Now, the question of a dictionary-like definition of submission. We could just look it up in an actual dictionary, but that would just tell us what G. & C. Merriam and Noah Webster think it means, not what God says it means!
The word here is hupotasso (plus some funny characters I can’t get to show up). Hupo is a preposition meaning “under” or “beneath,” and tasso means “to arrange in an orderly manner, that is to assign or dispose (to a certain position or lot)” (via Strong’s). Or to paraphrase and be verbose, the word literally means to deliberately and carefully arrange beneath.
The word is the same one used to describe Jesus’s relationship to his parents in Luke 2:51 (imagine being a completely perfect being submitting to imperfect parents!); in Luke 10:20 Jesus uses the word to describe how the demons are subject to the seventy sent-out; in Romans 8:20 Paul uses the word to describe how creation is subject to depravity; in Romans 13:1, he uses the word to describe how we are to submit to our government; in 1 Corinthians 14:34 the word is used in telling women to keep silent in the church; in 1 Corinthians 15:27-28 we learn that God subjected all creation under Christ’s feet and that Christ shall be subjected to God; Titus 2:9 exhorts servants to be subjected to their masters; in James 4:7 we are to submit ourselves to God; in 1 Peter 5:5 we are to be subject to our elders. All the same Greek word.
It’s worth noting that the word used to describe the relationship of children to parents is hupakouo, which means “to hear under… to listen attentively… to heed or conform.” The word is used in many of the same contexts as hupotasso (including in relation to the spirits obeying Christ, servants obeying their masters, the Christian’s relationship to God, and Sarah’s relationship to Abraham), but is never used to describe the “submit to one another” relationship of Christians, nor (except for Sarah) to describe the relationship of a wife to a husband.
Conclusively, then, we are to “submit” to our husbands in the same sense that:
- we submit to the government
- we submit to our masters
- we submit to our elders
- we submit to God
- we behave in church
- Christ submitted to his parents
- Christ is submitted to God
- demons submitted to those Christ sent
- creation submitted to depravity
- creation is submitted under Christ’s feet
The word for submit is transitive; it requires an object. Submit yourselves. Place yourselves in subjection to your husband. Here’s some other English synonyms from the Greek-English dictionary for hupotasso: arrange under, subordinate, submit to one’s control, yield to one’s admonition, obey, be under obedience; subdue unto. The sense I get is that wifely submission is, at its essence, appointing oneself below, which reminds me of nothing so much as Philippians 2:3.
To summarize: we are called to subject ourselves to the government, our masters, elders, our husbands, and God. All the same word, and all emphasized multiple times throughout scripture.
So what does submission actually mean, practically speaking? It’s active: submission is continually bringing ourselves under the authority of our husbands. It’s orderly: submission is joyfully recognizing that we are “outranked,” in a sense. It’s illustrated: we have countless examples of “submission” described in the Bible; wives aren’t the only ones called to submit. It’s selfless: the very nature of submission requires us to put someone else first, and regard their counsel and wishes as higher than our own.
It’s easy at this point to wonder if wives are some kind of second-class citizens: why did God decree that our husbands would be over us? Are we just not as good? More on that… in the next entry. 
This post is part of a series. You can read the introduction first or view all the posts together.
