Madi Prewett is opening up about the “context” behind her “submissive” wife comments amid the online backlash.
“Grant and I just wanted to address what has been going on since a conversation we had with a friend on the podcast and I talked about the word ‘submission’ and it has kind of picked up and a lot of people have been talking about it,” Prewett, 29, began on an episode of her “Stay True” podcast on Sunday, December 14. “It just kind of grieved our hearts and my heart that there wasn’t context around it.”
The Bachelor alum noted that there are “words” that her and husband Grant Troutt “use from scripture” on her podcast that can feel “very confusing” without an explanation.
“If you don’t explain what the Bible is saying and give context to it then you just say that word flippantly, it can be received in a really hurtful way so we just want to say sorry,” Prewett, who has been married to Troutt, 29, since 2022, said. “I think sometimes I can forget that there are people on the other side of the screen that are going to be listening to this that have their experiences and things that you guys have walked through.”
Prewett acknowledged that when some podcast listeners “hear the word submit,” they think of “abuse because of things that have happened to [them] or things that [they’ve] seen.”
“When you hear that word, you think of it meaning that if you’re a woman, that it means oppression and that you have no voice and you are silenced and you are controlled,” she explained. “When you hear that word, I think it can strike a lot of different feelings. And that is in no way of how I meant it of what the Bible is saying nor in how we live. Our marriage dynamic is not like that in any way.”
After Troutt added that the word “submission” is “very weird” and not what they “even believe in terms of what’s used in today’s culture,” Prewett went on to explain how the term “in scripture” is “not abusive.”
“It’s not exercising this dominant power and authority … over someone,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that the wife is weak or passive or has no voice or is not equal with the husband. That’s not at all what submission means. Nor is it what we believe submission means when it’s talking about that in the Bible.”
According to Troutt, “submission” comes from Ephesians 5 in the Bible where “Paul lays out the blueprint for godly, biblical marriage.”
“It starts off with two verses to the wife and then there’s about six or seven verses to the husband,” he explained. “In those two verses to the wife, it says, ‘Wives submit to your husbands.’ That’s where that word comes from.”
Following Troutt’s explanation, Prewett shared how they operate their marriage in her own words.
“Grant is the spiritual leader of the home and that doesn’t mean in any way like oppressive or domineering, but I think when I think about it, Grant is the provider and protector of the home,” she said. “I get to come under his care in a way that’s not like, ‘Oh, I have to,’ but in a way where I feel safe. That’s the next verse in Ephesians 5 is the man is the head of the home. For me, there’s this respect and this honoring that I give Grant, not because I have to, because it’s the way in which God calls us to and in the way that I truly have found to feel the freest and the most content in our marriage.”
Prewett noted that they want to “model [their] marriage” in “such a way that people see Jesus” in their relationship.
“That’s why this hurts when we, maybe, say something in a way where it would taint that or hinder someone’s ability to see our marriage and be like, ‘Man, I want the Jesus that they have. I want a marriage that honors God like that,’” she explained. “We would just never want anything that we say to keep someone from experiencing that.”
Overall, Prewett said submission to her means “honor, respect and it is viewing it as we have equal rights.”
“Not one person is more important than the other, not one person has a bigger voice than the other, not one person has the dominating authority over the other,” she added. “We have the same rights. We just have different roles. What God calls for when you get married is there to be a laying your life down for one another, a service to one another. You’re serving the other person. You’re not just thinking about yourself all the time.”
Earlier this month, Prewett came under fire when she said “being a submissive wife” is now her “favorite thing.”
“I learned a lot about being a submissive wife, [which] was a challenge for me at first,” she said in a December 1 episode of her “Stay True” podcast. “Now, it’s, like, my favorite thing. I love talking about submission.”
Many people were upset by Prewett’s comments and took to social media to share their thoughts.
“May this life never find me,” one user wrote on Instagram, while another said, “What in the Handmaid’s Tale.”
