concept
"Let the wife stand in fear of her husband"
wife stand in fear of husband
also: жена да убоится мужа своего, Ephesians 5:33
A near-verbatim Church Slavonic tag from Ephesians 5:33 ("...and the wife see that she reverence/fear her husband"), delivered by the husband as the mock-solemn moral of his beard- and hair-pulling demonstration -- Chekhov skewering the verse's use to justify a husband's physical dominance.
Reading notes
- A Necessary Preface §12 let the wife stand in fear of her husband
A near-verbatim paraphrase of Ephesians 5:33 ("...and the wife see that she reverence her husband", KJV; Church Slavonic "а жена да боится своего мужа"), a text read aloud at Orthodox wedding ceremonies. Chekhov's husband delivers it as the smug tagline to a staged trial of strength, literalizing a verse usually taken as figurative counsel into a demonstration of raw physical dominance -- the story's whole joke.
Mentioned in 0 works (0 mentions)
No recorded mentions yet.