Re: To set the record straight: the wife must obey her husband
If you read the ayat it is about protection: Protection of her husbands property, protection of her husbands wealth, protection of herself. She protects his property by being there - and there are references for the status of jihad when the wife is at home, protects his wealth, that is she is given money to conduct household affairs and she does not abuse that right by over-spending, she protects herself by not being subject to the desires of non-mahram men the worst of this kind are those women who have been cheating. Some can give his money away without his knowledge to someone unknown to him or to who he may disapprove of and so on it is clear here what dishonouring means.
Some people can argue disobedience is dishonouring, but that only would be so in a public setting. There is a well known etiquette which is “adab is superior to obedience” which is meant for servants where if their masters tell them to dine with them, they should refuse and delay this out of adab. Now if it is allowed for a servant to disobey in a given context then a wife should have a greater reason and more contexts to disobey her husband … one such basis is if he instructs her to do something in a derogatory manner … and so on. The ayat cannot mean obedience because the ayat does not have a caveat … the expected caveat would be “obey your husband in every halal thing”, but it does not say that, which means if it really did mean obey your husband … provided the husband did his duty then the wife would be obliged to obey his every command illegal and sinful. We know that would nonsensical. Obedience is hence to Allah (SWT) and honouring the husband is that obedience.