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.