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.
Then by all means let me pick it up again.
Mutual submission in marriage is real and derives from the mutual consent of the spouses that, when it's authentic and made manifest in consummation, gives each spouse power over the other's body.
Look at it this way: if there were no mutual submission, a husband would be at liberty to divorce his wife at will. The Church of course maintains that he has no power to do so, having given himself to an irrevocable covenant. The image of submission is driven home by the very latinity of conjugium, which derives from jugum, meaning a yoke or collar for draft animals, and plainly expresses the idea that spouses are in harness together. I realise that you're arguing for a hierarchy of authority in marriage that images Christ's authority over the Church, and in a perfect marriage of unreserved obedience reciprocated by unstinted love you might have a case. I'll cheerfully concede in the case of the marriage of St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary. But most of us fall somewhat short of the awe and devotion Joseph had for his wife. Can you imagine him pulling rank on her? I can't. I really can't.