It means surrender. She surrenders her independence, her name, her destiny, her will, herself to the bridegroom in marriage. This is a public ceremony, before God and witnesses. Then, in the marriage chamber, she surrenders her body, her priceless gift of virginity, all that has been hidden. This is the true mother-spirit, true maternity, so absent, it seems to me, in all the annals of feminism.
Femininity receives .
In other words, it is for us women to receive the given as Mary did, not to insist on the not-given, as Eve did. I think of Amy Carmichael, for example, another Mary, because she had no ambition for anything but the will of God. She was given power, as was her Master, because she made herself nothing. I would be the last to deny that women are given gifts that they are meant to exercise. But we must not be greedy in insisting on having all of them, in usurping the place of men.