Religion, Women and Pulpit Effect: The Politics of Submissiveness in the Family Setting.

It has been observed that most Christian Religious Institutions have not evolved from the traditional emphasis of wives’ submissiveness to their husbands using Ephesians chapter 5:22 as their point of reference. The same book of Ephesians chapter 5:25, also gives a reciprocal condition that husbands should love their wives… as their own body. Logically, husbands are being admonished here to love their wives as their own body in other for their wives to willingly submit to them. Unfortunately this reciprocal assignment for the husbands does not enjoy much emphasis in the church today especially in African societies including Nigeria. The church seems to have shied away from emphasizing this conditionality of husbands love for their wives and in consequence wives are under undue pressure continually to meet up with the supposed biblical injunction of submissiveness to their husbands irrespective of the odds against them. In view of this, this study examined the extent to which religious institutions have further helped to reinforce violence in the family setting. Qualitative method was used to collect data from a sampled population in Ekpoma Edo State, Nigeria. One major finding from this study, among others, is that pulpit effect has contributed to domestic violence and power play in the politics of marriage.