DEBATING PATRIARCHY - DISCURSIVE DISPUTES OVER SPOUSAL AUTHORITY AMONG EVANGELICAL FAMILY COMMENTATORS

Theoretical paradigms that have called attention to the contemporary ' 'war'' over the family suggest that religious conservatives in general , and evangelical Protestants in particular, are among the most vocife rous defenders of a ''traditional'' patriarchal family structure. Howe ver, a handful of recent inquiries on contemporary evangelical spousal roles has suggested that conservative Protestants are not unanimous i n their support for a patriarchal family structure. Drawing on insight s from poststructuralist theories of discourse and gender theory, this study augments such investigations by analyzing the rhetoric containe d within a large sample of popular evangelical family manuals. I demon strate that leading conservative Protestants are engaged in a rancorou s debate about spousal authority relations, with evangelical purveyors of patriarchy attracting significant criticism from prominent biblica l feminists and a growing coterie of egalitarian evangelical commentat ors. After delineating the most salient points of this internecine deb ate, I trace these antagonists' divergent recommendations for the allo cation of spousal authority to their distinctive assumptions about (1) the nature of masculinity and femininity, and (2) Bible's instruction s for familial decision making. I conclude by specifying several direc tions for future empirical research, and by explicating this study's c hallenge to prevailing assumptions concerning the religious contours o f the war over the family.