There is no way that endeavoring to bring about a spouse's happiness, whether one is a man or woman and thus a husband or wife, does not involve a degree of sheer submission to them. One party is doing what they can to prioritize or please the other party, so that it is logically entailed by bringing happiness to someone in this way that the former is submitting to the latter. Therefore, a handful of ways in which spouses are to situationally submit to each other are prescribed in the Torah, not just wives to husbands. Deuteronomy 24:5 does not have to use words like "submit" to convey a moral idea that necessarily requires the submission of husbands to wives. What makes this even more ironic is that many who champion the illogical and heretical idea of unilateral submission in marriage would almost certainly think the Torah and general Old Testament is very hostile to the concept of gender equality.
Ironic indeed, given that they likely think women were created all but strictly for the happiness and benefit of men according to Genesis 2 and that this going in the inverse is sinful, though this very chapter presents men and women as equals along with Genesis 1 and Genesis 5:1-2. If anything, Deuteronomy 24:5 explicitly teaches something that clarifies what was already logically and Biblically (Genesis 1:26-27, 2:24) the case: that if wives are morally required to submit to and assist their husbands, then husbands are to submit to and assist their wives. It is as if God explicitly commanded this in his formal revelation in case some people would fallaciously consider husbands exempt from practicing marital submission despite how it is logically impossible for an action that can be committed by either gender to be morally required for one and optional or evil for the other at the same time.
Seeking the happiness of a spouse is not tied to the literal anatomy of gender, as with Biblical circumcision, since women have no foreskin to circumcise because they lack a penis. Thus, logically and Biblically, the obligation for all the righteous in non-abusive situations (Exodus 21:10-11, 26-27, and so on) is to "Submit to one another" as Paul touches upon in Ephesians 5:21. Yet this is a mere single verse before the renowned "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord" in Ephesians 5:22. The context is plainly gender egalitarian! According to the concepts espoused in the very same New Testament epistle, Paul is not against living out gender equality inside or outside of marriage. It is not as if Paul does not elsewhere likewise insist that wives should love their husbands (Titus 2:3-5), so just as he does not actually say that husbands are not equally obligated to submit to their wives and actively teaches the opposite (see also 1 Corinthians 7, where he teaches reciprocal submission), he does not actually say that wives are not equally obligated to love their husbands.
Would wives not be obligated to love all others, including their own husbands (Leviticus 19:18, 33-34, Matthew 22:37-40, Romans 13:8-10)? Logically, this would be as erroneous and hypocritical as all other gender stereotypes. Biblically, this is absolutely not what Paul himself proclaims in Ephesians 5 or anywhere else. This would be sexist against men, but alas, many complementarians and pseudo-egalitarians are more fixated respectively on illicitly controlling or pushing back against any real or illusory oppression of women that this goes unnoticed or at a minimum unacknowledged by some—as with issues like marital or general physical abuse of men by women. For some reason, without even appealing to the other verses like the ones I have mentioned, complementarians exalt the notion of only wives submitting to only husbands while not teaching, based on a consistent misunderstanding of Ephesians 5, that only husbands should love only wives.
Paul is also not the only New Testament author to perhaps seemingly deny the logical and Biblical truths of gender egalitarianism, only for the context to in reality directly exclude complementarianism. Peter says in 1 Peter 3 that husbands are to do in the inverse what he has just called for wives to do, which is submit to their husbands (1 Peter 3:1-7). His wording of "In the same way" when he addresses husbands in verse 7 directly requires this, again, despite how he does not use the word submit when speaking to them of how to interact with their wives. In the Old and New Testament, to summarize, the Bible does in truth put forth gender egalitarianism as a central part of its doctrines of marriage and broader human life.
The fact that gender-based complementarianism as opposed to individualistic complementarianism [2] is intrinsically false by logical necessity already disqualifies it from being even possibly true. If the Bible disagreed, it would be in error rather than logic, which due to being true in itself cannot be false, unlike assumptions, scientific paradigms, the claims of historical documents, miscellaneous religious philosophies, and so on. Reading the Bible from start to finish without making assumptions will, though, reveal that it teaches a philosophy of gender and marriage very different from what you might have heard from the majority of people in your life—or all of them.
Logic, people. It is very fucking helpful.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/06/refuting-gender-stereotypes-unnecessary.html
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