The Cognitive Dissonance Of Many Complementarians

In practice, complementarian ideas can manifest themselves in different ways in the lives of various couples.  The irony of this fact is that it means many spouses, while professing complementarianism, might live in subtly egalitarian ways.  There is no variation in spousal behaviors apart from variation in personalities and circumstances, after all.  Complementarians can't approve of couples living out complementarianism differently without directly or indirectly approving the idea that personalities, situations, and consequences should determine how couples live.

Every individualistic lifestyle in a complementarian marriage already contains the seeds of an egalitarian relationship within it.  Many complementarians do not realize that they only live out complementarian ideas selectively, tailoring the impact of their beliefs on their actions to a variety of factors.  Evidencing this is the way that couples often practice the submission of wives to husbands and male leadership in rather differing ways.  This lack of universality in approaches to marriage exemplifies a key problem with complementarianism pertaining to how its adherents live.

Left without any non-arbitrary place to draw the line (other than at wives having no obligation to submit to husbands who tell them to sin), complementarians are forced to apply their beliefs in arbitrary ways that differ from couple to couple.  If these applications can legitimately differ from couple to couple, then it follows that there is no right way to apply the unilateral submission of wives to husbands (or the leading of wives by husbands).  However, this would mean that there is no ultimate standard for how complementarians should live beyond a superficial notion of vague roles.  The inevitable conclusion, therefore, is that complementarianism fails on the pragmatic level, as well as on the ideological level.

That many complementarians have cognitive dissonance between their worldview and actions is hardly remarkable on its own, considering that many people of numerous worldviews do not consistently live as their worldviews dictate.  It is significant, though, for how it illustrates that a number of complementarian couples already understand the basic elements of egalitarianism.  Instead of recognizing and celebrating them, these couples simply go about their lives without realizing the contradictions therein.

Complementarian ideas are by nature arbitrary.  There is no reason to expect a wife to enjoy staying at home or forsaking equality simply because she is a woman, for example; likewise, there is no reason to expect a husband to be qualified to make all major family decisions or to want to do such a thing simply because he is a man.  The same is true of the ways in which complementarian ideas are practiced: they are inevitably arbitrary as well.  The very fact that the Bible does not detail any particular way for couples to apply the allegedly Biblical ideas of male-centric leadership and female submission should, on its own, cause complementarians to hesitate.