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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: sex before marriage
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
Taking up one of mousethief's posts on the other thread: quote:
I am still reeling at the idea of checking somebody out like they were a piece of furniture.
But surely in practice we do run our potential spouses through, as it were, compatibility tests? Of course being Westerners we're too polite to call them such*.
If I were madly in love with a girl, and she were madly in love with me, and we'd been going out for two weeks, would it be reasonable for us to get married? Obviously not, because we wouldn't have been going out long enough to know that we were really suited or that the romance was going to last. In other words, we would need time to check each other out.
[ETA: The point is not so much making sure the other person matches up to a shopping-list of "what I need to make me happy", but checking that the relationship as a whole is sustainable.]
* I once had an acquaintance of Punjabi origin who was getting married by arrangement. The progress of his romance featured comments like "Well, I started off with a list of 23, but now I've got it down to 16".
[ 17. April 2008, 10:02: Message edited by: Ricardus ]
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Caz...:
What about people who have been sexually abused or similar? I can imagine them having similar responses in relation to sexual overtures. Is then also okay for them to have sex before marriage? And if it's okay for them, what about people who just find the idea of sex more nerve-wracking than others? Presumably it's okay for them too.... I'm just still not quite buying the "special cases" logic. I guess I'm thinking that, whatever the special issues, there are ways of gradually working those through and gradually increasing sensitisation, etc, that don't involve having sex before marriage. ....
Caz, you ask if it should be ok for those who have been sexually abused to test out their responses to intimacy before signing up to a deal where their partner would expect that intimacy to happen? I’d say the humane answer would be “yes”. But sometimes our faith is less humane and more proscriptive. I’m not sure God said a lot about sex before marriage in the New Testament, to be honest, though we’ve inferred a lot. No doubt many finer minds than mine have considered that most carefully already, though.
I spent many years considering how I’d work things through in a way that didn’t involve the “full works”. What I have to say is that this isn’t a psychological issue. It’s not my attitude or past experiences that’s at fault, so all the experts in all the world wouldn’t make any difference, nor all the time in creation, nor all the inventive alternative building-up-to-it processes people could think up. The “full works” from a partner feels like nothing else can possibly feel to us – the combination of texture, temperature, smell, sensation, proximity, pressure, speed, changes in reaction during the event. If the sum total of it after all due care and consideration still overloads our brains, then that’s the reality and there’s nothing we can do to change it. We're not in charge of the "off-switch".
I’m not saying what we had to do was “morally right according to the most recognised Christian practice”, or that it should set a precent. I think I’m just asking God for a bit of compassion for the reality of how much of a never-ending assault-course life already is for me, and how things that can be overcome by others really can’t be overcome for me. That’s why it’s a disability.
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Caz:
What about people who have been sexually abused or similar? I can imagine them having similar responses in relation to sexual overtures. Is then also okay for them to have sex before marriage? And if it's okay for them, what about people who just find the idea of sex more nerve-wracking than others? Presumably it's okay for them too.... I'm just still not quite buying the "special cases" logic. I guess I'm thinking that, whatever the special issues, there are ways of gradually working those through and gradually increasing sensitisation, etc, that don't involve having sex before marriage. ....
I figure everyone, in every circumstance, does what they think is right or best and then (hopefully) keeps short accounts with God. If amber has any qualms about the premarital sex, she is wise to take it to the cross and ask Jesus to forgive whatever sin might be there. We don't need to know whether there was sin in that situation or not; God knows and God is merciful - He gave His only begotten Son in order to make that mercy real. So personally I'm okay with there being a biblical standard which we choose to embrace or reject (or fail-- ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) ) and letting God sort it all out.
I don't actually need to walk around and yell at people, "Avast, ye fornicators!" as a girlfriend of mine did, directed at my boyfriend and I, in the hallway back in high school ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) (but very funny-- ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif) ).
Ricardus, speaking about time to check each other out to make sure the relationship as a whole is sustainable, are you saying that the final 'test drive' ought to be intercourse?
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
Ricardus, speaking about time to check each other out to make sure the relationship as a whole is sustainable, are you saying that the final 'test drive' ought to be intercourse?
No, only that it seems, on the face of it, reasonable that sex should be included in such a "test-drive".
I'm not defending Angry Preacher's view that it has to be included. I just don't see how anyone who does include it is necessarily selfish.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Also on the Wrong Sex Acts thread, I had mentioned the tricky situation of me and hubby living together before marriage (with all that entails) and explained about autistic spectrum challenges re sex and why otherwise there wouldn't have been a marriage.
[...]
we later ended up wondering whether there is an Exception to the no-sex-before-marriage rule if there are disability-related circumstances, or whether it's always a Jolly Bad Thing and Setting a Bad Example.
This may sound harsh (it's not meant to) but I really don't see why this is a case for making an exception.
I can accept that there are some people who for various reasons (autism, previous abuse, chronic nervousness) might correctly anticipate that sexual difficulties with their future partners are:
1) a real possibility
2) impossible to predict without practical experience
3) difficult to remedy.
What I don't accept is that it is any less unkind and unworthy for those people to dump someone that they claim to love because of sexual problems than it would be for anyone else. We are, after all, talking about life-long love and commitment here. The person is, one would hope, someone you find so special and so important to you that you want to be with them for the whole of your life. To reject them because they don't do it for you in bed strikes me not so much as immoral (although, yes, that too) as incomprehensible.
quote:
Caz, you ask if it should be ok for those who have been sexually abused to test out their responses to intimacy before signing up to a deal where their partner would expect that intimacy to happen? I'd say the humane answer would be "yes".
I think that's rather an inhumane answer. Because a sexual try-out necessarily works (or doesn't) in two directions.
To say that it is appropriate for abuse victims to try out sex before marriage (that is, a try-out for the purpose of ending the relationship if dissatisfied) is necessarily to encourage their non-abused partners to do the same. It is to say, of someone who has been the victim of abuse, who finds it hard to even imagine relating to anyone else sexually, and has finally found one person whom they can manage to love and trust enough to attempt sex with, that such a victim can and should be cast off by that person if they fail to perform.
It is much more humane to say that when a damaged person reaches the point where they can trust another sexually, they should do so in a relationship where absolute commitment is already established. And if the sex doesn't work, then that is no excuse for a failure of mutual love and support.
quote:
I'm not saying what we had to do was "morally right according to the most recognised Christian practice", or that it should set a precent. I think I'm just asking God for a bit of compassion for the reality of how much of a never-ending assault-course life already is for me
Well do you thing that "most recognised Christian practice" about pre-marital sex is morally binding?
If not, then there's no problem for you. You weren't, by your lights, obliged to restrict sex to a committed relationship in any case.
If you do generally agree with the traditional teaching, then part of the reason for that teaching is that it protects people who are for any reason sexually vulnerable from being discarded after having reached the point of readiness for sexual intimacy. You are not an exception to that rule. More likely, you are one of the people whom that rule was meant to protect. And so is your partner.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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EnglishRose
Shipmate
# 4808
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Posted
I've been backwards and forwards over this issue for years; the older I get the less firm my views become. Sex should never be a 'try out' or a recreational activity - it's an expression of the deepest love between two people. But if two people genuinely love each other, should they necessarily have to wait until they're married? I don't see how an act of unselfish love can be a sin.
It seems to me, though, that God warned us against sex before marriage because humans have an innate need for commitment. Where there is no commitment we risk deep pain and hurt. For many people engagement is sufficient commitment - it depends on whether individuals view the engagement as the final trial of compatability before marriage or a firm commitment in its own right.
Posts: 544 | From: London | Registered: Aug 2003
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
Originally posted by Eliab:
"This may sound harsh (it's not meant to) but I really don't see why this is a case for making an exception.
I can accept that there are some people who for various reasons (autism, previous abuse, chronic nervousness) might correctly anticipate that sexual difficulties with their future partners are:
1) a real possibility
2) impossible to predict without practical experience
3) difficult to remedy.
What I don't accept is that it is any less unkind and unworthy for those people to dump someone that they claim to love because of sexual problems than it would be for anyone else. We are, after all, talking about life-long love and commitment here. The person is, one would hope, someone you find so special and so important to you that you want to be with them for the whole of your life. To reject them because they don't do it for you in bed strikes me not so much as immoral (although, yes, that too) as incomprehensible"
Goodness, I can't have made a very good attempt at explaining this. I certainly didn't say I'd reject my fiance because he didn't "do it for me in bed". That would be awful.
What I said is that because of this disability, I couldn't be sure that we'd be in a situation where I'd be able to cope with full sex without very, very major disability problems. If we'd have got married first, that would have left us with a marriage that could never be a full one, and my understanding of marriage is that sex is an important part of it. My point is that my husband would have deserved a wife who could be a proper sexual partner, not that I was rejecting him. Neither would he have been rejecting me. We would have just had to accept that it wasn't possible to marry. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
* I once had an acquaintance of Punjabi origin who was getting married by arrangement. The progress of his romance featured comments like "Well, I started off with a list of 23, but now I've got it down to 16".
I think that's true of most marriages, arranged or otherwise. It's just that he was more honest and explicit about it.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
Ricardus, speaking about time to check each other out to make sure the relationship as a whole is sustainable, are you saying that the final 'test drive' ought to be intercourse?
No, only that it seems, on the face of it, reasonable that sex should be included in such a "test-drive".
I'm not defending Angry Preacher's view that it has to be included. I just don't see how anyone who does include it is necessarily selfish.
I don't know that it's necessarily selfish; I'm more inclined to think it's foolish. Consider: lovemaking is more than simple rutting and each couple is a unique and dynamic combination. No one has their best lovemaking experience the first time they have intercourse with a new partner (or their first partner); there is always a learning curve involved. Ah, he really likes it when I do that or Hmmm, that didn't work well - and the learning curve goes on for years, decades; it's part of why lovemaking with the same person over a lifetime can still be exciting and fulfilling instead of tedious, the opportunity to bring the whole of our mind and creativity to the act of physical passion.
You cannot possibly examine those depths in a pre-marital test drive of each others' bodies; the best you can do is what amber discussed: learn if there are insurmountable difficulties for someone with very specific stimulus issues, which reflects a small minority of humans.
Nearly everything else really can be figured out in advance, mostly by having candid conversations (and face it, if you can't talk to the person you want to share the rest of your life with about the nitty-gritty of sex, then what in the world makes you think you're ready to DO the nitty-gritty of sex?!). One can make sure one has sexual chemistry by kissing (note to self: must spark with kissing! NO EXCEPTIONS!).
I suppose a less-than-generously endowed man might not do well with the mother of many children, but you know that without the test-drive, too.
Absolutely people should have frank discussions about levels of desire and how will we work it out if I want you a whole lot more often than you want me...? These are important talks and not necessarily revealed by having intercourse a few times.
Shoot, it's a skill - we get better at it. Most people fall the first few times they try to ride a bicycle and then they learn how to coordinate it and how to manage balance, etc., and then it becomes fun. We endure the early falling-down stage because of the promise of the later fun stage.
I seriously can't imagine having decided that THIS is the person I want to spend my life with and then having a fuck and deciding no, I was wrong on the basis of the sex. And if I did, it would be devastating for both of us.
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
We would have just had to accept that it wasn't possible to marry.
Or maybe you would have worked through it ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Not unless there's something about the laws of biology I don't understand.
To put it another way, if we had someone who was completely blind, would it be realistic for any of us to say to them "Well, if you keep on practising, you'll be able to see". If someone is born without any legs, would it work for any of us to say to them "I'm sure you'll be able to walk if you just keep trying".
Unless there's something I really haven't understood about a marriage, its whole purpose is to form a close full sexual relationship with that one special person (and, for us, hope that life brought us the joy of children).
If I physically could not (and I do mean the words "could not" rather than "not yet") have fulfilled my side of that marriage contract, surely the marriage would be a non-marriage, which is why they get anulled in court on those grounds?
Maybe the dilemma for aspies is that Christianity is set up with a set of rules we actually cannot follow.
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quoting amber saying: quote:
I'm not saying what we had to do was "morally right according to the most recognised Christian practice", or that it should set a precent. I think I'm just asking God for a bit of compassion for the reality of how much of a never-ending assault-course life already is for me
Well do you thing that "most recognised Christian practice" about pre-marital sex is morally binding?
<snip>
If you do generally agree with the traditional teaching, then part of the reason for that teaching is that it protects people who are for any reason sexually vulnerable from being discarded after having reached the point of readiness for sexual intimacy. <snip>
Eliab, I am willing to be corrected on this, but I understood the proscriptions on pre-marital sex were not Biblical, but traditional. I certainly know that in Hardy's time, the majority of the working class were married when the girl had become pregnant and hence proved she could breed. That's one of the things Hardy was bemoaning (along with the changes on the land). Just to clarify, where do these proscriptions on sex before marriage come from?
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
Oh that's not made my day. It says I should be stoned to death. ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
And that's the point at which you remember Jesus dealing with the manipulative crowd which presented a woman taken in the act of adultery (so they let the man get away; a setup), knowing full well that the Torah says "stone her" and also knowing full well that they no longer have the right to carry out the death penalty independent of the Roman authorities (this is why the Sanhedrin had to present Jesus to Pilate and couldn't just kill Him themselves). Jesus allowed every one of them to steep in their own sins for a few moments before they slunk away and then said, "Neither do I condemn you - go and sin no more."
But amber, if I understand your situation correctly it doesn't apply to you (if we were living under the Law and not under grace) - you guys were engaged to each other, not an injured third party. Betrothal was a legal agreement, a marriage in everything except intercourse. A commitment had been made, the man was off preparing a place for his bride, and he would come back and claim her, bringing her home to the house he'd built. This is why Joseph was going to quietly divorce Mary when he learned she was pregnant - he knew it wasn't his child, therefore she'd been unfaithful to the betrothal (except she hadn't: it was a God thing-- ![[Biased]](wink.gif) ).
Now, if you'd been engaged to a third party and the two of you started living together then you'd qualify.
The middle scripture involves either defamation or deception - she has been presented as a virgin and he's paid a sum of money for a virgin bride - he's either making a false accusation or she had sex with someone other than her fiance/husband before the wedding night.
But none of those cases stipulate stoning for an engaged couple which indulges before the ceremony - it's just not the biblical ideal.
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
Okay, for the serious answer:
None of those passages is about consensual sex between two adults neither of whom is married to anyone else.
The nearest it gets to talking about sex outside marriage (i.e. if neither party is married or betrothed) is the rule in Leviticus about men who seduce virgins. There is no stoning for that - the man must pay a fine (not the woman) and then the couple can marry. Also its talking about girls under the control of their parents. In our system that would be a legal minor. It says nothing about older women or women not living in their father's house. (So, sticking purely to the ancestry of David and Jesus, these rules don't apply to Tamar, Rahab, or Ruth)
In practice it only works applies if the girl is pregnant (how else would anyone know?) So the effect of the law is that if a man gets a girl pregnant, and she is not legally of age, then they should get married (i.e. the man must support his children) but that the girls father can refuse consent to the marriage in which case the man must pay them money. No stoning required.
"Fornication" as used in Acts 15 and the rest of the New Testament does not mean, or does not just mean, unmarried people having sex. Its a general term for all immoral sexual activity. It is not always clear exactly what it includes (which of course might be the intention) I imagine that James and Peter and Paul pretty certainly would have included sex outside marriage in that, but no-where do they say they do.
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Oh that's not made my day. It says I should be stoned to death.
Maybe, but not for so-called "fornication" (in the modern English sense). The stoning in Deuteronomy is specifically for adultery - which in their terms would include adultery with a betrothed woman as well as one in a consummated marriage. She counts as an adulterer if she has sex with a man other than her betrothed during the engagement or if she marries without telling her husband about previous sexual relationships - clearly and explicitly the man only has a case in law if he doesn't know about the previous affair - so if she is honest with him the situation doesn't arise.
There is a clear imbalance between the rights of men and women, which is the logical consequence of polygyny. As a man was allowed to marry more than one women, he can clearly have sex with women other than his first wife - at least if he is prepared to marry them. Married women were required to be monogamous, married men weren't. But there is in the whole Bible not one specific law against unmarried women having sex with either unmarried men or married men.
NB I'm not sayint that the ancioent Jews didn't have such rules - I'm pretty certain that they did, almost all societies do, sexual freedom for young women is a historical rarity - but they are not made explicit in Scripture. If there was such a law in the Bible you'd think someone would have come up with a reference to it on the previous 15 pages of this thread - but no-one has.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Unless there's something I really haven't understood about a marriage, its whole purpose is to form a close full sexual relationship with that one special person (and, for us, hope that life brought us the joy of children).
I'm not sure you can say it has a "whole purpose" which is to say I think (and I am not alone in this) that it has many. One of the chief, in this fallen world, is to help each of the partners to salvation and godliness ("theosis" in Ortho terms). Inasmuch as sexual intimacy helps that end (and the other ligitimate goals) it is a help. But it is not an end in itself.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Oh that's not made my day. It says I should be stoned to death.
Maybe, but not for so-called "fornication" ...
"Maybe?" ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Unless there's something I really haven't understood about a marriage, its whole purpose is to form a close full sexual relationship with that one special person (and, for us, hope that life brought us the joy of children).
I'm not sure you can say it has a "whole purpose" which is to say I think (and I am not alone in this) that it has many. One of the chief, in this fallen world, is to help each of the partners to salvation and godliness ("theosis" in Ortho terms). Inasmuch as sexual intimacy helps that end (and the other ligitimate goals) it is a help. But it is not an end in itself.
Ah, thanks... but, (slight tangent) I would have guessed that we all have a duty as Christians to help each other to salvation and godliness? Perhaps that's why it's not occurred to me to mention it as a specific reason to marry? I was trying to work out what makes a marriage different from a close friendship, I guess.
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Unless there's something I really haven't understood about a marriage, its whole purpose is to form a close full sexual relationship with that one special person
I don’t think that’s the point of marriage at all. Marriage is (for me) the formal and ceremonial expression of the commitment that is the proper aspiration of a person who is in love. As such it is, on the secular level, the most appropriate, romantic and secure setting in which sex can occur and children procreated. In Christian terms, it is also a sacrament and a symbol of Christ’s love for us, and (this being an important lesson from the Orthodox, church) an aid to holiness. But it is love that is fundamental, and it is love which makes it fitting that marriage should be taken into the service of both sexual desire and Christian sentiment.
quote:
If I physically could not (and I do mean the words "could not" rather than "not yet") have fulfilled my side of that marriage contract, surely the marriage would be a non-marriage, which is why they get anulled in court on those grounds?
Not so. Not even under English law does a marriage require sex to take place.
Incapacity or wilful refusal to consummate gives grounds for an annulment, but only on the active suit of one of the parties. A couple who are both content to remain married without sex, are validly married.
quote:
Maybe the dilemma for aspies is that Christianity is set up with a set of rules we actually cannot follow.
Nothing you have said suggests that you are unable to follow traditional Christian morality. If you can’t have sex, it can hardly be a sin not to. And you are not in the least forbidden from marrying simply because you have a disability that affects your sex life.
quote:
If we'd have got married first, that would have left us with a marriage that could never be a full one,
On the contrary, a marriage in which both parties remained faithful and loving to one another, in spite of the temptations posed by the impossibility of full sexual fulfilment would be, in Christian terms, a triumphant one.
quote:
My point is that my husband would have deserved a wife who could be a proper sexual partner
Why would he deserve such a thing? Why does anyone deserve that? I think it is safe to say that any man who thinks he “deserves” the love of any woman almost certainly does not.
Your husband, one hopes, did not want “a full sexual partner” – he wanted you. Naturally, I am sure he hoped that you would be able to please him sexually, and that he hoped to please you, and I am sure that he is delighted that this has proved to be the case. He ought to be. But the desire for sexual satisfaction, valid though it is, ought to be secondary to the fact that you are the person whom he wanted to be satisfied with.
Given the choice between marriage to you, or the opportunity to fuck someone else, if he loves you, he ought not to have hesitated for a moment. Which is why I fail to understand the attitude that says it is possible to love someone enough to want to commit to them for life – unless of course they happen to be unable to attain a certain minimal standard of sexual competence.
[ 19. April 2008, 20:38: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Eliab, I am willing to be corrected on this, but I understood the proscriptions on pre-marital sex were not Biblical, but traditional.
Amber used the phrase "most recognised Christian practice" - and I agreed with it - to convey the no-sex-before-marriage rule. I don't think either of us appealed to scripture.
My personal view is that while there may not be an express and unambiguous command not to have sex before marriage, it would be a very strained interpretation of the Bible that held that this was not part of the assumed morality of the early Church (and therefore, the assumed morality of the Judaic tradition from which the Church grew). As an example, the absence of any moral guidance in the whole of the new testament, of how Christians are meant to behave in non-marital sexual activities, might be taken as evidence that such things were not expected to take place.
It is, of course, quite possible for a Christian to consider that this traditional part of morality is not binding on his or her conscience. I think they would be mistaken (because I think that the traditional morality on this point is sound) but not, necessarily, immoral.
On the other hand, I think the idea of using pre-marital sex to weigh a partner in the balance, and to discard them if found wanting, is profoundly immoral by any standard in which love is considered more important than sex - that is, by any standard that can possibly be called moral at all.
[ 19. April 2008, 20:53: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
On the other hand, I think the idea of using pre-marital sex to weigh a partner in the balance, and to discard them if found wanting, is profoundly immoral by any standard in which love is considered more important than sex - that is, by any standard that can possibly be called moral at all.
But you could say the same about any of the criteria on which we effectively judge our partners before marriage.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
On the other hand, I think the idea of using pre-marital sex to weigh a partner in the balance, and to discard them if found wanting, is profoundly immoral by any standard in which love is considered more important than sex - that is, by any standard that can possibly be called moral at all.
Additional thought: it occurs to me that you're seeing this exclusively as a one-sided thing - one half of the couple saying "You don't satisfy me in bed! Back to the dating agency with you!" What if it's both halves of the couple saying "Oh dear, we seem to have different expectations of sex"?
[ 19. April 2008, 22:22: Message edited by: Ricardus ]
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Additional thought: it occurs to me that you're seeing this exclusively as a one-sided thing - one half of the couple saying "You don't satisfy me in bed! Back to the dating agency with you!" What if it's both halves of the couple saying "Oh dear, we seem to have different expectations of sex"?
I should think that expectations could be discussed without time in the sack?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
We are, after all, talking about life-long love and commitment here. The person is, one would hope, someone you find so special and so important to you that you want to be with them for the whole of your life.
You're assuming that people already know this and are then having sex, but I think the more common scenario is that having sex happens before people have figured out that someone is this special and this important, and sex is one part of that process.
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
On the other hand, I think the idea of using pre-marital sex to weigh a partner in the balance, and to discard them if found wanting, is profoundly immoral by any standard in which love is considered more important than sex - that is, by any standard that can possibly be called moral at all.
But you could say the same about any of the criteria on which we effectively judge our partners before marriage.
Exactly. I really don't understand why sex gets such a privileged place in so many people's thinking. And I totally don't buy the idea that talking about sex is going to do the trick, especially if the people involved are sexually inexperienced. Is such a person really going to say, "Hey, I've got really messed-up notions of sex"? Could they even know such a thing?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Good points, Ricardus.
This comes back to the point I brought up on the
other thread--that this kind of discussion always seems to reflect a belief that it is wrong to care about sex. I can only take this to be the residue of Christianity's long, ugly history of hostility to sexuality (and yes, it's never really been dogma, but that it's been a pervasive attitude for much of the past 2000 years is undeniable). It flies in the face of everything we know about marriage (or, in more psychological terms, adult attachment relationships)--that they are, at their core, sexual relationships. That they are much more than that doesn't take away from the importance of the sexual dimension. To say that marital love can be separated from sexual desire is only intelligible if one assumes that sexual desire is inherently disordered, a feature of our fallen state (per Augustine). I think that's a gnostic infection.
{As I was typing the above paragraph, I was listening to a story on NPR about Passover, and the making of gefilte fish. As the interviewee said, the Talmud says that one should always eat fish and garlic on Friday, because these are foods that arouse the passions, and a husband owes a duty to his wife to make love to her (at least) on Friday night, because that is a holy day (the Sabbath beginning at sunset). So she should serve him fish with garlic to encourage him.)
That most cultures have assumed that young women should (ideally) remain virginal until marriage is obvious, and as true of Jewish culture in OT and NT times as others. But those cultures also made other assumptions. To take the most relevant assumption for the topic at hand, they assumed that unmarried women were the property of their fathers, that they could be sold to their husbands, and that their virginity was a particularly desirable feature, the absence of which would detract from their marketability. None of the prohibitions on premarital sex Lynn cited make any sense at all absent this assumption. Since I think we would all agree that this cultural belief was mistaken, and it follows that those laws are moot--and in fact were in error at the time, because to treat a human being as property is and always has been a sin.
However, in a society in which such evil attitudes are prevalent, it would be unloving in the extreme to subject a young woman to the consequences of premarital sex, and so a violation of the only actual law--love her as you love yourself. Happily, things are in some respects different now.
So suppose a couple in love lived together chastely before marriage, and one or the other said "I can't stand the way you leave the bathroom a mess every morning, I hate your cooking, you snore, you watch idiotic shows on TV and don't talk to me, you don't wash the dishes, you don't fill up the car and I have to drive to work on fumes, when I got sick you acted like I was just a whiner instead of taking care of me and comforting me... I don't want to marry you after all." How immoral is that, compared to discovering a mutual sexual incompatibility?
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
Eliab, are you saying that people like us should lower their expectations and get married to someone with whom they could not enjoy a full sexual relationship that would hopefully lead to children of their own? Possibly not, but it reads like it to me. Please do re-explain.
That was not my understanding of marriage. I do now understand that people might choose that, and there's no reason why that shouldn't be their choice, but it wasn't our choice, our hope, our dream. Or my understanding of marriage at the time. I was never told that, by anyone, not the Minister, not by a single person. Who was supposed to tell us this, and why didn't they?
This is making my head hurt trying to explain this so I'm probably going to have to break it down into small steps....
There was me at the time thinking, "..oh goodness (or words to that effect), I may never be able to cope with full sex with any man, ever. I don't know this, I have no proof. The only way to find out is to try. How on earth can I try safely with the man I love?"
I personally didn't want to sleep with more than one man in my life. My choice, my way of understanding the Bible. (I don't impose that standard on others. I'm not them, I can't know what their life has been like, though I'd encourage it cheerfully as best practice. Most of my friends are on second marriages/living together/civil partnerships, to be honest...).
I knew that if I'd have waited until the honeymoon to try, I couldn't have got married because it would have pushed my coping skills for the wedding day beyond all possible boundaries. Hubby felt exactly the same way (please bear in mind he's aspie too).
If we'd have ordered things The Right Way (according to this thread) we would have been going into a marriage on the hopeful expectation of it working and us having children, then not found out that the reality was 100% different from that until the honeymoon night, which could have ended up as something more akin to a worst nightmare imaginable for me, (and consequently for hubby) not a loving sharing experience. Is that what anyone should hope a marriage experience will be like? Wpuld you choose that experience for yourself, and if not, then why hope for it for me?
What would have happened had the pre-marriage situation failed is a matter of conjecture on my part. I guess we could well have stayed together, but I still think that would have been unfair on hubby and I'd have wanted to give him the chance to choose someone else. Whether he would have done or not, I cannot say for certain. I suspect a lot of men would have been tempted to stray/give up and marry someone different, sooner or later, and that was a fate I also didn't want to have to face.
If God is really this bothered about it, then I'll just have to accept that it's an even hotter room for me after death than the one I already anticipate being in.
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
amber, what I was trying to draw out earlier in the thread was that as ken and Timothy the Obscure pointed out, the verses in the Bible say nothing about marriage, and a lot about not defiling virgins or having sexual congress with a women and then telling everyone with no intention to make a commitment. I understand them to say that lying with a woman should be part of a longer term commitment. I am sorry I didn't have time yesterday to make the points that ken made from the Bible verses given in response to my question.
You have done nothing wrong from the Bible verses. Because some traditions within the past two hundred years have chosen to interpret the verses to tie in with a formal marriage ceremony, not commitment, is their interpretation.
I also find the God of some of the posts on this thread who condemns and judges very hard to equate with the God in Jesus who told the woman caught in adultery (John 8) to go and sin no more, nor the Jesus of Luke 7:36-50 who told the woman with a bad name in the town that her sins were forgiven.
[ 20. April 2008, 12:44: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
CK, don't worry in the least. I can understand the point that you are making, and the alternative ones by others.
I did know when edging into this conversation, which of course is being held in a Christian context, that there are going to be some people who hold different moral standpoints. I have no reason to complain about theirs - as it is their right to honour God in whichever way they best thought would fit with the Bible. But at least I can have a go at explaining my own reasoning, in case it helps people to understand the differing pressures on people of with differing abilities and challenges in their lives.
Would I have wanted to miss out on the years of fun, and on our son being born and growing up to be a very fine young man indeed? Not for all the world, no.
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Eliab, are you saying that people like us should lower their expectations and get married to someone with whom they could not enjoy a full sexual relationship that would hopefully lead to children of their own? Possibly not, but it reads like it to me. Please do re-explain.
I think he's saying that we all should. If you love someone fully enough then they're the one you want no matter what.
(Not implying that God is mad at you amber or anything like that, just discussing the point in general. I personally don't think God is nearly as bothered by what humans do in love as all the dumb things we do not in love.)
[ 20. April 2008, 21:17: Message edited by: Gwai ]
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
None of those passages is about consensual sex between two adults neither of whom is married to anyone else.
I think the middle one (Deuteronomy 22:13-21) may be, in the sense that we're dealing with a man who in some way isn't pleased with his wife and makes the accusation that she wasn't a virgin when he married her. It's interesting to note that her parents are charged with keeping the evidence of her virginity (the bloody sheet from the wedding night, as it were) and if they can't bring it before the elders and prove her virginity as of her wedding night, (vs. 21) then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
I think the evil they were being instructed to purge is fornication in that we don't know she was engaged to her husband when she was sexually active; she may have been but she may not have been; it's not explicit and the other cases explicit that there is a betrothal in place.
Likewise the first example (Exodus 22:16) shows us that fornication isn't permissible because the fornicators are expected to marry as a consequence of the seduction. Bear in mind, I don't associate fornication with stoning. quote:
Also its talking about girls under the control of their parents. In our system that would be a legal minor. It says nothing about older women or women not living in their father's house. (So, sticking purely to the ancestry of David and Jesus, these rules don't apply to Tamar, Rahab, or Ruth)
I think you're applying our sensibility to a very different world. If you recall, Tamar did have to go back and live in her father's household until Shelah was old enough for her to marry (from the Genesis paraphrase thread) and it wasn't until she realized Judah was never going to provide her with the husband (and therefore the son) she was owed that she dressed as a harlot by the side of the road. At that point women didn't have any options beyond marry and bear children (preferrably sons) or turn to harlotry. Even the 'excellent wife' of Proverbs 31 who runs her own business does it within the context of marriage. Rahab is identified as a harlot and Ruth remarkably aligns herself with her mother-in-law and a new, unseen people rather than returning to her father's household. So for my money, you can't really make all the women living in their father's households the equivalent of dependent minors. quote:
In practice it only works applies if the girl is pregnant (how else would anyone know?)
This isn't reality. I don't what what percentage of modern women bleed noticeably with the rupture of the hymen but it was a majority back then (some care was taken with daughters to make sure they weren't so rough-and-tumble as to endanger that valuable commodity). In the case of a marriage without first blood if the husband loves her and is pleased with her, no problem. There are also physical changes that take place in a woman's body after she has become sexually active; I remember going to the beach with my sister a couple of months after she married (she kept her virginity until marriage) and watching her run around in the surf in her bikini I was amazed to realize her body was different. She hadn't gained weight and she wasn't yet pregnant but there was a difference in her shape; it was bizarre to me at the time because I hadn't noticed it with anyone else but I don't know how many female friends I'd seen in minimal attire where I could do a before/after observation.
Now you can't tell me that in a culture where virginity is highly valued that older women in the community wouldn't be looking for signs... quote:
So the effect of the law is that if a man gets a girl pregnant, and she is not legally of age, then they should get married (i.e. the man must support his children) but that the girls father can refuse consent to the marriage in which case the man must pay them money. No stoning required.
I take it at face value, no pregnancy is mentioned: she gets seduced, he marries her, pregnant or no, because the valuable commodity of her virginity has been taken away. That's why he pays the father money equal to the dowry for virgins, if the father refuses to allow them to wed. I suspect such a refusal rarely happened; I can only imagine it in the case of a man known to mistreat his wives, concubines, or animals.
My argument (again) is not for enforcing any of these laws ( ) but simply giving some actual scriptures that show the value of virginity until marriage. quote:
There is a clear imbalance between the rights of men and women, which is the logical consequence of polygyny. As a man was allowed to marry more than one women, he can clearly have sex with women other than his first wife - at least if he is prepared to marry them.
While it is true that scripture doesn't prohibit polygyny it's clearly not the ideal. Kings are warned not to multiple wives (wives and horses--!) and there is no example of happy polygyny provided in scripture. quote:
But there is in the whole Bible not one specific law against unmarried women having sex with either unmarried men or married men...<snip>...If there was such a law in the Bible you'd think someone would have come up with a reference to it on the previous 15 pages of this thread - but no-one has.
Coming to this conclusion requires that you read the scriptures in question in a very particular light - and it's not the only available light. I confess I haven't read the whole 15 pages of the thread so I'll take you at your word
quote:
Eliab said:Incapacity or wilful refusal to consummate gives grounds for an annulment, but only on the active suit of one of the parties. A couple who are both content to remain married without sex, are validly married.
I actually know a couple like this (possibly more than one; only one I'm aware of).
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
On the other hand, I think the idea of using pre-marital sex to weigh a partner in the balance, and to discard them if found wanting, is profoundly immoral by any standard in which love is considered more important than sex - that is, by any standard that can possibly be called moral at all.
But you could say the same about any of the criteria on which we effectively judge our partners before marriage.
Do you equate the way a person chews his/her food with the intimacy and vulnerability of intercourse? In western culture by and large we don't have arranged marriages; we get to know a person and initially we're pretty free about rejecting folks (nope, couldn't handle that; eh, that's a deal-breaker, etc.) but as a person pleases us more and more and we allow love to blossom, it will take a larger problem to eliminate the person from consideration and, once we recognize that we love the person, it would take a very large problem (this is parenthetically why it's so important to not complicate a relationship with early sexual intimacy, thus triggering all those love hormones in what might be a very dodgy relationship). Or are you arguing that we should marry whoever we fall in love with, no matter what? "He's a pedophile but I can't help it, I love him, so I married him... yes, of course we're having children." ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
quote:
RuthW said:You're assuming that people already know this and are then having sex, but I think the more common scenario is that having sex happens before people have figured out that someone is this special and this important, and sex is one part of that process.
Yes, exactly - leading to a particular set of 'cart before the horse' problems. quote:
I really don't understand why sex gets such a privileged place in so many people's thinking. And I totally don't buy the idea that talking about sex is going to do the trick, especially if the people involved are sexually inexperienced. Is such a person really going to say, "Hey, I've got really messed-up notions of sex"? Could they even know such a thing?
It's surprising how quickly one can discern that the other person has a seriously messed-up notion of sex when one spends some serious time talking about sex before taking one's clothes off... The messed-up person may not know they're messed-up but it's likely the other one will.
As to why sex gets the privileged place is because of the way God gives it a place of privilege. He uses the image of marriage to describe His relationship with Israel and Jesus' relationship with the Church. Consider Isaiah 62:1-7, Zephaniah 3:14-20, Ezekiel 16, and moving further into the negative image Ezekiel 23, note particularly verse 17: The Babylonians came to her to the bed of love and defiled her with their harlotry. And when she had been defiled by them, she became disgusted with them. And Jeremiah 3:6 and Isaiah 50 start to cover the same ground, including divorce. We take it seriously because God takes it seriously, at least that's how I see it.
Timothy, it appears you're assuming that there is no intrinsic value to virginity (for men or women) - I think that's a big assumption. I've seen so much damage done to humans (and I start by looking in the mirror) in the name of 'free love.' I started from a belief of "if you love each other it's okay" and devolved down into the "if it feels good, do it" mentality of the 60s-70s and crawled back out the other side to recognize that my capacity for joy in lovemaking hadn't been increased by my sexual exploits but instead had been damaged. I've come to a place of 'traditional biblical sexual morality' because I'm personally convinced it's protective in a good (non-oppressive) way and that it increases the likelihood we humans will have a rich and satisfying sex life; I embrace it personally because I believe God asks me to. I agree, the Church has been really stupid about sex - but that's the church and not the Bible; the Bible celebrates married love, at least the Hebrew scriptures and those were extant for the early church. I think the big problem comes in as the Church tries to distance itself from her Jewish roots.
I don't think virginity has monetary value; I think it's much more profound that mere money. But sometimes putting a price on a thing helps humans to value what they might otherwise ignore. I'm not advocating any such thing in this day and age, merely pointing out that even then there might have been more going on than meets the eye.
amber, I can't tell if you're kidding about feeling judged in all this; I hope you don't. God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. He sent His only begotten Son that you (and me and all of us) might have eternal life, not that you'd be held to an even higher standard of conduct. If you have any sense of 'having sinned' in your choices, simply confess and ask His forgiveness. But most of all, He's your Daddy in the very best sense of the concept. Even when we disappoint our Daddy briefly, He doesn't bear a grudge, He still wants 'His little girl' to have a great life, you know?
Now I realize there are probably a slew of buttons pushed by that image but I figure we've all got to get over being so grown-up and self-sufficient. We aren't grown-up and self-sufficient, not to God, and I don't think we ever will be on this earth plane.
Gwai, yup-- ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Ah, thanks... but, (slight tangent) I would have guessed that we all have a duty as Christians to help each other to salvation and godliness? Perhaps that's why it's not occurred to me to mention it as a specific reason to marry? I was trying to work out what makes a marriage different from a close friendship, I guess.
We all have a duty to help each other, but the circumstances within marriage make the way we help one another to salvation and godliness much different from even a close friendship (unless your "close friendship" is indistinguishable from marriage). It is far more intimate and (if done right) produces a bond of love and self-sacrifice that few friendships achieve.
Of course a lot of problems come in in the "if done right" proviso -- particularly in cultures in which women are held in low esteem. But at any rate that is the Orthodox understanding, especially as expressed in the sermons on that topic by John Chrysostom.
(Warning across-the-bow shot to possible detractors of Chrysostom (not saying anybody on this thread) : yes I know he held anti-semitic beliefs. If you want to argue about that go start your own thread and I'll be happy to engage you there.)
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
quote:
So the effect of the law is that if a man gets a girl pregnant, and she is not legally of age, then they should get married (i.e. the man must support his children) but that the girls father can refuse consent to the marriage in which case the man must pay them money. No stoning required.
I take it at face value, no pregnancy is mentioned: she gets seduced, he marries her, pregnant or no, because the valuable commodity of her virginity has been taken away. That's why he pays the father money equal to the dowry for virgins, if the father refuses to allow them to wed. I suspect such a refusal rarely happened; I can only imagine it in the case of a man known to mistreat his wives, concubines, or animals.
Just wanting to reply to this point above--what's going on here IMHO is a protection of the woman, not so much her value as a commodity.
The problem with premarital sex in this society is that few or no other men will wish to marry her, if it becomes known; which means she is left without any permanent means of support in a culture where marriage was pretty much a woman's only career choice. By legally forcing her seducer to marry her, the law provided for her future and also discouraged jerks from treating seduction as a no-costs game. Marriage is a high price to pay for a quick fling.
As for the father's right of refusal--I suspect this provision is also a protection. It's easy to imagine a foolish young girl with some creep of a boyfriend (the kind of guy no parent in their right mind would want as a son-in-law--let's say an abuser, philanderer, or petty career criminal). El Creepo knows very well that Dad won't consent to the marriage, and so he decides to pressure his girlfriend into sex and then say, "See! Now you have to let us get married, the law says so!"
Under this provision, Dad has the right to forbid the marriage even after sex, thus continuing to protect his foolish daughter and the larger family. He also has the right to demand a bride price that can be used to support daughter and any child she may bear as a result of the Creepmeister's little ploy. So Dad keeps the upper hand, and jerkface loses the girl AND the money.
It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that this law made a number of jerks decide the game wasn't worth it, and go trolling elsewhere.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
amber, I can't tell if you're kidding about feeling judged in all this; I hope you don't. God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. He sent His only begotten Son that you (and me and all of us) might have eternal life, not that you'd be held to an even higher standard of conduct. If you have any sense of 'having sinned' in your choices, simply confess and ask His forgiveness. But most of all, He's your Daddy in the very best sense of the concept. Even when we disappoint our Daddy briefly, He doesn't bear a grudge, He still wants 'His little girl' to have a great life, you know?
Now I realize there are probably a slew of buttons pushed by that image but I figure we've all got to get over being so grown-up and self-sufficient. We aren't grown-up and self-sufficient, not to God, and I don't think we ever will be on this earth plane.
No, I'm not kidding, but neither am I sure that it feels like I'm being judged. Well, not any more than someone who (for example) can't walk would feel judged to be observing lots of people who can. This isn't quite the right way of looking at it, but it may help: It's more like turning up to a competition where walking is essential and realising that you don't have legs and can't do it. You can have all the people in the world saying to you "Well, you have to walk if you want to win the prize", and the best you can possibly do is say "Yes, I know, but I can't".
I think it's God setting the standard, not the people here. I just wonder how much patience he would have with someone who can't manage some of the real basics of His faith that well anyway (but that would be another thread on the core commandment of "love").
I have to acknowledge that my life is different. Sometimes it's a blessing, sometimes it's a burden.
Lynn, the way you've phrased it is of more help to me than anything very technical, and thank you very much for doing so. It's appreciated. I never mind people making things immensely simple for me if it's something spiritual/social. (If an eight year old would understand a theological point, I do, and yes, that's a difficult thing to imagine but that's what you get when the social/spiritual wiring in my particular brain isn't connected in to the higher functions, but other functions are).
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
I, for one, really appreciate your candor in speaking about how your particular condition impacted your decisions. I am convinced that every one of us has strengths and weaknesses; we can fall into thinking "there's nothing wrong with me!" or we can fall into thinking, "poor me, nobody understands, nobody has it as hard," and part of the value of online forums is the opportunity for glimpses into others' lives and the sense of balance it brings: the vast majority of us fall roughly in the middle, when it comes to our strengths and limitations.
And frankly, your reasons for the 'test drive' are infinitely more sound than my bad teenage choices and I applaud you. I hope I've made it clear that I've come to believe sex is best reserved for marriage not because I was raised to think that way or because I've done it 'right' but because I've made a slew of stupid and unnecessary mistakes and saving sex for marriage would have saved me from at least some of them.
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
Do you equate the way a person chews his/her food with the intimacy and vulnerability of intercourse?
Do many couples split up because of the way one of them chews their food? quote:
But as a person pleases us more and more and we allow love to blossom, it will take a larger problem to eliminate the person from consideration and, once we recognize that we love the person, it would take a very large problem.
But couples who have been going out for a long time do nonetheless split up.
[ 21. April 2008, 10:14: Message edited by: Ricardus ]
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
Timothy, it appears you're assuming that there is no intrinsic value to virginity (for men or women) - I think that's a big assumption. I've seen so much damage done to humans (and I start by looking in the mirror) in the name of 'free love.' I started from a belief of "if you love each other it's okay" and devolved down into the "if it feels good, do it" mentality of the 60s-70s and crawled back out the other side to recognize that my capacity for joy in lovemaking hadn't been increased by my sexual exploits but instead had been damaged. I've come to a place of 'traditional biblical sexual morality' because I'm personally convinced it's protective in a good (non-oppressive) way and that it increases the likelihood we humans will have a rich and satisfying sex life; I embrace it personally because I believe God asks me to. I agree, the Church has been really stupid about sex - but that's the church and not the Bible; the Bible celebrates married love, at least the Hebrew scriptures and those were extant for the early church. I think the big problem comes in as the Church tries to distance itself from her Jewish roots.
I don't think virginity has monetary value; I think it's much more profound that mere money. But sometimes putting a price on a thing helps humans to value what they might otherwise ignore. I'm not advocating any such thing in this day and age, merely pointing out that even then there might have been more going on than meets the eye.
I don't know that I'd call it an assumption (more the conclusion of a different line of reasoning)--but yes, I do believe that the value of virginity is socially ascribed rather than intrinsic (and the OT, at least, places no evident value on male virginity at all). That isn't to say that sex can't be problematic and harmful in the ways you describe--and our modern ambivalence about it may be just as harmful as older attitudes, with the pressure to be sexually "free" combined with prurient disdain for those "sluts" who are free in a too-public way (or, like Paris Hilton, have misfortune to be caught on video).
I don't agree that you can simply extract a behaviorally specific code of sexual conduct from the Bible that applies to a society in which women are equal to men. But then I believe that part of what Christ brought us is an ethics that is liberated from behaviorally-specific "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots." Those kinds of ethical models are like languages that consist of a finite number of words and sentences, which are learned by memorizing all the possible sentences--it could work well until you encounter something new. Of course, no human language is like that--any language includes an infinite number of sentences that are generated by a (relatively) few broadly applicable grammatical and semantic principles. Love provides such a generative grammar of ethics: the OT may provide an example of how it works in a society of nomadic pastoralists (though I think it also provides plenty of examples of the limitations of behaviorally-specific rule-based ethics, and I think Jesus pointed these out as well), but to conclude that we should behave as if we were nomadic shepherds misses the point. Because our circumstances are different, love may require different things from us (which is not at all the same as saying anything goes).
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
Likewise the first example (Exodus 22:16) shows us that fornication isn't permissible because the fornicators are expected to marry as a consequence of the seduction.
Being expected to marry? That's a funny definition of not permissible! It would only make sense if marriage was a punishment.
quote:
I think you're applying our sensibility to a very different world. If you recall, Tamar did have to go back and live in her father's household until Shelah was old enough for her to marry (from the Genesis paraphrase thread) and it wasn't until she realized Judah was never going to provide her with the husband (and therefore the son) she was owed that she dressed as a harlot by the side of the road. At that point women didn't have any options beyond marry and bear children (preferrably sons) or turn to harlotry. Even the 'excellent wife' of Proverbs 31 who runs her own business does it within the context of marriage. Rahab is identified as a harlot and Ruth remarkably aligns herself with her mother-in-law and a new, unseen people rather than returning to her father's household. So for my money, you can't really make all the women living in their father's households the equivalent of dependent minors.
Yes, but we live in our culture, not theirs. We do not regard virginity as property. We do not see the sexual choices of a sister or daughtger as brining shame on a man. We do not - and haven't for a thousand years at least - have a legally enforceable right for parents to choose the marriages of their children. We do not require adult women to live under the tutelage of a man (and we haven't for centuries - most unmarried English women in the middle ages and early modern period worked for money outside their parent's homes and were free to travel around as they wished. We have nothign resembling purdah, or the patriarchal extened family. These rules and laws, insofar as they could possibly be of use to us, have to be interpreted into our situation.
quote:
This isn't reality. I don't what what percentage of modern women bleed noticeably with the rupture of the hymen but it was a majority back then (some care was taken with daughters to make sure they weren't so rough-and-tumble as to endanger that valuable commodity).
How can we possibly know that? Much more likely that they faked it with sheep's blood if there was insufficient.
quote:
Now you can't tell me that in a culture where virginity is highly valued that older women in the community wouldn't be looking for signs...
Doesn't matter because its the man who has to complain in this law. And its after the marriage is consummated, so virginity is no longer an issue. Once through the wedding night she is probably safe unless some external evidence is supplied - an advanced pregnancy, or some informer.
quote:
and there is no example of happy polygyny provided in scripture.
Now there's a challenge! I can't think of one offhand.
quote:
quote:
But there is in the whole Bible not one specific law against unmarried women having sex with either unmarried men or married men...<snip>...If there was such a law in the Bible you'd think someone would have come up with a reference to it on the previous 15 pages of this thread - but no-one has.
Coming to this conclusion requires that you read the scriptures in question in a very particular light - and it's not the only available light.
No, it just requires that you read the scriptures. There simply isn't an explicit law about it. Maybe its in the long-lost Book of Cats.
[ 21. April 2008, 20:49: Message edited by: ken ]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
I've heard a case that when jesus said "God allowed you to divorce your wife because of your hard-headedness," he clearly didn't mention husbands because for a wife to divorce her husband would've been plainly unthinkable, due to the patriarchy inherent in that culture (and this was not unique to the ancient Hebrews).
Also, Jesus may have said "don't divorce" because to divorce a woman in that society would've been to leave her destitute, perhaps in part due to the social obsession with virginity (and this also, methinks, was and is not uniquely biblical or Judeo-Christian).
Now that we live in a society of comparative gender equality, I suppose the question is whether we ought to raise the bar on divorce, since both partners bear equal responsibility, or lower it because divorce generally (with exceptions, I'm sure) doesn't have the same drastic social repercussions (shaming, etc.) it once had for the female party.
This might also raise the question of whether Jesus' expectations were less or more stringent than those of the Pharisees.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
I've heard a case that when jesus said "God allowed you to divorce your wife because of your hard-headedness," he clearly didn't mention husbands because for a wife to divorce her husband would've been plainly unthinkable, due to the patriarchy inherent in that culture
Yes, that is exactly the case. The "certificate of divorcement" the get, is written permission from the man for the woman to remarry.
It is unknown the other way round.
quote:
This might also raise the question of whether Jesus' expectations were less or more stringent than those of the Pharisees.
More, if we can believe the New Testament
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
Do you equate the way a person chews his/her food with the intimacy and vulnerability of intercourse?
Do many couples split up because of the way one of them chews their food?
I don't know that couples split up on that basis but I do know that people don't go on second or third dates on that basis - which was my point. You were equating "any of the criteria on which we effectively judge our partners before marriage" and I think that's simply not true; criteria escalate. quote:
quote:
But as a person pleases us more and more and we allow love to blossom, it will take a larger problem to eliminate the person from consideration and, once we recognize that we love the person, it would take a very large problem.
But couples who have been going out for a long time do nonetheless split up.
And many marriages end in divorce-- your point is?
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I don't know that I'd call it an assumption (more the conclusion of a different line of reasoning)--but yes, I do believe that the value of virginity is socially ascribed rather than intrinsic (and the OT, at least, places no evident value on male virginity at all). That isn't to say that sex can't be problematic and harmful in the ways you describe--and our modern ambivalence about it may be just as harmful as older attitudes, with the pressure to be sexually "free" combined with prurient disdain for those "sluts" who are free in a too-public way (or, like Paris Hilton, have misfortune to be caught on video).
I find the Bible exists in tension: on one hand, I truly believe it's God communicating with humanity, across time - I also believe it's a snapshot of times and places, in many ways an historical document. The way I see it, the Torah does a disservice to men by assuming some of the values of the surrounding cultures when it comes to male sexuality (e.g., lack of emphasis on male purity). I do see an intrinsic value in virginity, both male and female, and I fear too many people (men especially) feel like I did: it was a burden and I wanted to get rid of it. But why did it feel like a burden if it wasn't something in and of itself? I don't expect anybody else to answer that question (or even to relate; I may be very odd) or to reason along the same lines I am; I'm just trying to explain how I get here from there, you know? quote:
I don't agree that you can simply extract a behaviorally specific code of sexual conduct from the Bible that applies to a society in which women are equal to men. But then I believe that part of what Christ brought us is an ethics that is liberated from behaviorally-specific "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots." Those kinds of ethical models are like languages that consist of a finite number of words and sentences, which are learned by memorizing all the possible sentences--it could work well until you encounter something new. Of course, no human language is like that--any language includes an infinite number of sentences that are generated by a (relatively) few broadly applicable grammatical and semantic principles. Love provides such a generative grammar of ethics: the OT may provide an example of how it works in a society of nomadic pastoralists (though I think it also provides plenty of examples of the limitations of behaviorally-specific rule-based ethics, and I think Jesus pointed these out as well), but to conclude that we should behave as if we were nomadic shepherds misses the point. Because our circumstances are different, love may require different things from us (which is not at all the same as saying anything goes).
Perhaps "behaviorally specific" isn't the right way to label it but I do think we can extrapolate sound guidelines. I certainly agree that Jesus tried to tune us in to something bigger or higher than simple "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not" - yet it is human nature to try and boil everything down to what is and isn't permitted, just where do I cross the line? How far is 'too far'? And because we're fallen and limited, because we're not highly instinctual and we're not born knowing everything, there are certain arenas in which we really do need some help, to know something is valuable or precious and needs to be treated with care. It's kind of like giving a 3-year old a collectible item (a porcelain baby doll or other amazing china doll or a valuable baseball card or a copy of Superman #1... ) - the child will damage it (if not destroy it) simply because the child isn't yet old enough to know how to treat it appropriately - so it's ultimately the parent (or aunt or grandpa or whoever) who should know better than to give a 3-year old something so far beyond their capacity to handle. While I don't think a strict set of rules is the most mature way to handle it I do think there's a time and place for rules, even within the context of gracious Christianity. Parents tell children "don't play with matches!" but one day that child will be mature enough to start the campfire or light the fire in the lounge, etc. It's simply our attempt to protect them in their ignorance, to allow them to safely grow old enough to apply wisdom. I think a lot of the Torah laws are like that and Jesus invites us into wisdom (let he who has ears to hear, hear--) so I think there's still a valuable place for both.
Speaking of love requiring different things from us, take amber's situation - it really does sound to me like a place where she and her fiance took the marriage covenant so seriously that, knowing their particular limitations, they lived together and slept together in order to know they could make the covenant; amber said she would have 'got herself to a nunnery' (so to speak) if it hadn't worked out. I can see the love in all that, I can see the 'preferring one another' in it and I'm not certain there was any sin in it at all (and happily I am not the arbiter of sin, a point of great relief!).
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
Likewise the first example (Exodus 22:16) shows us that fornication isn't permissible because the fornicators are expected to marry as a consequence of the seduction.
Being expected to marry? That's a funny definition of not permissible! It would only make sense if marriage was a punishment.
If you're only interested in fornication (and not marriage), then yes, the marriage is a punishment! Consider the bottom line: if you have sex, you get married. Isn't that a close equivalent of 'sex should only happen within marriage'?
quote:
quote:
I think you're applying our sensibility to a very different world.
Yes, but we live in our culture, not theirs. We do not regard virginity as property.
Exactly. You can't take the laws as given within their culture and say, "this applies to minors living in their parents' home" because people lived in family settings until they married, however old they were. You're making my point. quote:
We do not see the sexual choices of a sister or daughter as bringing shame on a man.
Not generally in Western Christianity but as Islam moves farther into the west you'll see more of it, again-- quote:
We do not - and haven't for a thousand years at least - have a legally enforceable right for parents to choose the marriages of their children. We do not require adult women to live under the tutelage of a man (and we haven't for centuries - most unmarried English women in the middle ages and early modern period worked for money outside their parent's homes and were free to travel around as they wished.
Really? Can you give me some citations on that? In the middle ages and since... that's a very different view than the one presented by feminists.
But we're going far astray. The question was: what basis (if any) is there in scripture to argue for saving sex for marriage. I gave three scriptures which make the argument in different ways and you said they didn't apply for various reasons. I addressed your reasons and we're now discussing my response to them. But the point is looking at scripture and the way it addresses premarital and extramarital sex. No question, adultery is right out (stoning; we all agree, the Bible says adultery is No Good), we'll avoid the Dead Horses, and that brings us to the ill-defined 'fornication'.
Consider Numbers 25 - what exactly is going on there? Israelite men are having sex with Moabite women and it's viewed as having a 'worship' component to it. How come? Maybe I should put it the other way: can you find me an example of sex outside marriage which is okay? I never have. You can look at Isaac and Rebekah and see their 'marriage' happened when Isaac took her into his mother's tent and made love to her. The thing I keep getting from scripture is the connection of sex and marriage. I find plenty of stories about concubines but none of them are stories of blessing, of approval. So I think you're missing my point when you argue: quote:
We have nothing resembling purdah, or the patriarchal extended family. These rules and laws, insofar as they could possibly be of use to us, have to be interpreted into our situation.
I do think it's interesting that modern Islam equates a woman concealing her face with feminine modesty whereas the Judah/Tamar story equates it with harlotry-- quote:
quote:
This isn't reality. I don't what what percentage of modern women bleed noticeably with the rupture of the hymen but it was a majority back then (some care was taken with daughters to make sure they weren't so rough-and-tumble as to endanger that valuable commodity).
How can we possibly know that? Much more likely that they faked it with sheep's blood if there was insufficient.
Well that certainly happened in Italy in the middle ages but in order to have the need to fake a situation, you need to have the original situation. You don't counterfeit that which doesn't commonly exist. quote:
its after the marriage is consummated, so virginity is no longer an issue. Once through the wedding night she is probably safe unless some external evidence is supplied - an advanced pregnancy, or some informer.
I've assumed this law could be called into place at some distance from the wedding night, but maybe not - in re-reading it does sound more immediate. But gossip can happen at the wedding (they took days, after all), a snide aunt or jealous party could wreak havoc, so even within that context it could be a problem. quote:
quote:
and there is no example of happy polygyny provided in scripture.
Now there's a challenge! I can't think of one offhand.
Let me know if you do, okay? Seriously. quote:
But there is in the whole Bible not one specific law against unmarried women having sex with either unmarried men or married men
Yes, you're right, I'm reading for implied meaning, that which I think can be reasonably extrapolated, and you're speaking about specific laws. But I don't think you have to go to the long-lost Book of Cats ( ) to find a strong implication that sex is to be reserved for marriage.
Bullfrog, FWIW 'no fault' divorce certainly increases the number of divorces.
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally Posted by LynnMagdalenCollege:
Not generally in Western Christianity but as Islam moves farther into the west you'll see more of it, again--
Would such a change be an improvement?
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Regarding how long after the wedding this might pop up--the law about presenting the tokens of virginity might be there because at any time, an angry husband might make public accusations along the lines of "Hey, I've covered up for you all these years, but you were a slut when I married you, and it's time the world knew the truth." After all, he's the only one who would know for certain the accusation was false, without the bloody sheet or whatever. Barring the woman herself, that is.
We all know how difficult it is to "undo" those kinds of nasty public accusations--the damage lasts forever, even if the husband retracts his story. The woman (who is probably divorced or on the point of divorce by this point, anyway) has lost her reputation and may not be able to remarry. Her children may lose inheritance rights if the accusation is believed.
It would make sense for her relatives to "keep the sheets" in case of a nasty marital fight. And it makes sense for God to forbid the husband to divorce his innocent wife, since he cannot undo the damage he has done her.
(This is hitting uncomfortably close to home for me, since a virgin, later chaste wife, among my own relatives faced very similar shit from her husband when he went totally off the rails. He apologized later. But the result of his angry outburst, well....)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
quote:
Originally Posted by LynnMagdalenCollege:
Not generally in Western Christianity but as Islam moves farther into the west you'll see more of it, again--
Would such a change be an improvement?
Not in my opinion. I think it's possible for humans to value virginity and believe sexual activity is best preserved for marriage without falling into extreme or separatist views of the sexes; Jesus modeled this beautifully, treating women like ( ) humans. I know; shocking.
ETA: Good point, Lamb Chopped
[ 22. April 2008, 01:40: Message edited by: Lynn MagdalenCollege ]
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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HenryT
Canadian Anglican
# 3722
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
I knew that if I'd have waited until the honeymoon to try, I couldn't have got married because it would have pushed my coping skills for the wedding day beyond all possible boundaries...
I wonder how many of the couples who are virgins when they marry actually get "round to it" on the wedding night. I know that we were both far too tired - but neither of us was a virgin. We put on our own wedding, without parental participation, including most of the cooking.
There's a fair bit of evidence that in many cultures that practiced betrothal, it was viewed as de facto license for a "try-out", and that in those cultures, most brides were already pregnant. In peasant cultures, an infertile couple was a disaster.
Finally, I don't think there's more than a moral quibble, much less a mortal sin involved when an engaged couple "jumps the gun".
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"Perhaps an invincible attachment to the dearest rights of man may, in these refined, enlightened days, be deemed old-fashioned" P. Henry, 1788
Posts: 7231 | From: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada | Registered: Dec 2002
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Do many couples split up because of the way one of them chews their food?
I don't know that couples split up on that basis but I do know that people don't go on second or third dates on that basis - which was my point. You were equating "any of the criteria on which we effectively judge our partners before marriage" and I think that's simply not true; criteria escalate.
I meant that there is no moral difference - rejecting a partner on the grounds of eating disgustingly is no more moral than rejecting a partner for sexual incompatibility. In fact I should have thought the former would be more immoral (or at least finicky), since if someone dribbles down their chin you can just look away, whereas sex is a bit more noticeable. quote:
quote:
But couples who have been going out for a long time do nonetheless split up.
And many marriages end in divorce-- your point is?
As far as I can see, you and Eliab are arguing that, if a couple are truly in love, then any sexual compatibility shouldn't matter, because their love will be strong enough to overcome it. My point is that a couple can be in love and still find some insurmountable incompatibility - hence the break-up of long-term relationships. (And indeed divorce, though I see divorce as a different issue.)
(Note though that I am thinking of couples who split up by mutual consent, rather than break-ups where one partner runs off with someone else.)
[ 22. April 2008, 08:00: Message edited by: Ricardus ]
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I meant that there is no moral difference - rejecting a partner on the grounds of eating disgustingly is no more moral than rejecting a partner for sexual incompatibility. In fact I should have thought the former would be more immoral (or at least finicky), since if someone dribbles down their chin you can just look away, whereas sex is a bit more noticeable.
I think it works on a deeper level than that, though. Subconsciously, perhaps we are still evaluating the physical fitness and co-ordination of our partners as if we are still hunter-gatherers. Are we relying on them to be co-ordinated enough to defend us/bring home a buffalo for tea/wrestle small defiant children with accuracy and protect them from danger. If someone is not able to tell if they're dribbling or not, or co-ordinate themselves not to, I think it does have a potential reproductive 'consequence' in many people's minds?
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
quote:
quote:
and there is no example of happy polygyny provided in scripture.
Now there's a challenge! I can't think of one offhand.
Let me know if you do, okay? Seriously.
Lynn, this harks back to a Kerg thread you might remember from a couple of years ago (now in Limbo ![[Cool]](cool.gif) ) about the Biblical model of marriage. I championed David as a poster-boy for polygyny there, IIRC, but with the caveat that finding a perfect example of any model of marriage is doomed to failure, as the Bible is a book full of flawed people, and the only exception didn't marry at all.
I don't really want to start up again where we left off (and I don't think we'd be any nearer to agreement), just observing that this slight tangent isn't going to have an easy answer, and we've already been round the houses on it. I might go and re-read that thread, though...
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
We are, after all, talking about life-long love and commitment here. The person is, one would hope, someone you find so special and so important to you that you want to be with them for the whole of your life.
You're assuming that people already know this and are then having sex, but I think the more common scenario is that having sex happens before people have figured out that someone is this special and this important, and sex is one part of that process.
Fair point. I'm making the assumption because the point I'm arguing against is that a couple who would otherwise wish to reserve sex until after making a formal commitment intended to be permanent, would be prudent to test the water first.
It's an entirely different argument in other (more common) cases. My view on that is that as a matter of my own experience I would strongly recommend virginity before marriage, but I think the moral issue depends on whether one considers it a command of God.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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