Considering Christ and the church. Interesting point. I've been noticing over the years how people are quick to identify men as Christ and women as church. It's always somehow omitted that men also are part of the Bride. God's royal consort does not consist of women only. There are multiple examples of God addressing the whole congregation as a woman breaking wedlock, or as a beautiful bride, both men and women are lumped together and treated as "she". I think we need to better separate what is God and what is man, to assess this analogy more clearly.
Amen. I believe everything the Almighty has naturally made, "speaks", as in...
Romans 1:20
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
We are told that in the beginning, He made them male and female, "in the image of God". So both energies/natures display a critical aspect of the Father's nature, and together we see the complete dynamic of love expressed.
The man's body was designed to give seed, while the woman's body was designed to receive seed, prophesying the truth that we, the church/body are to receive the seed of our husbandman, and with it produce fruit and multiply.
Luke 8:11
Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God
John 15:8
This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, proving yourselves to be My disciples.
The giving of the husbandman's seed is the ultimate expression of His love for her. And to accept and then produce fruit from that seed is the ultimate expression of the bride's love for him.
In this regard, I don't see anything wrong with a woman/wife loving a man/husband
differently than he loves her (if that's what is determined) because she - on an individual level - prophesies the church and what we're expected to do to show true love to Him: receive Christ in us and reproduce Christ in the world. At the same time, scripture is clear that the Church could never do what Christ did to give us that life. So wouldn't it be perverting the sign in a way to expect a woman/wife to love in all the exact ways a man/husband loves her? It's an interesting thought to explore..
But indeed scripture says to submit to one another.
Ephesians 5:21-33
21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her 26to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to Himself as a glorious church, without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, but holy and blameless.
28In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church. 30For we are members of His body.
31“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Christ and the church. 33Nevertheless, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.