Mr Biblical Gender Roles did a later post asking the vexed question, Is a husband selfish for having sex with his wife when she is not the mood?
That seems like an odd way of putting it. If she’s not in the mood he’s not really having sex with her, is he, he’s using her for sex for himself. But he of course doesn’t see it that way.
I feel that today we make far too many excuses for the sin of sexual denial in marriage, and as men of God we must address this issue without pulling punches.
That’s an unfortunate metaphor for the subject…or perhaps it’s not a metaphor.
Now we need to establish the key Biblical teachings about sex.
Why? Why not instead talk about what people want, and mutual respect?
The Apostle Paul later in the New Testament, elaborates on this right and responsibility of sex in marriage making it clear that both husbands and wives have the right TO and responsibility FOR sex in marriage:
“A wife does not have the right over her own body, but her husband does. In the same way, a husband does not have the right over his own body, but his wife does. Do not deprive one another sexually—except when you agree for a time, to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again; otherwise, Satan may tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” – I Corinthians 7:4-5(HCSB)
The phrase “A wife does not have the right over her own body, but her husband does.” could not be clearer. A wife does not have the right to stand and deny her husband access to her body. As I said in the previous post, a wife can humbly ask for a “delay”, or “raincheck”, but only for legitimate physical or psychological reasons and the judge of what is legitimate or not is her husband.
And if her husband decides nope, that reason is not legitimate, he gets to rape her, according to Mr Biblical. Of course there is the small detail that marital rape is against the law, but hey, she probably won’t be able to prosecute, so who cares.
I realize at this point some people may say “it is not always true that sex leads to fondness between a man and a woman” and they would be right. But let’s consider why it would not. I have one word for you – its called pride. A wife may actually be more annoyed at her husband after sex, then she was before if she does not release her feelings of pride during sex and give herself fully, both mind and body to her husband.
It’s that pesky secular pride that makes women not like to be raped by their husbands! If only they would all learn better from Mr Biblical.
I will say this, despite American laws to the contrary, Biblically speaking, there is no such thing as “marital rape”. In the Scriptures, the only way rape occurs is if a man forces himself on a woman who is not his property (not his wife, or concubine). A man’s wives, his concubines (slave wives taken as captives of war or bought) could be made to have sex with him, no questions asked.
Now the Bible states that if a man did take one of his female slaves, he had to make her at least a slave wife (a concubine), which gave her a certain status above a normal slave. She had the right to be fed, clothed and the right to regular relations with him even he had other wives. She also had to be given the full rights of a daughter, if her father-in-law had purchased her for his son. I realize this entire scenario is appalling to our modern western notions, but I choose to not challenge God’s wisdom in the laws he gave. If you want to argue with God about this at the judgement, be my guest.
And there it is again – “never mind your modern qualms, this is God’s law.”
I spit on it.
And if he forces himself on a woman who is still the property of her father, all he has to do is buy her (and only if someone else notices).
Deut 22: 28-29 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver.
And even if he forces himself on a woman who is someone else’s property, if it’s in the city limits, it’s her own damn fault, because obviously if she had not wanted to have sex with him she would surely have screamed, and someone would have just as surely come to her aid, right?
Deut 22: 23-24 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
Good thing atheists have no moral compass.
The version of the Corinthians verse I remember reading said not to deprive each other sexually unless by mutual consent, which is a very bizarre twist on the notion of consent. It’s saying don’t have sex ONLY if both of you don’t want to have sex. If one or more of the couple wants to have sex, then the couple must have sex. Wut.
Since he’s so concerned about the Biblical rules for sex, it’s pretty obvious that he always avoids even sharing a bed with any of his wives or concubines during their two weeks of “uncleanness.” I’m sure you could even bet on that….
I wonder how long it will take for one of those “religious liberty” laws to be used as defense against a charge of marital rape. After all, freedom of religion is about the right to believe whatever you want, including the right to believe that your actions are justifiable because of coded messages from an invisible space monster.
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Meanwhile, isn’t this entire concept of the woman as breedsow based on property, and not just her as property?
After reading news about a Neolithic genetic bottleneck, I’ve been wondering if these attitudes are largely a product of personal wealth accumulation in permanently-settled societies. http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/03/neolithic-culture-may-have-kept-most-men-from-mating/
Women bear (male) children who will inherit the property of the (male) creators of wealth. That is why women’s sexuality must be policed, so that the (male) heir really is the property-owner’s biological offspring. (Which seems to be important for some reason.) That is why rape is a crime of one man against another, but marital rape would be a nonsensical concept: any children will still be the “right” man’s children.
The same goes for marriage equality; it’s also a nonsensical concept. What is the point of a simple inheritance system if there will be not children to inherit anything?
And would this also be why there are dowries and bride price, to demonstrate that a prospective son-in-law knows how to manage wealth? Yahweh knows that the daughter won’t be inheriting any of it! Parents of daughters also must protect their reputation (“honor”) as police of their daughters’ sexuality, so that they can plausibly claim to provide what wealthy men are looking for.
And that’s not even getting into the need to produce lots of children, to create armies of cheap labor and armies of cannon-fodder. We need both to produce and steal wealth and resources. Thus, we cannot allow abortion or birth control lest out enemies outnumber us.
And the more I think about this, the more dismal it seems. Seeing women as property is bad enough. But what if they are themselves merely a means to obtain and pass on the real prize? I don’t know if I’m right about any of this, but it does seem to hang together.
But looking at that, the concubine gets a sweet deal: she gets to have all the sex she wants* with her master, even if he’s got plenty of wives.
* Provided the amount of sex she wants with her master is more than zero. Or… is whatever her master wants?
And I just saw this, too: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists
Don’t tell the evo-psych crowd!
And isn’t it funny how the big religions around today are from agricultural societies. It makes me wonder.
5. Scr…Archivist: …wondering if these attitudes are largely a product of personal wealth accumulation…
But what if they are themselves merely a means to obtain and pass on the real prize?
Yes, from any perspective you choose, whether we are just a means for DNA to replicate, or whether our social organization is the expression of natural selection in our species. Our species as a whole is a unit, but our divisions are examples of differentiation within the species. The larger units of this differentiation are nations, cultures, or religions, which can span geographical limits. Smaller units are states and religious sects. The relative success or failure of the units is measured in our world in accumulation of resources, especially wealth. Wealth is the means by which we ensure the future of our descendants. It should not be a surprise that humans will do anything to amass resources, including killing one another, invading lands, codifying regulations that allow a select handful to benefit greatly, lying, and deluding themselves. Concentration of wealth has been a constant in human history. Movement towards distributing resources more equitably have been short-term only, with our systems reverting to what seems to be a preference for inequality. If you consider us as an organism, it makes sense that we will come up with mechanisms to increase our genetic success. This will include schemes to control reproduction. Women and men can be directly constrained by force, including imprisonment. Indirectly we use wealth concentration to prevent the majority of humans from having the best outcome for their children, to increase the odds for a smaller handful.
The big difference between us and all other species is our self-awareness. The more abstractions you can intellectually process, the more you can see larger patterns in human behavior. The broader your education, the better you can understand how our species functions. The slow and stuttering progression of our species towards equality is our attempt to re-direct natural selection. Even this re-direction is an example of differentiation in our species, where one segment of the population is pushing for group prosperity to endure the best chance of survival for our genes.
The word ‘rape’ itself is rooted in the notion of a crime of property. In some other languages, ‘elope’ and ‘rape’ are synonyms. The only ‘crime’ recognized was that of removing a woman from the control of her current owner.
In The Marriage of Figaro, Bartolo chortles:
(Avrei pur gusto di dar per moglie la mia serva antica; a chi mi fece un dì RAPIR l’amica.)
In helping Rosina escape to marry the Count, Figaro’s action is called ‘rape.’
expatriarchy @5:
That may be true of the brief period of our written history. But from what I have learned so far, we weren’t able to accumulate much when we were all foragers.
And to clarify my point in the part you quoted, I meant “real prize” to mean “more stuff (and means to get even more stuff)” and not genes. In case you might have thought so.
That’s one difference, anyway. Sharing knowledge and experience and ideas through language and the written word is another key difference, which might make all the difference.
I don’t know if that is a universally-accepted measure. Is the measure based on having more stuff or on having bigger numbers next to your name? Or is it what good you get from them? Too many people get hung up on the former. Focusing on the latter leaves resources for others, moving toward the group prosperity you describe.
And there may be other ways to measure success. I wonder how the people interviewed in my second link measure it.
Isn’t encouraging people to break the law illegal? It’s not just marital rape either, there’s the whole slavery thing as well.
LMFTFY: In the Scriptures, the only way rape occurs is if a man forces himself on a woman who is
not hisanother man’s propertyI see the quote from Corinthians says “a husband does not have the right over his own body, but his wife does.” Does Mr. Biblical Gender Roles agree that it’s his duty to please his wife even if he’s not in the mood? It’s right there in the Bible…
It meant “snatch” or “carry off.” The sense of “sexual violation” came later.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=rape
This is why we need angry robots:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/11600593/Artificial-intelligence-should-you-be-scared-of-angry-robots.html
We don’t need electric monks to believe crazy shit for us, that doesn’t seem to be a property that’s in short supply. But maybe we do need robots to be angry for us because there aren’t nearly enough seconds in the day.