Note 13 — DIVISION II. § 4. CHAPTER V. 15-21.
Reading edition
It is noticeable that St. Paul does not (according to the Revised Version which represents the original) exactly enjoin obedience upon wives (as upon children and slaves) but subjection: cf. Col. iii. 18; 1 Cor. xiv. 34; 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12; 1 Pet. iii. 1. If however in the use of the 'obey' in the vow of the wife our marriage service goes an almost imperceptible stage beyond St. Paul, its general tone preserves St. Paul's balance admirably. The husband 'worships' the wife and endows her with all his worldly goods. The only other ecclesiastical formula of ours in which the word worship is used of a purely human relation, is the peer's oath of allegiance to the sovereign at the coronation, 'I do become your liegeman of life and limb and of earthly worship: and faith and troth I will bear unto you to live and to die against all manner of folks.'