Until recently I had no idea why many Baptists and other fundamental Christians believe that husbands will account for their wives before God. Of course there is no scripture to back it up, and nothing by Jesus suggests such a responsibility or honor to be given to husbands.
It was a 16 year old boy who was challenging me in a Baptist church when I had the aha moment “That is where they are getting it!”
Let’s see what the scripture actually says and you determine if men will give account before God for their wives.
God said “Adam, where are you?” Silence from Adam as he and Eve hunker down beneath a fig tree. Finally Adam says, “I heard you but I was afraid and I was naked. The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Try to find where Adam, from the time he was formed, demonstrated any spiritual responsibility. Eve did, though. She admitted to God, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.” Repentance. She did not blame Adam for not showing spiritual responsibility. She did not say that his loving, humble headship did not rise to the occasion.
Because Eve was a strong woman, one who shouldered the responsibility and repented of the sin, the church has used this against her ever since. Eve took charge. That is the distortion they are talking about. Men are to model themselves after Adam who ratted out his wife, hid with her, and acted like she was something that God had foisted upon him.
They want us to believe that Eve’s sin inclines women to resist being limited in their “roles.” They are worried that women might want to use their spiritual gifts of leadership in preaching and pastoring. Their attitude is a bunch of hogwash that diminishes both men and women. This teaching diminishes men by not holding them accountable for their actions (like Adam’s), and diminishes women by telling them that they cannot stand up and give spiritual leadership (like Eve did).*
God did call Adam to account – for himself. Just as he called Eve to account for herself. “But the Lord God called out to the man, “Where are you?” (Gen 3:8) and then God turns to Eve, “The Lord God asked the woman, “Why did you do this?”
See, I told you it wasn’t there. God did not call Adam to account for his wife, only to account for himself. Just as we today will have to account for ourselves.
If you are tired of being told that your husband has to account to God for you, then join me in speaking up.
*from my book “Dethroning Male Headship”
bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog 
From what I’ve seen, the other place they get this idea is from Ephesians 5 where it says Christ washes the church with the word and presents her to God, and they extrapolate from that that husbands are to do the same for their wives. However, the passage doesn’t say that, and to think that is to make husbands into little Christs.
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That scripture has been being little “Christs” and there is no way the Apostle Paul would have ever indicated such a thing. He himself said that he was the chief of sinners, which certainly doesn’t sound like he thought of himself worthy to be like Christ. Actually, none of the scriptures that I have found indicate that anybody will account for anybody but themselves. We can take our households to church and we can teach them, but each one must make that decision for him or herself.
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God made man the head just as Jesus is the head of the church (Ephesians 5).
Quit with your ungodly feminist nonesense.
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The scariest scriptures, Ephesians 5:22-24
Ephesians 5:22-24 is often quoted by those who teach that women must submit to their husbands.
“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”
Those who quote Ephesians 5:22-24 do not adhere to it. The Danvers Statement Concern #8 is “The increasing prevalence and acceptance of hermeneutical oddities devised to reinterpret apparently plain meanings of Biblical Texts,” but even their writers back away from the plain meaning of this text.
The plain meaning of Ephesians 5:22-24 is:
• Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. The plain meaning would put husbands on equal footing with God.
• The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. The plain meaning gives husbands salvation rights, judgment rights, forgiveness ability, healing ability, miracles, obedience authority, to accept worship, to answer prayers, and the right to receive tithes.
• The husband is the savior of the wife just like Christ is the Savior of the church. The plain meaning makes husbands saviors of their wives. Why would the great I AM, share His salvation right with an earthly man?
• The church submits to Christ. The plain meaning makes husbands worthy of having wives submit to them.
• Wives should submit to their husbands in everything. The plain meaning makes man divine and infallible.
Does any Christian believe that men can save their wives, and that wives should submit to their husbands in absolutely everything? Ask your pastor about this and he will begin to qualify this statement. It is qualified when they say that women should not follow their husbands into sin. It is qualified when they say a wife should not endure physical abuse. It is qualified when they make old age or infirmity of a husband an exception to allow wives to make decisions for their aged or infirm husbands.
Anyone who reads Ephesians 5:23 and insists that this scripture means that the husband literally has spiritual or physical charge over his wife, has made a golden idol and named it husband. To read this scripture that way gives man divinity and nullifies the whole Bible that proclaims only “One” God.
The plain meaning of this scripture is scary, yet it is quoted so casually that we have accepted the part we want to hear “that wives should submit to their husbands,” and have ignored the significance of the remaining part of that sentence.
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