Lately I’ve been considering what being the head of a home meant. In this 21st century days of fast-paced living and hi-tech stuff, I realize there’s a need to get the right definition of everything.

One of the things I’ve observed from the lives of my contemporaries and guys in my peer group is the tension that arises from the diversity of opinions in the home. The husband wants things to go a particular way while the wife believes otherwise. The one with the stronger personality usually wins and most times this is not good for the relationship because it leaves room for unresolved issues and that is like a wound that just festers beneath a blister, never really getting healed. Because we are willing to protect our marriages at all costs, I have decided to investigate what headship is all about.

In considering the Trinity, which is a picture of headship, we’ll observe that there is a principle of equality. This is something we must understand if we will understand true headship. All partners are equal. That someone is the head does not imply the others are lesser members of that union. In this case, the fact that the husband is the head doesn’t mean that the wife is a subordinate. She is his equal.

While running the risk of sounding like a women liberalist, I must burst the bubble of the “African mentality” that the woman is more or less a slave, subject to the whims and pleasures of the man she is married to. In God’s economy, we all are joint-heirs, fellow sharers in the inheritance of God. In the eyes of God, there is no respect of persons, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. Before God we all are the same.

Furthermore, as soon as a man is bound in a lifelong covenant of marriage to a woman, God sees them as one person. Since one part of the body cannot claim to be more important than the others, it then calls to reason that a man cannot speak of himself as being superior to his wife.

Of course there’s the issue of submission (which I’ve also been investigating and hope to put my discoveries up in the coming weeks) which comes along with headship. So what does headship involve?

Firstly, headship is really about responsibility. What this means is that the head is responsible for the ones in submission to him. The head bears the burden of the actions of all those in submission to him. He takes responsibility for their actions. When anyone has a beef with the rest of the pack, he steps up and takes responsibility for the whole group. Now how many of us men are doing that? Don’t we simply say, “No it was her idea. I had nothing to do with it”? (Some men kind of inherited this from their great-grand- Adam)


Secondly, headship is about providing leadership. Most of us the men in my father’s age group have felt that what makes a man the head of the home is his ability to provide “bread”. I guess this is the traditional African mentality they grew up with. The moment a man cannot be the breadwinner anymore, he begins to feel threatened and it shows in one of two ways, depression and reclusion or aggression and misbehavior (e.g. marrying another wife,). Being the head means you can show the direction for which those in submission to your authority should go. You should be able to decipher the gifts and graces of God in their lives and help them channel it in the right direction.

And here’s something most men wouldn’t want to hear, true headship is about sacrifice. That means not having your way all the time. It means feeling the pain of your spouse. It means coming back home from work, not to sit down in front of the 24” TV, remote control in hand to watch the next UEFA Champions’ League match between your favorite team and their arch-rivals. It means coming back home from that hard long day at work (and through the hectic crazy traffic- if you are blessed to live in Lagos like me) and helping to bathe the kids, helping with dinner, laying the bed you’ll both retire to later in the night, helping the kids with their homework, etc (need I go on?)

Let me stop there and let’s all selah, ok? I’ll continue tomorrow.