Marriage is a a contract between two people, in which love, of which sex is an implied and fundamental component, is promised to the other. This contract is vowed for life and is binding for life.
With sex being so vowed to the other, sexual consent is given for life by contract.
There can not be sexual non-consent in marriage for sexual consent has already been contractually agreed to.
Marital non-consent is an impossibility: if there is non-consent, there is no marriage; if there is marriage, there can not be non-consent.
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But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Mark 10:6-9 ESV)
The basis of Christian marriage is laid out in Genesis and reiterated in the Gospels. The man and wife become one flesh.
Can a person commit a non-consensual act upon their own flesh?
The very idea is absurd.
Any statement that there can be non-consent in marriage is an attack on the fundamental basis of Christian marriage and the Christian family.
If you believe you can have non-consent in marriage, you do not have a Christian view of marriage.
If you believe non-consent can occur in your marriage, you do not have a Christian marriage.
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The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (1 Corinthians 7:3-5 ESV)
The Bible is very clear that you should not deny your spouse sex. Someone who does is sinning.
Anybody who encourages or tolerates spouses denying each other is encouraging and tolerating sin.
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Rape is sex without consent. There is a difference between rape and abuse.
Sex can be violent or abusive without being rape.
Words have meaning.
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All that being said, this should not be taken as encouragement to take your spouse if the spouse is saying no. Your spouse may be sinning and consenting, but it would not be the loving thing to do and might be sinful in itself. As well, from a practical standpoint, the law does frown upon it.
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Finally, I hypothesize the concept of marital rape hurts those who suffer from ‘marital rape’.
The trauma of rape does not primarily come from its physical aspects, but rather its psychological aspects. The trauma comes from the violation.
If this is so, it stands to reason if there is no sense of psychological violation, there is no trauma.
The creation of the concept of marital rape, creates the idea that a spouse can be violated in marriage where the idea didn’t exist previously. Undesired sex that would have been an unpleasant duty is made traumatic by removing the psychological aspect of duty from it and imputing a psychological aspect of violation to it.
I think it likely, the psychological trauma of marital rape only becomes a reality because of the belief that there can be such a concept as marital rape. Pushing the concept of marital rape increases the likelihood of trauma from marital rape; the very concept of marital rape creates the trauma of marital rape.
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Vox posted on the same topic the day after I wrote this. I guess great minds think alike.
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Edit: 2014/05/25 – To those coming from Patheos (or elsewhere if other pick it up form Patheos). I encourage reasonable comments, and may respond as time permits. Please don’t take a dump all over my blog though. Also, please criticize what I wrote, do not criticize what I didn’t, which invariably happens when this topic comes up.
I would also like to say, I’m not part of the Quiverfull movement and neither am I an MRA, although, I do have sympathies with some of the goals of both.
And yes, divorce is illegitimate and I probably rage against divorce in the Christian church as anyone coming from Patheos.
On the surface there’s not much to quibble with.
Digging into the pasts of women who’ve been traumatized or molested at some point in time and the question gets a bit murkier. What can happen with these women is the act is burned into their psyche as being associated with the prior validation, which makes fulfilling the marital contract difficult if not impossible.
Note that the exception does not prove the rule, and is only for women who’ve been clinically violated, not ones who just “feel bad” because someone whistled at them.
A woman denies a man sex because she is controlling her fertility and doesn’t want to be impregnated by him.
A woman controlling the timing of sex within marriage is the same thing – she’s subconsciously ensuring that she only gets sperm when she’s not fertile and is ready for insemination from an interloper.
Maybe there is an interloper, maybe there isn’t (now).
“Free Northerner”
Just as White Genocide is the “radioactive” issue for pro-whites more accurately, in NRx terms ethno-nationalists, the issue of marital rape could become that sort of “third-rail” issue for the theonomists. It’s difficult but if people keep hitting it, it might be one issue that breaks the back of The Cathedral. Good luck.
A.J.P.
Looks like conjugal rights is the better terminology.
“Digging into the pasts of women who’ve been traumatized or molested at some point in time and the question gets a bit murkier. What can happen with these women is the act is burned into their psyche as being associated with the prior validation, which makes fulfilling the marital contract difficult if not impossible. ”
Most of my reading on the subject of rape skirts the issue that the biggest problem a women has after being rapped is how regular sex turns her off compared to being rapped. If you don’t believe me go read a few romance novels, everyone one of them has a rape scene.
Arg! I meant “violation”, not “validation” in my original post.
From a Christian point of view, if a wife denies the husband sex over an extended period of time (years in my case) what recourse does the husband have, if any? Since divorce or having an affair would be considered adultery, it seems like the husband has no recourse – he just has to live with it. Is that a valid conclusion?
@ Robert: Ideally, a man would be able to bring his unperforming wife before a pastor/elder for rebuke, then before a few elders.
If that will not work, then loving correction is the best way. Withdraw other forms of support, out of love and a desire to bring her out of her sin, not hate or spite, to show her the grievousness of her sin.
At the same time, make yourself more attractive.
Yes, denial of sex by a wife is a powerful and abusive form of manipulation. Not all wives do it, butt the wives that do harm themselves in the long run. The man will eventually harbor a resentment that will be very difficult to quell.
If it’s impossible for two people who are one flesh to ever violate one another, why do many men dislike having their wives volunteer them for tasks without checking with them first? Why do husbands and wives not always think and feel the same way about every topic? We are learning to meld our lives together, little by little, and it’s just good sense to treat the other person as a distinct individual, and not as an extension of oneself.
In a marriage where each spouse really trusts the other to listen and care about their needs and desires, it seems unlikely that either would ever resort to manipulation as a means of gaining some power. If a woman feels so powerless as to feel a need to use sex to control her husband, it seems all too easy to point the finger at her “underperformance” in this one area, rather than encouraging the husband to really love his wife as Christ loves the church.
“If you believe non-consent can occur in your marriage, you do not have a Christian marriage.”
Yeah. I want to have sex in the elementary school playground, but my wife just won’t get on board. Guess I don’t have a Christian marriage, darnit.
@ That_Susan: Your examples had nothing to do with sex or violation or the marriage contract.
@ Jason: Funny, but I’m sure you see the logical pitfalls of your joke without having them pointed out.
I saw the Manboobz thing. Funny thing is, you dont have to be religious to see the point in what you’re saying. Instead of saying every marriage should be the same, a secular person might argue “People can make their own marriage contracts, with or without the rape exemption”. And if it has the exemption, then it would make sense to keep it, not change the rules after the fact. A few years back there was a news article about kidnapping services for adrenaline junkies: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/07/extreme-kidnapping-adam-thick-video_n_3033293.html
You pay them money and agree to be kidnapped for a while, for kicks. No one would suggest you should be able to change the rules halfway through the act, and go “When I was resisting, I changed my mind!” and send them off to jail for kidnapping. Only the marital rape idea seems to incite irrationality about contracts. Cuz rape is a special crime unlike any other.
I wouldn’t mind a marriage with no concept of marital rape for myself. The idea of being “raped” by my man isn’t scary. Annoying maybe.
Free Northerner, I was responding to the following statement of yours:
“Can a person commit a non-consensual act upon their own flesh?
“The very idea is absurd.”
I know, and neither of those had to do with flesh.