Do Women Want their Husbands to Be Their "Spiritual Leader"?

In our surveys of primarily evangelical women, most women do say that they want their husbands to act as a spiritual leader.

At the same time, we also see that when husbands act in authority over their wives and make the final decisions (even if they consult with their wives first), marriages suffer. Things go much better when people act as partners.

So what is going on? Why are women saying they want a spiritual leader?

I want to walk through what we think is going on, but here’s the issue in a nutshell:

When women say they want their husband to be their “spiritual leader”, do they mean they want their husband in authority over them?

Well, let’s look at the definitions.

The Definition of Authority:

“I have the right to make decisions for you, which you must follow along with.”

Someone in authority can set the agenda for those under them.

We see authority in a boss/employee situation; we see it in a teacher/student situation; and we can see it in a marriage which thinks that the husband is supposed to make the final decision.

What about leadership?

The Definition of Leadership:

“going before, showing the way, taking the initiative.”

When a group of soldiers needs to assault a position, the leader is the one who goes first and the others follow.

You can be a leader without having authority. Leadership is a good quality that can motivate others and get things done. Leadership is based on your internal character and your behavior.

Authority, however, is merely based on your position, and has nothing necessarily to do with your merits.

The problem is that leadership and authority are seen as synonyms, and so when you talk about wanting leadership, people often assume you want authority. Things get mixed up.

I think when women say, “I just want my husband to be a spiritual leader,” they don’t mean actual leader as in authority. I think they just mean I want him to be engaged. I want someone who is actually taking the initiative and being proactive and thinking, “Okay. You know what? We really should be talking to our kids more about God. Let’s just pray after dinner. Or let’s have some neat conversations at dinner where we share our highs and our lows. And let’s connect with the kids.” She’s not looking for a leader. She just doesn’t want to have to do all this herself.

In our focus groups, that’s what’s come out over and over. She just doesn’t want to feel like the whole thing is on her shoulders. She wants to feel like he’s noticing, too, like he cares too. Like he is invested in this, just like she is!

In our book The Marriage You Want, we explained this in chapter 6. It was something we measured in our matched pair survey. What women especially want is to not feel that the burden for managing all the relationships, and the spiritual lives, of the family falls on them. They want men to take initiative too.

Here’s a simple example from The Marriage You Want—let’s take who makes medical/dental appointments. We asked couples, when it comes to medical/dental, do you make appointments for yourself, or does your spouse do it for you? In roughly half of marriages they each make their own, and in the other half she makes it for both of them. In virtually none does he make them for both of them.

And what happens when she makes it for both of them?

• Respondents were 83% more likely to have a below aver- age Relationship Flourishing score.

• Women were 76% more likely to be dissatisfied with their sex life.

• Men were 68% more likely to be dissatisfied with their sex life.

We see this over and over again on other measures too: if she’s the one who buys his mom’s birthday gifts, marriages suffer. If she’s the one who instigates repair after marital fights, marriages suffer. When she carries the burden of emotional labour for both of them, marriages don’t do great.

Okay, this likely makes sense to most of you.

Yes, women want a husband who takes initiative, and no, women don’t really want someone who makes decisions for them.

But here’s the bigger question:

Here’s an example that was left in the comments on Bare Marriage.

A man was explaining what his recovery from porn had looked like and how he won back his wife. He said:

After I got through the [90 day sex fast after quitting porn] (first time I’d ever done something like that post puberty) and she still wasn’t throwing herself at me, I read a secular book on getting your married sex life fixed as a man. The book basically said, “become a better man, so that she wants you again” but had a lot of practical advice. Anyway, one of the things was family leadership. There was absolutely no Christian “she’s your wife so she must submit and encourage you” to lean on, just “start acting and taking initiative.” I mentioned off handedly that I might be taking on more leadership in the home, and she quite literally laughed in my face. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Then, when it kept up and wasn’t just a phase, when I got home from work and was involved, saw things that needed to be done and just … did them, attended to the boys, kept a level head when she was pushed overboard and overwhelmed and calmed her down and helped her plot a course, etc…she got…PISSED.

I took her on a date, she looked across the table from me and said:

“You are capable of THIS, and you have me 15 years of THAT? I wan’t a refund. I want those 15 years back!”

And I said, “I wish more than anything I could give you those years back. I want them back too. All I can do is make these next 15 so much better that the last 15 pale in comparison- if you’ll have me.”

So he’s saying that he changed by starting to show leadership in the family. But what was his definition of leadership?

when I got home from work and was involved, saw things that needed to be done and just … did them, attended to the boys, kept a level head when she was pushed overboard and overwhelmed and calmed her down and helped her plot a course…

Do you see the issue here?

He’s calling something leadership that is really just taking initiative. And if we’re going to call taking initiative leadership when he does it, then we have to be honest and call it leadership when she does it.

And most women are already doing it.

Women don’t want men to show up INSTEAD; they want men to show up AS WELL.

Women don’t want husbands who step in and do everything so that the woman doesn’t have to do anything; she wants someone who will get in the trenches WITH HER.

We don’t have a word for men being engaged partners in a relationship, taking initiative and doing what needs to be done to help carry the emotional labour for the family.

And so we tend towards other words, like “spiritual leadership.” But the problem is that “spiritual leadership” can mean two very different things, with two very different outcomes:

1. It can mean what the woman wants, a fully engaged partner with her, which has excellent outcomes

2. Or it can mean a husband taking authority over the family and making the final decisions, which has very bad outcomes

We simply have no word for a husband being a fully engaged partner, and so we call it “leadership.”

But she’s already doing all of these things. She’s already caring for the kids and managing their emotions; she’s already leading the kids in prayers at night and teaching them about the Bible; she’s already making sure important dates are celebrated in the immediate and extended family.

We call it leadership when men do it; we call it nothing when women do it.

And because the word “leadership” has so many toxic things attached to it, when we say that we want men to step up and act as a leader, we’re not being clear about what we actually want.

Because that’s what women actually want, and that’s what brings good dividends in marriage.

And that’s what we found, over and over again, in our data for our book The Marriage You Want. Initiative matters. Authority kills. So let’s not muddy the waters.

The Marriage You Want has it! Our book comes with a study guide that has premarital questions, and our video series is great for small groups or premarital!

Find all the info here!