so I will create this as a separate post, which will allow you to comment on the poll. Here is the comment thread up to this point;
The Fredericksons commented thusly-
I was greatly intrigued by your poll. However, I found it very hard to vote. Why did you not specify who was hurt? Me or the groom? It matters significantly. This is quite the loaded scenario. I will be closely following to see how the BFZ followers vote.
Steve commented thusly-
If I understand this hypothetical correctly, several of your readers would abandon a beloved fiancée if a tragic accident rendered conventional sex impossible. This is a repulsive moral choice.
To which I replied thusly-
Explain yourself, Steve Maxon. As anyone who knows me well can attest, your opinion carries much weight with me and I will listen with receptive ears.
I do have to point out though that nothing was ever mentioned about abandoning anyone. Not going through with a marriage is not entirely the same thing as abandonment, especially in light of this scenario. What is a marriage without sex? (Please note-In the scenario I make no distinction between conventional intercourse or otherwise.) Visualize marriage without sex- Two close roommates with pooled resources. That is not the fullness of what that experience ought to be, and if no vows have been made I think I would make as gracious an exit as possible. After one has promised before God and witnesses "until death do us part," than you better man up and be the best darn spouse you can be for the duration. Doing so as enxpression of love to your spouse as well as to God, but no such vows or obligation fetters the decision of a single person. You should experience the fullness of what marriage can be. You should not march like a martyr into a life of unrequited passion and dutiful cohabitation.
I think the decision not to marry would be gut-wrenching and difficult, but ultimately morally defendible.
So there, now you're up to speed. Comment away my fellow citizens of the BFZ. Or don't. Whatever.
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51 comments:
What does this hypothetical ask, really? I think it questions two basic assumptions -- (1) whether sex is so key to marriage that its absence trumps whatever remains, and (2) the basis and nature of devotion.
Engagement is not to be undertaken lightly. Although marriage vows solemnize the promise to serve and honor another for as long as you live, the substance of that commitment does not leap into existence with the words "I will." It is, after all, what we mean, to varying degrees, when we say "I love you" -- that we flawed, selfish, divided human beings can willfully place another's needs and desires above our own. The engagement period broadens and deepens that commitment, but in a Christian and American context, it exists before the question is popped.
And this hypothetical begins there -- on the eve of marriage to one who you really and truly love, and thus are already devoted to! To say that you would break that engagement simply because that person becomes incapable of servicing you sexually is probably a failure of imagination: you cannot understand what the situation would truly be like. It's difficult to truly know how you'll respond to adversity. People often say they "can't live without" their phone, or their youth, or their cat, or their legs, or their ability to move. Yet many find such lives uniquely and surprisingly fulfilling.
But on the other hand, you could be Ayn Rand (I hope not), and this could be a failure of devotion (agape is either meaningless to you or inseparable from eros). To say that a marriage without sex is simply "two close roommates with pooled resources" exaggerates the importance of sex (hardly necessary in our culture) and minimizes the breadth and depth of the non-sexual component to love. "Unrequited passion"? "Dutiful cohabitation"? I choose to believe these descriptions are oversimplified rhetoric, because they border the line of thrall to the flesh.
I agree with you that an unmarried person is never OBLIGATED to wed. But love is never truly expressed -- can never be truly expressed!! -- out of obligation. If the vows you say are the only thing that keep you by the side of the person you purport to love in the face of a tragic accident, then you are not really in love. You are in a simple contract. And you owe it to your "beloved" to be clear before that contract begins: without your genitals, I would find our life together to be dutiful and unrequited. Lose them at your peril.
Oh c'mon, Steve. I hustled down here to read your response, but I haven't time to craft a worthy response. I will have to fire off my broadside tomorrow.
Steve, you took the question to mean/imply that your fiancee is the injured one. What if YOU were the injured one? Would you still expect your fiancee to marry you? Or would you gracefully bow out? Who the injured party is greatly influences ones response. This hypothetical scenario occurs before the wedding vows. If the injury occurs after the wedding, again, I believe it would greatly alter how the inured person, and also the spouse, would respond. Josh definitely left a lot up in the air. It's rather frustrating, but I believe that was his point. He likes his readers to be riled up. He's a sick man.
Well, the third option in the poll covers that, doesn't it? Suffice to say that I hope never to be engaged to a woman who agrees with Josh.
Alright Steve, I see where you're coming from, and I agree to a point. There is no doubt that the decision would be less than selfless, but your assertions are built upon a faulty premise. You divided your objection into two parts;
"1) whether sex is so key to marriage that its absence trumps whatever remains, and (2) the basis and nature of devotion."
Both questions are most appropriately entertained within marriage and not the period before. You make the claim that marriage vows simply solemnize something that already exists and I disagree. The wedding is the rubicon moment when you pledge yourself to that other person for the rest of your earthly sojourn, and you make too little of that by saying that such a state actually exists before the "I do's." You blur a border that God and our society makes sharp. The problems with this erroneous notion are myriad, and it simply is not true. Your basis for making such an assertion is the flimsiest of foundations, and by that I mean "love." Love, whetever that means in our society today, is simply not a worthy anchor point to the commitment that is required to see a marriage through. Neither is sex.
It is ultimately not about the inability of my beloved to "service" (your word not mine) me that would keep me from going through with the marriage, but rather the desire to experience marriage in its fullness. There are other things that would also keep me from marrying a person to whom I was betrothed. For example- if she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole I would not marry her. Not even if we were allowed conjugal visits! Not even if she was able to "service" (your word not mine) me. We would both have the knowledge of each others love, but not the experience of it. Again, it would be enormously difficult and emotional, but if I am not married I have decisions to make, and I would choose marriage in its fullness. Certainly tragic, but not wrong. It would be the right call.
If I am guilty of making sex too important to a marriage than you are guilty of holding it as something cheap. You've described my position as morally repulsive, which would be true if I were talking about a married person, but I am not so it is not. It is simply difficult.
Josh, I defined love not as something flimsy or unworthy of reliance, but as a commitment to willfully place another's needs above our own. That's a Biblical definition ("Greater love hath no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends") and it doesn't start with marriage. The OBLIGATION starts then. But what is obligation to love??
When you say that you and your theoretical spouse "would both have the knowledge of each other's love, but not the experience of it," I don't even know how to respond. Do you really believe that? That there can be no "full" expression of love without a particular form of sexual congress? Sex is important, it is divine, it is blessed -- but God help us if we elevate it to idol.
The comment about not experiencing love was on the heels of the prison scenario. Attach it to that not the forced celibacy scenario.
For a Christian, love (which I must concede with apologies you did take care to define correctly)governs all of our relationships- not just romantic attachment or marriage. You apply it here incorrectly (too narrowly) by saying that love must necessarily mean that you will make vows to someone despite a significant injury which has substantially altered the dynamic of your relationship. Would you still marry someone who was on indefinite life support? Life in prison? Adulterous? A foreign spy? You may love that person, but marriage does not make sense under these circumstances. Saying no to marriage does not necessarily mean a lack of love for that person. You can back out of a wedding in love, but not a marriage. Again you confuse the two.
I hope not to confuse the two. I agree that you can back out of a wedding in love, but I find that your other examples address very different issues -- hidden character flaws or a total loss of consciousness.
If nothing has changed except the condition of your partner's genitalia, I stand by my earlier analysis. I would add, though, that American common law might well favor you; impotence has historically been a valid ground for divorce.
I stand with Steve.
If the poll were reworked slightly and this "accident" occurred right after the vows were taken, before consummation...would you seek an annulment?
Of course not.
I would never propose to someone I couldn't imagine living without. I can, however, imagine living without sex. I've done that for 30 years...i'm the Cal Ripken of virginity.
I guess the crux of the question is would you ever propose to someone if you knew you could never consummate the marriage?
It wouldn't be ideal, but I can imagine it. And again, to reinforce, I would never propose to someone unless life without them would seem diminished to me.
Some of you folk who tripped through your love wires in your early, horny twenties may not be able to empathize...but we old salts who survived the internet age and came through still single and a virgin might possess an entirely different vantage point.
Well, it really is kind of a silly debate centered around an unlikely scenario, but it touches on some serious things which are worthy of some thought investment. I don't think there is much profit in repeating myself though so I'll just say that I disagree with you also, Job. In the same breath I have to say that I respect your position and I recognize it as a principled one. You're correct that your perspective as a thirty-something virgin is unique in today's America, but I question how much that might lend itself to helpful insight. Perhaps you should to bow in deference to me, your sexed-up elder. It is I who can speak with authority on such things.
To answer your specific question about whether or not I would seek an anullment in the extremely unlikely scenario that such an accident occured between the wedding vows and consummation I feel that I have already answered that by saying that the rubicon moment is when you make the vows. Whatever happens after you say "I do" you are in it to win it. I, personally, would even extend that to infidelity. I think the argument can be made from scripture that infidelity is a just grounds for divorce, and I would not judge a fellow believer who decided to pursue divorce in the wake of adultery, but I personally would not. Christ has stayed married to me, as it were, despite my repeated infidelities. So, like Hosea, I would choose to stay with my "Gomer" if Sarah ever cheated on me (I think, again, a highly unlikely scenario. Sarah is an awesome wife!)
I do think your comments about not proposing to someone unless you can't imagine living without them or if life would somehow seem "diminished" without them are worthy of some critical evaluation. It may not necessarily be so, but there may be some unhealthiness attached to those sentiments. That seems to me to be kind of a shaky posture toward engagement/marriage.
On the contrary, Josh, your status as a happily married man renders you particularly UNFIT to assess this question, because you have knowledge (namely, a "full" marriage) that affects your objectivity. You are the man with a full belly, rubbing his beard and idly speculating about whether stealing food can ever be morally right. Job and I could actually face this; you are but an ivory-towered sage, a cloistered monk counting angels on a pinhead.
See, to you, saying no to the wedding means potentially saying yes to your current life down the road -- while saying yes to the wedding guarantees that you cannot have what you now possess. All your analysis simply boils down to your satisfaction with life the way it is, and your willful inability to imagine it otherwise. Your judgment is flawed, by your children no less.
The only part I agree with, Steve, is your description of me as a "sage." Just kidding, of course. In fact, I was just ribbing Job when I commented on his perspective as a 30-something virgin. I didn't truly mean to suggest that my perspective was superior, just that I am far wiser (again, just kidding!). I hate it when debating that some say that my opinion is disqualified because I've never experienced what they have in life. That's not fighting fair. But I am no cloistered monk either. I have been where you are. I have known what it is to be single. Have you known what it is to be married? I say that not to disqualify your perspective, but to force you to at least concede that my perspective has added merit, because marriage is not theory but practice for me. I am not UNFIT to judge the question, but neither are you. Not helpful. Poor form.
Don't take offense. It is always harder to give up something good we have than something good we MIGHT have. I wouldn't give up being tall, for instance. And neither of us would be willing to stop being almost impossibly awesome. People who aren't married, or tall, or awesome, are better at imagining what it's like not to be those things. Because they aren't those things.
Because you have a "full" marriage, you can't easily set aside all those experiences and return to the decision point posited in the theoretical. Job and I live there. The fact that "marriage is not theory but practice" for you is actually a further argument against your judgment. This is not a slight on you, but only a recognition of your [admittedly awesome] humanity.
I still cry foul. It's not helpful to call into question my objectivity or judgment. Such a charge could be crafted just as easily against you. Judge me on the substance of what I say, and I will extend you the same courtesy. Ultimately, your opinions about my supposed prejudices herein are the stuff of purest conjecture. You're guessing. You don't know that to be true of me. If this were a more serious debate (which it clearly is not) I would speculate that you had lost the argument in substance and were simply trying to do damage to my standing (which I don't think you're doing). Not fair. Poor form.
Josh, maybe your view on this hypothetical would be fleshed out better by approaching the notion in degrees. If, provided the fiance in question were the female, she endured a double mastectomy would you still go through with the wedding? I'll let you Mrs. Potatohead up some variations of your own, but my point is that while of course it's ideal and desirable to marry, have sex and procreate - when you get as long in the tooth as Steve and myself and when you have endured all the myriad more romantic misadventures a decade of wandering can provide such as ourselves...your priorities alter dramatically.
If I loved a woman enough at 30 to ask for her hand in marriage and afterwards she lost both of her breasts, I promise you I would still go through with it. The same would be true for any other accident or disease that might prevent us from having anything less than a full sex life up to and including no sex life at all.
As I like to often say to young men we both know: "My brothers can give you advice on girl. I can give you advice on girls." As a result, frankly, our view may not be better but it is different and might just be a bit more comprehensive.
I will let you continue in your folly, Job and Steve. Yours is absolutely not the more comprehensive view however. That I will protest.
I must concede, however, that a majority of the poll's respondents seethings your way. Humph!
Justin and I are with you, Josh. If that makes you feel any better. We voted for option #2, haha.
Losing your breasts is nowhere near the same thing as being incapable of having sex. Sometimes degrees make all the difference.
I stand with number two. A marriage without sex is not a marriage. What would be the point in marrying? It would not stop me from burning with lust, nope, it would just put me in an impossible situation of never being able to consummate a commitment I made.
It would be a tragedy, but to marry someone with no ability to consummate would just be compounding the tragedy. I actually think that it would be worng to marry in the circumstance.
And I would never make a man suffer through a sexless marriage.
The loss of the marriage could not mean the loss of a meaningful relationship, if the love is present.
There is a reason why we are meant to remain virgins until we marry. Sex is vital in a marriage.
This is a fascinating debate and one that is equally fun to follow. I will give my opinion not to persuade either side (that is not likely to happen) but to put out my belief from someone who has been married for 5 wonderful years.
Marriage is an extreemly difficult commitment. While I would never change the course of my decisions and am maddly in love with my wife it is still stressful to say the least. There are so many factors that make marriage in this country difficult money, parenting, sefishness, that to go into a marriage with the knowledge that you will never have the full experience of intamacy with your spouse I think would be a disservice to that person. I can understand the argument of still marrying without the possibiliity of sex, yet believe it to be unwise and unhealthy choice.
Sarah, with all due respect, that's absolutely ridiculous. A marriage without sex is certainly a marriage, even if not as complete or fulfilled as it otherwise could be. "What would be the point in marrying?" There are many reasons! To live with the person you love more than anyone else for the rest of your life? To have a partner with whom to share the joys and sorrows of living? To have a witness to your existence? To have a fellow worker in Christ with whom to share life's loads? Don't be so myopic as to think that your reason for marriage is the only one that makes any sense. Sheesh! If you're do something out of love, you're not "compounding a tragedy." Please!
You CA Tates are creeping me out -- you're clearly enjoying the marriage bed so much that you think no one could possibly have a married relationship that is IN ANY WAY fulfilling without the physical joys you so obviously cherish. But people suffer physical limitations all the time and have to deal with the consequences. It doesn't make them less of a person, or less of a partner. But hey, glad things have worked out the way they have. Be warmed and (ful)filled!
Dylan does make a wise point -- marrying in this situation would certainly put the unhindered partner in the way of great temptation, and it could be unwise. I would only add that people are different, and perhaps not all sex drives are created to be as fiery and insatiable as some of yours. I knew a guy in college who referred to himself as asexual. It may even be possible to learn to "control your vessel" and submit a strong passion to a love more focused on other things. Job and I, speaking from the perspective of people who are currently denying ourselves, have a little experience in that area.
I'm not suggesting the following is true of anyone involved in this debate but we all know and can remember people from college whom we suspect married quickly because they were, in part, just horny. Please remember the premise of the debate: this unfortunate acident occurred after the engagement was made. It's not suggesting I wouldn't have been sexually attracted to her initially but the broader point Steve and I make is that we're older now and while no one would mistake me for being wise I am wiser in spite of myself...and I can see me still "loving the bride of my youth" even if it meant not being to have sex with her.
Joseph the Father of Jesus would agree with us as well. While he was engaged to a girl she fell under circumstances that denied him consummation - at least for a time. He may not have had the same Hallmark card sentiment Steve and I profess but he did rally anyway.
Lisa McNerney is not the Madonna but life without her now is increasingly difficult to conjur up. If I were denied full relations with her it's not hard for me to imagine still packing her and our stuff on a donkey and being counted as a family in the census.
Remember, Job, that Joseph's intention was to "put her away quietly" before God intervened issuing a directive to the contrary. Joseph's conduct would have been honorable and wise had Mary not been carrying the messiah conceived of the Lord. Not exactly a fitting parallel from scripture.
As for the Western Tates creeping out one Steve Maxon I have nothing but a chuckle and a snort in response.
You both seem hell bent on painting me as a "horny," sex-crazed person for taking this stand, and, without apology I do enjoy sex, but your characterization of me is not fair. Your language seems designed to inflame the jury. Sarah was not at all saying (as I underdstand it) that an existing marriage without sex would cease to be a real marriage, but she was commenting strictly on the scenario. Why would you choose such a marriage? I know...I know...you have an answer to that question, Steve and Job, but it strikes me as a from-the-gut emotional response and not at all rational. Your love for a person need not necessarily evolve into marriage vows, and there are a number of reasons that would cause me to back out of a wedding even though my love for that person may remain intact. In saying that I am aware that I open myself up to a charge of loving myself too much perhaps, but that is not entirely fair. Marriage is a tough business, and I would do my best to find an equal partner. A mismatch would take a thing, which is difficult under the best of circumstances, and make it extremely so. Yours would be a serious step taken lightly, and I believe misguided.
"hell-bent"? We're just talking here brother. I don't think I'm saying anything inflammatory.
our views are just different. I have a decade of virginity and zero children on you. Our cakes are baked differently...im not looking to score points with you or anyone else or to portray myself as more sensitive or sentimental than I actually am. I'm just saying that sex and children are less important to me than they were ten or even five years ago. It may be naive of me but I say honestly I could imagine myself stil marrying someone considering your scenario. In turn, you can't possibly conceive the differences that evolve in someone like Steve or myself over time.
we're just different now. Maybe it'd be more believable if I were saying this as a 60 or 70 year old. And while 30 isn't that old it is closer to it than 22.
I'm a red-blooded American male and I hope to have many children, but I just answered you honestly. I never maligned your judgement or intelligence, I simply stated the fact that you see the complexities of love and sex different than someone like myself would or could.
And Joseph applies. Not exactly but it applies....
Very handy, Job. It's not like I was never a single adult. Just because I have spread my seed, as it were, does not disqualify my opinion about someone in your position. I have been there. You're situation is not one I have never experienced. I am capable of empathy and I can reason in a fair minded manner. You and Steve would have me cede the field because I married at 23 rather than in my thirties. You honestly think you are looking at this scenario from such a dramatically different angle that I can't even possibly see things from your perspective? Your wrong. This is the strongest rationale you can conjur up? You're not fighting fair. ...and you're absolutely wrong about Joseph. That's not a good comparison. He eventually enjoy relations with his wife.(Unless you you believe as the Catholics do.)
(Steve, why do you always feel comfortable being rude to me? I want to weigh in, but I don't have the energy to get fired up about it. It hurts my feelings, and I hope that you're not going for that.)
First of all, this argument of inexperience lending credence to the stance of the opposite view is faulty. Inexperience does not an expert make.
It's true that before I had sex, I had no idea what it really felt like or meant...but once Josh and I were engaged, the waiting and not consummating was so painful that we both agree that we should not have had such a long engagement.
I can't imagine how it would be to have that desire be there but unactable for fifty years. I think most certainly it would lead to sin...which not one of us are so un-"fiery" to avoid.
Not only that, but at some point in your sexless marriage, you would get to a point of receiving sexual comfort from your spouse that your spouse would not be able to partake in. The selfishness of such a union is really unbearable, and wrong.
Which is why we are exhorted to "only abstain for a short time, and then come back together."
The most powerful argument, I think, is not mine, but Paul's..."I think that it is better not to marry..."
Remember this?
In light of this, all of your devotion to your loved one does not diminish, but changes, by necessity, into love for a friend. A friend that you could live with, if you desired, that you could share the joys and sorrows of living with, that would be your fellow worker in Christ, as all your brother and sisters are...but a friend that you would not have sex with.
And that is why it is not a marriage.
This fascinates me:
You would choose to be single (with no sex) over marrying the one you love (with no sex).
You would choose to marry someone else (with sex) over marrying one you love[d] (with no sex).
This suggests that it's not being single or married that matters, or even the identity of the other person who plays the most important role in your life. No, your choice is based, not entirely but primarily, on what you value most. Sex.
How very base.
If I am offending, then I should withdraw rather than continuing to do so. I apologize. I would only add that job and I claim no expertise in marriage: quite the contrary, it is because we don't know its blessings so fully that we can agree to live with less if need be.
OOps. That was actually me. Josh doesn't care about his feelings.
And...he thinks that you're good for ratings.
But I never said that. I never said that you should marry anyone else.
think that if the one you love cannot have sex, then the marriage contract is something so sacred and different that you should not enter into it.
I knew it was you, Sarah, and my first comment was meant for Josh, before I read yours. Base is a word I'll not throw at another man's wife.
Oh. Good. Thanks, man.
Oh. Good. Thanks, man.
Seeing as I will soon be in Josh and Sarah's presence I will make these my final statements on this subject.
I do not say the following to demean or dismiss Josh and Sarah's view on this but in the context that this debate has evolved into I feel the need to point out that Josh and Sarah have been together since they were teenagers. This is a wonderful and envy-inducing thing...your views and advice on marriage and child-rearing are obviously of a higher pedigree than either Steve or myself could muster.
That being said, to maintain that you can empathize with the romantic deserts Steve and I have wandered in is less than accurate. I don't lord that over you but it is simply the truth. Im sure your marriage has had it's peaks and valley's but there have been times in my life when I thought the peaks had run their course and I was doomed to a valley. In a marriage like yours, I imagine - perhaps inaccurately, that further peaks are somewhat of a guarantee.
I have gone years without feeling love for a woman and in that haze have felt perhaps that my heart was spent...so when, despite it all, the Lord has blessed me with more than i deserve or could imagine a fevered jealous protection of that love is understandable. And it is quite easy for me to imagine still entering into a mutually-exclusive, albeit sexless, union compared to the alternative of a return to the desert.
That will not happen of course, but within the hypothetical I have stated it is possible while not ideal. And I would say it would certainly not be a sin.
A final analogy and then I'm off to watch the Cowboys lose again:
We probably all know someone who grew up without a TV. I, for one, was at times appalled by this idea. But anyway, if you had a heavy coffee drinker who'd never watched TV (although they'd heard it was great and all that) and you told them they could have either a $2500 big screen TV or a nice state of the art $250 coffee maker but they had to use either item every day...couldn't sell it etc...would you be surprised if their priority was coffee? Even though, by value, they had so much more to gain by accepting the television?
I've never watched "television". I've heard it's great...I totally don't know what that is, but I want it. I can't wait to watch it.
I want it AND the coffee maker but if you suddenly told me I couldn't have the TV ever but could still get a state of the art cup of joe?
No question.
Love you guys.
See you soon!
Josh, we both know Steve's good for ratings, but I'm better. Horse's. Mouth.
I think there's some oversimplification happening on both sides here. Understandably so considering that you posed a pretty vague question (no fault of yours!--how would you know whether anyone would respond, and to what degree this debate would escalate), and you guys have done a good job of arguing it despite its lack of solidity as a premise--for instance, are we talking about a man losing his penis, just the use of it, or becoming a veritable (or literal)quadriplegic? Does the injured party (as a nod to the Fredericksons I'll suppose for a moment it's the woman, me, for the purposes of argument) have an aversion to ALL things included in physical intimacy, or am I bereft of the use of my genitalia but otherwise mentally, emotionally and spiritually equipped and primed for sexuality? Rhetoricals, all.
First, I agree wholeheartedly with you Steve (and disagree wholeheartedly, consequently, with you Josh) about the emotional and spiritual intensity and import we have to one another in serious, commit ed relationships and engagements. Josh, in your efforts to distinguish marriage from, say, a prolonged engagement (and believe me, I understand they're different, so bear with me), you say “You blur a border that God and our society makes sharp.” Really? Do we live in the same society, you and I? A society where 50% of marriages end in divorce? Where tons of people live together and have children, legitimate & illegitimate, before being married? Doesn't mean that stuff is 'right' (in fact the examples I've provided are obviously far from ideal)--my point: contemporary society is anything but clear on where love and obligation begin. It's hard to articulate it without it sounding like a slight to the sanctity of marriage, which is not how I intend it to be, but I think reducing anything SHORT of marriage itself to frivolity is a mistake. I think it's a mistake to generalize on EITHER end—that marriage vows merely solemnize or make official a permanent spiritual, emotional & physical contract between man and woman OR that the profundity of emotional and physical intimacy begins only after a marriage is enacted. Neither extreme seems ideal. I think we're splitting hairs at a certain point, and Job's point about whether the accident/deprivation of one's genitals were to occur just after the wedding ceremony as opposed to just prior is valid. I won't go so far as to concur that you're “unfit” to speak to the question, because I consider myself fit to address it without being privy firsthand to the experience of marriage.
“Your love for a person need not necessarily evolve into marriage vows” is pretty misleading considering we're discussing an (albeit hypothetical) ENGAGED couple, not two kids dating for a few months. I disagree, Sarah, with the notion that one's unique love for their beloved would be easily converted into (back into) the love of or for a friend. It's far more complicated than that. At least for me. If Job and I ended things, despite the fact that there is no ring on my finger yet, I can assure you we'd not be able to maintain a close friendship as we each moved on in search of new partners or in efforts to resign or reconcile ourselves to the loneliness that comes from losing the one you love. Even if he had two gimp legs, today, tomorrow, or as the result of a major accident en route to the wedding vows themselves, I'm committed. It would be unnatural for that to change.
I think the supposition that there is only one kind of sex or sexual gratification presents itself as a hindrance here, perhaps not initially, but to the degree that the argument has persisted, it should be considered. Another angle, if you'll pardon the pun, is that because one of these individuals loses the ability to “consummate” the marriage, there can be no sexual intimacy? The all or nothing, black or white approach doesn't come as easily to me, perhaps because I've had long, serious relationships that did not culminate in marriage. I know much of this debate has grown concentrated around the notion that marrying earlier is somehow easier, or renders you less capable of considering the alternative—I disagree with that. I do, however, think there's merit here: of all the people I know who attended Christian schools (I opted not to, have both satisfaction & regrets about it), the vast majority married immediately after school. The statistical likelihood that those marriages are sound and healthy some 7-8 years later is virtually the same as that of marriage in America on the whole--50%. There is no question that many married in haste; whether the desire to consummate was the sole impetus or not, it's often at least a major one. Something to consider if you're assuming no sexual satisfaction can be achieved simply because vaginal intercourse isn't happenin'. Sorry to get graphic, but not sorry enough to retract. I have to agree with Steve that I'd prefer to spend an (unconventionally) sexless marriage with the person I love most rather than be sexless without them.
As an aside, but perhaps an important one, are we operating with the assumption that these two individuals are engaged to spend the rest of their lives together, but aren't physically intimate yet? I understand they're not having intercourse, but there's a substantial disparity between abstaining from sex before marriage and not doing anything at all. And it's relevant....acutely relevant.
I love that you posed this question, and know you didn't intend for it to be divisive. I mean nothing personal in the expression of my opinion.
(As I take the question, it means that one person cannot benefit from a sexual experience at all. They are a torso, literally or figuratively. I answer it this way.)
Societal norms are meaningless in this argument as I see it...this is a moral question, and society lacks a real morality, especially considering sex and marriage.
(To Job, I would say...we did not start having sex until after we were married, not when we started dating in our teens. If you remember, we didn't kiss, even. We dated for five years- a realtionship that was committed but not intimate- I think this proves MORE that we know what it's like to be with someone and not consummate better than one who has no possibility of a liason for years. So your "decade" is really seven years, and the children just make our experience more relevant, as anyone with children could tell you about their sex life.)
Following Job's lead,my last comment is this...marriage is a sacred union that involves sex and commitment, and was created by God. It is a reflection of our relationship with him. Marriage without sex is like going to church only on Sundays, and living like a heathen during the week.
Lisa- Your concern about offending me reveals that you don't know me very well. We shall have to remedy that. Swing away. I am unperturbed. Unruffled even.
For the purposes of this present debate I mean simply that sex (in any form, conventional, unconventional, foreign, domestic, celsius, fahrenheit, earth, wind or fire) is NOT POSSIBLE. Don't dwell on all of the possibile combinations and such. Just assume it is so and let it go at that.
The line between marriage and unmarriage (is that a word?) is definitely fading toward irrelevance in America today. I agree with that, but to hear Bobby Bag O'Doughnuts off the street say that Marriage aint nothin' but a thing is one thing is different than hearig one of my enlightened readers say so. God makes the distinction clear (which really the only testimony we need) and our society does/used to/should as well. I agree with Sarah that stats and societal norms are irrelevant for the purposes of this debate. Without apology I will posit that the participants in this debate are a higher caliber sort than the national average. I mean no slight to the unwashed masses, but I can't blame them for taking offense. Sorry barbarian hordes.
Job, I can't believe you're still expending energy trying to persuade me (yourself?) that your perspective has more merit. I groan from entertaining this tedious mantra. This seems to be the depth and width of your entire position, which is really no position at all. Is your position simply that my own is rooted in ignorance and a fat-hearted blindness towards your deprived condition? Come on! Be fair. You think too much of yourself. You can see past the end of your own nose, right? Or perhaps my arguments are so unassailable that you are left with invalidating my perspective as a matter of last recourse. I can't believe you're still peddling this. Let it go! Let me participate!
(Think you're right in how you take the question, Sarah, I'll assume it's so!).
So after those five years, you'd have been content (not to diminish it, I realize it'd be heart wrenching, and just because you vote 'yes' doesn't mean you're calling it an easy thing), to walk away from the engagement? Suppose this question is for either of you.
Josh: I wasn't worried about offending you, really. Moreso about offending the sensibilities of your readership, because I assume it's broader than I know, and comprised of people I don't know know.
I'm not decrying marriage at ALL. I was pointing out the fallacy in you saying "God and society"--lumping the two together...I don't need to deconstruct it, because you did :).
One part I have trouble with, and tend to split off from an otherwise somewhat solid agreement with Job and Steve, is based on something you said Sarah, with which I agree totally--earlier, about how the proposition of 50 sexless years would lead to one side being gratified and the other not--agree. Don't know how that'd work. But for me it's easy as acknowledging that although marriage itself, the wedding, IS as Josh called it, the rubicon, in order for me to get to that place to begin with? I am completely invested in and committed to that person. The words I speak before God and witnesses are what seal the deal, but to a CERTAIN EXTENT those are formalities at that point. Believe me, I believe in the sanctity of marriage; my point is that a relationship serious enough to evolve into an engagement and ultimately a marriage means I'm already committed enough (even just internally, personally, intimately) to that man, that whether the bus hits him on the way to the chapel or post-vows, I'm in it to win it.
I think (and forgive this if your issue isn't that you lack comprehension of what Job's saying, but just that you disagree with it--disregard this in that case) Job means that perhaps it's easier to posit a hypothetical answer from the position of happily married with children, and that if he were 22 and this scenario went down, he'd be more likely to ditch the fiancee than he would if it happened now. Not validating it or demeaning it, just clarifying. For myself, too.
Also--Job's statement that he wouldn't propose to someone he felt he couldn't live without--your reaction puzzles me Josh. Why is that unhealthy, exactly? When coupled with a solid relationship, of course, it's a romantic sentiment, and one that I'd think you might agree could be applicable in your own life, no? --whether or not you'd have ever said it overtly.
On that last point I think I agree with Josh: saying you can't live without a person is hyperbole (in much the same way I think saying you can't live without sex is) and has a tendency to confuse people about what's really vital. It's not about feeling like you can't live without someone. It's about choosing to live preferring them above yourself, like it or not. (for similar reasons I agree with sarah's concern that a lifetime of only one spouse being gratified could result in selfishness -- but I would add that bringing pleasure to one you love is often more gratifying than the alternative. It was Jesus who was quoted as saying it's more blessed to give than to receive...)
I have to chime in again as one who knows Josh and Sarah, and their sex crazed, baby-making relationship is one that shows how healthy sex in a marriage is.
I believe we as American Christians have a tendency to discount sex to an unneeded, even somewhat unhealthy past time. Yet the Bible devotes an entire book to the physical, emotional, and spiritual act that is intercourse.
I am not discounting the validity of anyone (for the record I married Katie at age 21) but to say that because someone gets married younger than thirty they cannot understand the true meaning of a commitment in marriage is a bit to dismissive.
There's one more point that should be brought up as well. To me, Josh and Sarah are a prime example of a healthy union, their example should carry much more weight than what it sounds you are allowing. The fact that they know what it takes to sustain a relationship should prove to you that sex is indeed important to the makings of a great marriage (not necessarily the most important, but a vital part of its function).
I believe that you could marry someone even without sex, and yet I feel that it would put even more pressure on an already intense commitment that marriage is. So yes, you could have a marriage--a good marriage without sex, but wouldn't you rather a great marriage?
Someone should write a book on this thread it would lead to some great coffee table talk.
I know I'm a little late to the party, but I love this discussion!!!! I'm not going to pretend that I've read all the comments thouroughly- but as a scanner I'd say this: I love that it seems that the unmarried take one side and the married are staunchly on the other. I am married. I am staunchly on Sarah, Josh and Dylan's side.
I think it makes sense that parents are choosing the perspective that doesn't result in their children never being born.
No one needs to hear further argument from me. I would only repeat that any system of reasoning that prefers a sexless life alone to a sexless life with one's beloved bears certain logical flaws.
Just for my own curiosity, I wonder what the following people think: (1) paterfamilias Joel Tate, (2) nearly-newlywed Lisa Richard and John Tate, (3) happily engaged Josh Jones, and (4) uber-paterfamilias Barry Tate.
Sorry, one more thing. To Dylan's question about good and great marriages: I think the other person in the marriage is a large component in whether things are good or great. Larger, in fact, than sex. That might be the crux of my side's whole argument.
Everytime I try and get out...they pull me back in.
Josh, enough with saying you can't be offended and then acting all injured. I'm not saying my viewpoint has more merit but i will reiterate: It's just different. Would it help if I said it again? It's just different. You are an authority in my life on issues of marriage, child-rearing, being a police officer, living in California, breaking your collarbone etc, etc. In that same vein I can simply provide you with a more fleshed-out view on the pizza industry, the navy seabees, having an appendectomy...and bachelorhood. (you just turned inwardly-bellicose didn't you? Does it offend you that I might see this all differently than you?) I'm not boasting. I'm not dismissing you. But the issue is whether we would or would not. I didn't know there was a right or wrong answer to this hypothetical - and you're right and I'm wrong. Rosie is right that those in this debate who are married are firmly on one side of the field as opposed to the other. I would be happy to concede that my view is rooted in naivete but that is so often the case in matters of the heart is it not? And I would do as the poll suggested. Naive? Okay. Duh.
And I stand by my assertion that I would only propose to someone if I thought life would seem diminished without them. That's naive AND corny. And I can live with that.
Dylan: I think the point where your argument falls apart is at the very end--the supposition that your merely "good" marriage (reduced thusly by their/your untimely accident) with the person you love could and should be replaced/supplanted by a "great" marriage with another --to me-- is more naive than would be the undertaking of your original marriage, as planned, whether you're 21 or 41. But I like everything else you had to say.
Hi Rosie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm interested to hear your opinion, please please please.
General note: Let's not fault Job for not being able to live without me.
Slim, I understand your point that it's over the top, but I also happen to think you should feel that way about the one you marry. Of course you could and would live without them if they dropped dead tomorrow. I don't see anything wrong with knowing who you belong with, and knowing (though it opens you up to tremendous vulnerability)that your life would be significantly diminished without them. The trouble with this post began when we all STOPPED being literalists, though. :)
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