Christian Marriage is feminism (part two)

While the Song of Solomon gets a lot of play in discussions about Christian sexuality, I am not going to explore its depths in this essay partly because even in secular marriageland the honeymoon is supposed to rock out and to some extent that text goes beyond the scope of this discussion topic.

I will however happily discuss sexuality in a Christian marriage from the New Testament’s perspective. In a handful of verses, the New Testament expertly describes a view of sexuality within a Christian marriage that is extraordinary in its mutuality. Paul makes a point in 1 Corinthians 7:3-4 to state that mutuality is a requirement of a Christian marriage. The wife and the husband are equal sexual partners, with each belonging to the other. This is a complete departure from the false idea that Christian marriage is only about the man’s sexual needs being met at any time. Sexual gatekeeping by either the husband or the wife is forbidden in verse five of the same chapter.

The operating premise here is that women, too, have sexual desires that are equal to a man’s potentially, so wives should be denied no more than husbands should be. The ideal Christian marriage is one in which both spouses are satisfied, not just the husband. The Puritans, among evangelicals of the ages dealt with this in a slightly legalistic fashion by penalising husbands who did not sexually satisfy their wives. They wanted to be sure this equality of sexual satisfaction was met as best as a couple could manage.

Christianity does not really get into the minutiae of what sex acts are appropriate for marriage. Anyone claiming that only missionary-position sex is ‘allowed’ is adding to the Bible, which does not get into such details. The biggest thing here, though, is that nowhere is sex held to be unpleasurable. The Bible expects sex within a Christian marriage to be joyful and pleasurable for both the man and the woman. The wife is to have full access to her husband’s body sexually and vice versa. Again, the Bible itself speaks against the myth that ‘Christian sex’ is only for procreation and the myth that ‘the Bible says sex is bad’.

What the Bible says is that women have sexual desire too, and that they should enjoy sex within their marriage as much as their husbands do. Again, a completely feminist notion.

As in the Old Testament, the New Testament speaks out against women being pressured to gussy up solely to draw male attention. 1 Peter 3:3-4 speaks against the glitterati of the time in encouraging women to appreciate and focus on improving their inner beauty rather than obsessing about how hot they look in a bikini (in Biblical terms). That is another remarkable thing about Christian marriage– women’s greatest assets are their love of God and their personalities. A beautiful Christian wife is never beautiful because she may happen to have physical attractiveness– she is beautiful because she loves God and lives the Word every day. She is beautiful because she works hard and enjoys life to the fullest. She is beautiful because she cares for her children (if she happens to bear any). Once again, the New Testament is also shown to emphasize that all women do have beauty and don’t have to chase it via extravagant showiness. It’s a lighter load to be beautiful to one guy than to vainly attempt to be beautiful to *any* guy. And a husband is expected in a Christian marriage to love his wife as she is and lives, not for looks that fade. He is not allowed to force her to chase youth or make her sleep with him when she is unwell. These things are not part of a Christian marriage. Colossians 3:19 states that a husband ought not to even speak harshly to his wife, much less be physically violent with her. One can’t get more feminist than insisting men not be violent to women and in fact requiring it as part of marriage.

Speaking of the husband’s role, I will now tackle some non-sexual aspects of Christian marriage that are routinely used to explain how Christian marriage is anti-feminist and anti-woman.