This series has taken longer than it takes Netflix to release a Season 2. Sorry about that! This post required dozens of hours to research, right as I started a new job. It’s been a struggle figuring out how to balance the job + school + getting Substacks out.
I’m going to do my best to get the rest of this series out every week, but after that I may need to drop down to publishing every other week (or hit some shorter, less in-depth topics) for the rest of 2026.
Paul’s household codes tell wives to submit to their husbands, slaves to obey their masters, and children to obey their parents. Nothing controversial here, right?
In this series, we’re examining Ephesians 5:21–6:9 and Colossians 3:18–4:1, seeking to figure out how to read these passages in a way that’s internally consistent and faithful to the text. In week one, we talked about how the household codes are each a single textual unit: How can we read all three pairings—wives/husbands, slaves/masters, and children/parents—with a consistent interpretive method?
Last time, we looked at ancient Roman and Jewish family structures to figure out the baseline assumptions that Christians in Asia Minor would’ve had when they first read Paul’s words.
This week, we’re going to dig into the text of Ephesians and Colossians and compare them to other household codes from the ancient world to see what changes Paul is making. How does he hew to the expectations established by other ancient writers, and how is he unique?
Y’all, this has been a difficult piece to write. There’s an incredible amount of material to look at, sort through, and categorize. Which pieces of ancient literature are part of the same “genre” as the household codes? (It shouldn’t surprise us to learn that scholars have argued about this!) Which pieces are the most relevant? What’s the best way to summarize the broad trends while also acknowledging the data points that are, frankly, outliers?
You could fill books with this stuff. (And people have!) I can now see why most scholarship aimed at the church has just given a quick, high-level summary on the literature and then moved on.
But y’all don’t come to me for quick, high-level summaries, so I’m going to do my best to walk us through a handful of the most relevant texts.
What Does Each Passage Say?
First, let’s compare the two codes in Ephesians and Colossians, focusing on where they’re the same and where they differ from each other.
Opening: In Ephesians, Paul opens with an admonition for believers to submit themselves to one another, out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21). Colossians opens with instructions for wives.
Organization: The order is identical in both passages: wives/husbands, offspring/parents, slaves/masters. The socially weaker party is addressed first.
Length: In Ephesians, the instructions for marriage and for offspring/parents are longer. Paul uses an extended metaphor of Christ and the church in his discussion of marriage. He also grounds his instruction to offspring in the Old Testament commandment to honor one’s father and mother. In Colossians, these instructions are pared down substantially.
However, the instructions to the enslaved are of a roughly similar length in each passage and follow a similar structure—but the Colossians passage takes it one step further, adding an extra statement that wrongdoers will be paid back (presumably by the Lord).
When we reach the instructions to slaveholders, the Ephesians passage is, again, slightly longer. The contents of the instructions are similar, but the Ephesians text opens with a curious sentence: “And, masters, do the same to them” (Ephesians 6:9, NRSVue).
(Do the same what to them? Which commands does this verse refer back to? More on that later in the series.)
So we have a basic handle on what Paul’s household codes say. But what about other “household codes” from the ancient world? What were they like?
If you just want the takeaways, scroll down to “Paul vs. Everyone Else.”
Aristotle, Politics
When scholars trace the origins of the form of the household codes, they often begin with Aristotle, though some go back as far as Plato.1
About four hundred years before Paul, Aristotle wrote about the management of the household in Book One of Politics, a work that remained influential into Paul’s day and beyond. (If you want to dive deeper, the whole of Book One is relevant to this discussion!) Aristotle discusses household structure as part of his broader project of considering the function of the state, because he considered the household to be the smallest unit of society—well-ordered households are the building blocks of a well-ordered state.
For Aristotle, the household is a collection of interdependent individuals—no one is an island. Men and women depend on each other because both are necessary for the birth of children; the hierarchy of “natural ruler and subject” is as natural as biological reproduction. Smart, forward-planning individuals are naturally the rulers, and they use other bodies (whether human beings or oxen) to execute their Very Good Plans.
Aristotle discusses slaves and slaveholders first. The enslaved are living tools. (These clothes aren’t going to weave themselves, after all.) Just as the soul should control the body, so should “natural rulers” control “natural slaves.”2 The slaveholder should direct the slave’s actions to the serve the slaveholder’s interest—which, at the bottom, is identical with the slave’s best interests. (Convenient, eh?)
Aristotle then spends some time talking about acquiring household wealth. (Basically, he segues by saying that since slaves are property…let’s talk about acquiring property.) Then he returns to the subject of husbands and fathers. Husbands and wives are more equal than fathers and children, but husbands rule over wives because (obviously!) men are more fitted to rule.
But the kind of rule differs; the freeman rules over the slave after another manner from that in which the male rules over the female, or the man over the child; although the parts of the soul are present in any of them, they are present in different degrees. For the slave has no deliberative faculty at all; the woman has, but it is without authority, and the child has, but it is immature. So it must necessarily be supposed to be with the moral virtues also; all should partake of them, but only in such manner and degree as is required by each for the fulfillment of his duty. …
The courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying. And this holds of all other virtues, as will be more clearly seen if we look at them in detail, for those who say generally that virtue consists in a good disposition of the soul, or in doing rightly, or the like, only deceive themselves. … All classes must be deemed to have their special attributes; as the poet says of women, “Silence is a woman's glory,” but this is not equally the glory of man. The child is imperfect, and therefore obviously his virtue is not relative to himself alone, but to the perfect man and to his teacher, and in like manner the virtue of the slave is relative to a master. Now we determined that a slave is useful for the wants of life, and therefore he will obviously require only so much virtue as will prevent him from failing in his duty through cowardice or lack of self-control.
What do you notice? Here are a few things that came to mind for me:
Aristotle draws sharp distinctions between the nature of slaves/slaveholders and women/men and the virtues appropriate to them; Paul does not.
Aristotle seems to assume that only free men will read his work (and then apply it in their own households); Paul gives instructions not just to the patriarch but to women, offspring, and the enslaved.
Aristotle does not caution the patriarch against harshness in his household management; Paul forbids harshness in the patriarch’s relationship with his wives, offspring, and slaves and even threatens divine judgment for the mistreatment of slaves.
There is not a hint of mutuality language in Aristotle, nor a command to love wives or to avoid provoking their offspring.
Pseudo-Aristotle, Economics
Several of Aristotle’s students (and his students’ students) pick up similar themes, often ranging over four dimensions of household organization—marriage, slavery, offspring, and accruing wealth—including in multiple works that were attributed to Aristotle.
I decided to include Books One and Three of Economics, attributed to Aristotle and likely written within one to two generations of him, to give us a sense of the range of this material. This source is much less harsh than Aristotle, and more strikingly similar to Paul in its description of the marriage relationship.
In Book One, Pseudo-Aristotle tells the patriarch not to do wrong to his wife … so that the wife will not do wrong to him. Enslavers should “neither suffer [the enslaved] to be insolent, nor treat them with cruelty.” Though we should note that Pseudo-Aristotle has a different definition of cruelty than we do—he also says slaves should be given work, chastisement, and food. (Food is important because “food is a slave’s pay,” and masters should incentivize good behavior from their slaves by giving them better treatment as a reward.)
Then, in Book Three, he returns to household matters: A wife should rule her household under her husband’s authority so that he doesn’t have to concern himself too much with the day-to-day details.
She must exercise control of the money spent on such festivities as her husband has approved, keeping, moreover, within the limit set by law upon expenditure, dress, and ornament; and remembering that beauty depends not on costliness of raiment, nor does abundance of gold so conduce to the praise of a woman as self-control in all that she does, and her inclination towards an honorable and well-ordered life. For such adornment of the soul as this is in truth ever a thing to be envied, and a far surer warrant for the payment, to the woman herself in her old age and to her children after her, of the due meed of praise.
Her sphere of influence is within the household; his focus should be on the world outside. She should endeavor to obey her husband in all things as “laws appointed for her own life by divine will.” When he mistreats her, she should chalk it up to sickness, ignorance, or an accidental error so that she can be his support in good times and bad.
The husband should also treat his wife well so that their children will grow up virtuously.
Wherefore his wife's training should be the object of a man's unstinting care; that so far as is possible their children may spring from the noblest of stock. For the tiller of the soil spares no pains to sow his seed in the most fertile and best cultivated land, looking thus to obtain the fairest fruits; and to save it from devastation is ready, if such be his lot, to fall in conflict with his foes; a death which men crown with the highest of praise. Seeing, then, that such care is lavished on the body's food, surely every care should be taken on behalf of our own children's mother and nurse, in whom is implanted the seed from which there springs a living soul. For it is only by this means that each mortal, successively produced, participates in immortality; and that petitions and prayers continue to be offered to ancestral gods. So that he who thinks lightly of this would seem also to be slighting the gods.
Compare to Ephesians 5:
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
The imagery is strikingly similar: a husband caring for his wife’s character, giving his life for hers, compared to nourishing the body, through an appeal to divine things.
But though the imagery is similar, the passages’ logic differs profoundly: In Pseudo-Aristotle, a husband trains his wife so that their virtuous children will continue to honor the gods. In Paul, a husband follows the example of Christ by loving and self-sacrificing on his wife’s behalf. Paul turns the metaphor of bodily nourishment on its head: husbands and wives are both members of Christ’s body.
Pseudo-Aristotle goes on to write that the wife ought not correct her husband at all and that the husband should correct his wife with gentleness.
The marriage relationship should be marked by “a reverent and modest mingling of love and fear,” and her fear of him should be the “fear which virtuous and honorable sons feel towards their fathers, and loyal citizens towards right-minded rulers,” not the fear that slaves feel toward their masters, which is marked by hostility. (So much for not treating the enslaved harshly, I guess?)
So, we do have examples of this type of literature that are much gentler than Aristotle, though it’s still focused on how to benefit the patriarch: Treat your wife well so that she won’t do you wrong. Avoid cruelty to your slaves so that they’ll behave better and work harder.
So, how had these conversations developed by the time of Paul? Let’s look at two of Paul’s contemporaries.
Seneca
The Roman philosopher Seneca, in 64 or 65 AD, writes as if these household management guides are part of a well-known and vibrant conversation among the philosophers of his day. He refers to “that department of philosophy which supplies precepts appropriate to the individual case, instead of framing them for mankind at large—which, for instance, advises how a husband should conduct himself towards his wife, or how a father should bring up his children, or how a master should rule his slave.”
Elsewhere, Seneca mentions Hecaton’s contributions to this department of philosophy, which included a sense of mutual obligation between husbands/wives and parents/offspring:
For now let us cross over to the other side of the subject, and consider how men should behave when they receive benefits. Every function which is performed by two persons makes equal demands upon both: after you have considered what a father ought to be, you will perceive that there remains an equal task, that of considering what a son ought to be: a husband has certain duties, but those of a wife are no less important. Each of these give and take equally, and each require a similar rule of life, which, as Hecaton observes, is hard to follow: indeed, it is difficult for us to attain to virtue, or even to anything that comes near virtue: for we ought not only to act virtuously but to do so upon principle.
Seneca also argues—against Hecaton—that slaves should be included in this discussion of reciprocal demands.3 (Hecaton lived about 150 years earlier. None of his work has survived, so we can only reconstruct his writings from what other people wrote about him.)
So, Seneca (and, it seems, Hecaton) saw room for addressing both the authority and the subordinate—both had obligations in the relationship. However, these questions were first and foremost about good household management—the duties of a wife, child, or slave were, at best, interesting corollaries. (Since a husband should do this, this implies his wife should do that.) But what really mattered—or at least what took center stage—was that a man manage his household well.
Philo
Between 20 and 50 AD, Philo wrote On the Decalogue, an introduction to the Ten Commandments for a Gentile audience. In his explanation of the fifth commandment, he writes:
And the fifth commandment, that about the honour due to parents, conceals under its brief expression, many very important and necessary laws, some enacted as applicable to old and young men, some as bearing on the relations existing between rulers and subjects, others concerning benefactors and those who have received benefits, others affecting slaves and masters; for parents belong to the superior class of all these divisions just mentioned, the class, I mean, of elders, of rulers, of benefactors, and of masters; and children are in the inferior class, in which are ranked the younger people, the subjects, those who have received benefits, and slaves. There are also many other commandments given, … some to subjects, enjoining them to show obedience to their rulers; others to the rulers, commanding them to consult for the advantage of those who are under their authority; … some to servants, encouraging them to show an affectionate service towards their masters, others to the masters recommending them to practise that gentleness and mildness towards their slaves, by which the inequality of their respective conditions is in some degree equalised.
Philo assures his audience that Jewish law, properly understood, upholds Roman household structure. Children should obey parents and slaves should obey masters because the inferior class should submit to the superior class. (Though masters should be gentle to their slaves to soften the inequality of the relationship.)
Paul vs. Everyone Else
When we put these writers in conversation with Paul, what happens? A few things stand out.
Paul doesn’t overturn typical Greco-Roman household structures. Wives still submit to husbands, offspring obey parents, slaves obey masters. In some ways, our Ephesians and Colossians passages fit comfortably with other ancient instructions on household management.
But there are huge differences.
First, look who Paul is talking to. Aristotle writes for free men, because his concern is household management. The writers who came after him largely followed suit. But Paul directly addresses both parties in each relationship—and he addresses the person with less power first. The less-powerful aren’t an afterthought.
Paul isn’t concerned that Christian households run smoothly as the building blocks of a smoothly running state. In fact, Paul doesn’t tell the paterfamilias to control his wife/offspring/slaves!4 Instead, he wants the household to be bound together in love so that all its members can live like Christians.
Second, he reframes the logic of submission/obedience. Paul doesn’t claim that wives/offspring/slaves are naturally inferior to their husband/father/master, or that anyone is a “natural slave.” Instead, it is all bound up the way Christians relate to God. In Ephesians, God or Christ are mentioned in the rationale for the instructions to all six roles.
Third, he shifts the paterfamilias’s role. I’ll say it again—Paul doesn’t tell the paterfamilias to control the members of his household. Instead, the paterfamilias is to love his wife self-sacrificially, raise his children in the Lord without provoking them to anger, and “do the same” (whatever this means) to his slaves, without threatening them.
And the rationale for the patriarch’s actions is a complete 180-degree turn from the other writers we’ve looked at. Paul doesn’t say that the patriarch should be kind to his wife so that his wife won’t harm him, or that he should be gentle-but-firm to incentivize good behavior among the enslaved. Rather, he should act in love for the other members of his household—and for good measure, he should remember that God will avenge wrongs done to his slaves.
Fourth, (in Ephesians), Paul twice uses phrases that might suggest reciprocal obligations: at the beginning of the passage, in Ephesians 5:21, and at the end, in 6:9. (Again, we’ll circle back to this one.)
Meditate for a moment about this vision for household relationships, set against the backdrop of Roman-style patriarchy. The contrast is sharp. Paul was beautifully countercultural.
We’re running long, so I’ll leave it there. But come back next week, where we’ll dig into the text of Ephesians in more detail.
See you there.
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ICYMI
For brevity’s sake, we’ll begin with Aristotle, but David Balch begins his discussion with Plato in Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter, (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1981), a book I’ve used to find a number of the primary sources I reference in this piece.
Aristotle does concede that in some cases (especially among war captives), there might be injustices—someone who isn’t a “natural slave,” someone of virtuous character and noble birth, might be enslaved by force, rather than because it is in their best interest to be enslaved.
Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 51–52, citing Seneca, On Benefits, 2.18.1–2 and 3.18.1–4).
In 1 Timothy 3, incompetent household management—of which children’s disobedience is taken as proof—is treated as a disqualifier for church leadership. So I’m not suggesting that Paul is eliminating all expectations around household management. But it seems significant that he doesn’t mention control of the household here—it’s not part of the point he’s making in this passage.
I love how Paul ostensibly upholds societal values, while he sneaks in some dynamitic overturning of them for anyone who is wise to grasp it. It goes under your radar, until you're already changed by the message.
It's very in line with the Hebrew Bible and Jesus' teaching style. "Let the reader understand."
Good point comparing Aristotle’s audience to Paul’s.