"For the man is the head of the woman in perfect order when Christ who is the Wisdom of God is the head of the man"
"nor does it bid her obey her husband's every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife"
Both you and Sungenis gloss over the point made repeatedly -- from Augustine through Pius XI -- that wifely obligation is entirely qualified by a corresponding husbandly duty. The wife's ordering to her husband is an icon of the Church's ordering to Christ. But what's essential here -- what both you and Sungenis glibly overlook -- is that the wife's duty is grounded in her husband's duty to be an authentic icon of Christ.
Christian wives are no more ordered to unchristian husbands than the Church is ordered to antichrists. In such cases, wifely obediance is reduced to little more than an act of martyrdom. In fact, as the Pauline Privilege (also strangely unmentioned in this analysis) explicitly provides, there's no bond of marriage when the unbelieving spouse systematically rejects the grace of the sacrament.
I'm sorry about your seeming obsession with marriage as legalistic and defined by power, rather than existential and informed by love. I'm especially sorry that you seem to have mounted this hobby horse to register your contempt for the present pope, but it just goes to highlight the way disordered views of marriage relate to disordered ecclesiology.
Your failure to respond over 1 Cor 7 noted, btw.
I hate to agree with you, but I finally do. This is the point I had been making since I started this thread. I have repeatedly pointed out that I do not see the marriage obedience issue as the husband lording over a wife who is silently shaking her head yes to his every whim (I have clarified this in several emails now as well).
My point was that the issue is rightly seen in the context of the husband being the image of Christ in the family, the wife being the image of the Church. With that imagery, I do not see how "mutual submission" can be applied, because in this "icon" as you call it, the submission is not obligated from both sides. This was the crux of the entire debate. It isn't a matter of whether both sides owe the other respect, charity, love, etc. They most certainly do, and I never claimed otherwise.
In your response now, you have laid it out clearly, and this largely, I think, because you dropped the mutual submission line.
Throughout, though, people have accused me of taking the position of the muslems, et al. This is absurd. It is also absurd that this opinion is reducing marriage to some legalistic power play rather than a sacrament which is an image of Christs love. If that is the way you reduce the last quote in the article from St. John Chrysostom, though, so be it. I think it is a beautiful outline for marriage, and would have to say is a perfect summary of my view (expressed more clearly than I am capable of, obviously).
"Observe again that Paul has exhorted husbands and wives to reciprocity...To love therefore, is the husband’s part, to yield pertains to the other side. If, then, each one contributes his own part, all stand firm. From being loved, the wife too becomes loving; and from her being submissive, the husband learns to yield.” (Homilies on Colossians, NPNF1 13:304)
I will not address your last paragraph, I think it is a clear misrepresentation of what I have been saying, and a fairly petty insult. Oh well, I've heard much worse.
Also note that I don't recall a reference to 1 Cor 7, though I will go back in the thread and look for educational purposes. Given how this has deteriorated, I'm not going to try to go back and repeat the same things over and over, though. No amount of my commentary will make things more clear, so none more will be provided. If your comment on 1 Cor 7 makes a good point, then consider the point taken.