The choice to submit: Freedom, gender, and the figure of God in Pentecostal Nigeria

Why do some women choose to submit to their husbands in marriage? In anthropology, the paradox of ‘chosen submission’ has famously been explored by Saba Mahmood. Her work amongst Egyptian women donning the veil in the Islamic da’wa movement spotlights the notion of ‘piety’ to explore how devotion to God can act as a powerful motivator of human behaviour. This article pushes this line of argument further by seeking to make God a more central figure in anthropological analysis, following recent efforts in the field to create both ‘ethnographies of God’, as well as anthropologies that are ‘theologically engaged’. Drawing on ethnographic research amongst Nigerian Pentecostal women, this paper illustrates the ways that marital submission is understood by these Christians as a spiritual state that connects them to God–a theological relation, in other words–as well as a social relation between them and their husbands. By analysing their theologies of freedom and submission, this article shows how theological thinking more generally can shape how power is conceived and wielded by religious subjects.