I Asked Women ‘Would You Call Your Husband Sir?’ Their Answers Were Telling

A few months ago, I posted a thread on Instagram asking women, “Would you call your husband ‘sir’?”

As you can imagine, it caused a bit of a stir.

In the caption, I explained that a lot of modern women (as subsequently evidenced by the comments) would find this suggestion appalling, and that the word “sir” originated from “lord” and is also a term of polite respect we use for strangers all the time (at least here in the South).

I was mostly inspired by 1 Peter 3 and “Little Women,” in which Amy so sweetly calls her husband “lord,” as well as the amusing banter between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet in “Pride and Prejudice,” who address each other with formal terms.

The point was simple: I don’t care what women call their husbands, but I do find it interesting that we find such a term so offensive when it was commonplace only a few generations ago, and hardly among women who were brainless servants of their husbands (Amy and Mrs. Bennett both being examples of different ways women hold plenty of power and influence in marriage, to varying degrees of benefit to their husbands).

Yet I know that at least one creator who has a vendetta against traditional gender roles has since been claiming that women like me “tell women to call their husbands ‘sir.’”

I explained at length in my post that in today’s world, this term for one’s husband is odd and unfamiliar, and it might make many men uncomfortable, but that I simply intended to dig into why a woman might find it so offensive, thus exposing our modern bias against respecting men, which is a huge problem in many of today’s marriages.

In response, however, this woman as well as many others simply clung to their offense without ever considering my polite invitation to rethink their knee-jerk response.

Now, I have to also say how liberating it is to let go of the desire to convince everyone. It took me a while, but I have learned to dismiss the need to correct people who are determined to misunderstand me, especially when they are very emotional about it. It’s often entirely fruitless, especially online.

It is hard to cut through these knee-jerk reactions, and possibly for good reason.

That is to say, the reason women might be so offended by the idea of submitting to a man or (God forbid!) affectionately calling a dearly loved husband “lord” is that they have known cases in which a man demanded such respect for the sake of his own totally disordered sense of “lordship” over his wife or other women.

Does this mean that this dynamic is at play behind every man who would like to be respected by his wife? Absolutely not.

But it also doesn’t mean we should pretend it is never at play, and so, while we might be annoyed by these emotional responses, we are still entirely capable of understanding their origins.

There is no sense whatsoever in denying that there are men out there who order their families according to a very flawed view of patriarchy (which is an almost laughably light way of putting it, in some cases).

I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that the bad ideas that circulate among Christians and the secular world alike are often not wholly wrong, but just sort of wrong.

Lori Alexander of The Transformed Wife and pastor John MacArthur, for example, each faithfully quote what the Bible says about marriage, then add their own flourishes that take these concepts and run away from simple scriptural truth.

Progressive Christians and atheists both accurately cite the hypocrisy of many nominally Christian leaders or churches, but use this to bolster the utterly disconnected claim that Scripture itself is inaccurate, flawed and rooted in a human desire to control.

Indignant Christian women point to the fact that God created men and women equally in his image, only to then adapt secular feminist talking points that patriarchy is somehow unbiblical.

Every good lie is seasoned with a lot of truth. Otherwise, our human minds, crafted through the divine Logos, wouldn’t be so easily deceived by them.

The devil appeals very effectively to our reason. But only God’s simple truth can fully satisfy it.

We can never arrive at this simple truth if our barometer is our own preconceived notions.

A verse I have been meditating on this week comes from the book of Isaiah:

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15).

The highest, most lofty, most perfectly and totally correct God sits in perfect unity with his humble and contrite Son so that we too can humbly and contritely live in unity with him.

God’s most deeply loved and sinless Son is characterized by his humility — he who has the least reason of all to be humble.

I love this verse because it shows that only in our own humility can we rest in the lofty glory of God. It’s not about being right all the time; it’s about depending on his righteousness.

Often, this will look like showing love to those we would rather prove wrong, or simply surrendering them to God’s plan for their lives and letting them grow in their own way, knowing we can’t possibly be right about everything and they probably have some good points, however unwilling they may be to consider ours.

It can take a lot of explaining to try to convince someone you don’t mean what they think you mean. Oftentimes, this requires time they are simply not willing to invest. And that’s OK.

I’m here for the ones who are willing to invest the time, to share their viewpoint and listen to mine with an open heart.

Anyone else can join in whenever they like, if they are led by the Lord to do so.

“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:17-18).

A version of this article first appeared in the Substack “A Homemaker’s Manifesto.” 

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