutionary - I'll explain below
Of course, this depends entirely on what society considers scandalous , so now I would say that obeying the spirit of what paul says would mean having complete gender (and sexual) equality in the church, as not having is causing scandal to those outside.
Spot on, but can you explain why???
Also female prophetesses, with long unbound hair, etc were hallmarks of several mystery cults around at the time, and he may well have been trying to avoid Christianity being seen just as one of these (Fiorenza is good on this I seem to recall).
(YES - she's very good on this! But she ultimately discards Paul, which I think is a mistake, as it subverts the authority of the canon)
Plus there's the analogy with christ/bridegroom, church/bride;
This is the key to unlocking a really fruitful interpretation, in my understanding, added to that the context of Paul's conversation - i.e. the Roman family structures.
In Rome, the family was HIGHLY patricarchal, and strict with it - the father was a disciplinarian character, who was seen as both (harsh) ruler and representative of the household. Generally, wives were next down in the hierarchy, then children and slaves. But the nature of the hierarchy would shock us today - it was framed within the extremes of Master and Slave - that was the bottom line - with women and children within it, below men.
Now... from my readings all over the scriptures about the realisation of God's kingdom in the family, we ARE all about moving towards gender equality (in esteem, rights and opportunities), mutual respect and submission, love and service. That is what God wants to move human society towards. (based on a theory of (top word here folks) - Eschatology - which means the theory of end times - i.e. humanity will end up under God's direct rule, which will mean equality/freedom for all)
How to do that in the context of human society, which changes and evolves slowly? Answer: Simply start with where you are at, and take the first step.
I think I'm comfortable taking what Paul said as the word of God to that particular church at that particular time (not to us now!) - when he talked about men being head of the woman as Christ is head of the church, it's almost (and it's hard to do this in text), as if he's saying...
"We all KNOW (in Roman society) that the man in head of the household, but in God's community, headship is modelled by Christ, who saw himself as servant and equal (he humbled himself) to those he led. If you are a man, and head of the household, this is how you should behave".
So what he's emphasising is the servant nature of leadership, rather than the issue of headship (which is all we see when we read it, because that's the kind of issue that gets us arguing!)
So... men are instructed to abandon their heavyhanded rulership of the household and instead, to serve their household.
For me, this is the first step on a road to domestic gender equality, democracy, mutual respect and love. It subverts the dominating nature of Roman Patriarchy and calls for it to be submissive, the exact opposite of dominant.
It is only relevant to the historical context into which Paul spoke.
This really makes sense when you put it next to the other issue in the same passages - slavery.
Paul didn't say "Free the slaves! slavery is immoral" - he basically said "be nice to your slaves - they are children of God too".
But 1800 years later, the church, having absorbed the full message of the gospel, realised that slavery was utterly incompatible with Gods rule, and campaigned for it's abolition.
Similarly, with gender equality, I think Paul was pursuing a REFORMIST, SUBVERSIVE agenda, that would break down Roman Patriarchy and lead to establishing a strong strand of pro-women thinking in the church. One would hope that 1800 years later, the church would act simmilarly to the gender issue as it has done to slavery.
Unfortunately, the church has been dominted by a radical anti-women stance, and very often Pauls' passages have been the key reference to justify this. The mistake has been to see the household codes as a blueprint for all families at all times in all cultures. I think this is a radical error - the household codes are a message to the Roman Church in the first century, that reveal this reforming, subversive strategy to undermine Roman patriarchy and shake free household structures.
Anyways - those are my thoughts.
On your other point, marriage and theology - I've studied this, and I think all our thinking on marriage can be found in 4 main traditions of thinking, 3 of which were theological, and the other 1 was a direct reaction to theology...
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marriage as sacrament (indissoluble union made by God) - catholic thought
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marriage as covenent (dissoluble union made by two people, witnessed by god) - protestant thought
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marriage as commonwealth (marriage built into creation for the benefit of men, women, children, society) - anglican thought
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marriage as contract (free agreement between two individuals - breakable at any time) - enlightenment thought
OK - that is the LAST time I ever post a huge long message on a theological issue!!!!