About Relationships, Society, Culture Right Order & Right Judgment
Advice for women on International Women’s Day
5 minutes to read This is directed especially to Christian women, since it is based on Scripture—but any woman, and indeed any man, will benefit from it.
For International Women’s Day, many mainstream rags are posting all kinds of fempowerment rhetoric. This makes women feel good about being more and more like men in the short term, but inevitably leads to dissatisfaction and misery in the long term. [See for example Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness in The National Bureau of Economic Research (May 2009).]
By way of contrast, I’m going to post what God would have women hear. It will tend to make most of them very angry in the short term, but will lead to contentment and happiness in the long term—because it reflects their design:
1. Wives, be subject to your husbands. This especially applies to Christian wives; but all women are designed to want strong leadership since that is the role God created them for. This is why, despite the best efforts of feminists, a vast majority of women still marry. But if you want your marriage to work, and to achieve the fulfilment that every woman dreams of, you must repent of believing that it is a partnership where man and wife have equal rule—and you must accept that it is a partnership where man and wife have equal roles. It means you cannot defraud your husband of sex if you aren’t in the mood. It means you cannot lead from behind through manipulation, saying that if he disagrees with how you think he should run things, he is not loving you properly. Submitting to your husband isn’t something you do because you agree with him; it is something you do because he is the one given authority in your marriage. He must answer to God for how he uses that authority; but you must answer to God for how you respect it.
If you’re not yet married, stop assuming it will be available when you’re 28 and finally decide to stop acting like a kid. You’ve probably already met the man of your dreams, and discounted him because it wasn’t according to your timetable. Here’s some hard news: after the age of 23, men are going to want you less and less, and other women are going to want them more and more. Would you rather adjust your marriage timetable for a good man, or settle for a mediocre one later? You have to submit to him either way, so best to choose wisely.
2. Conduct yourselves with respect and purity. This means you have to treat abortion as what it is: the murder of a child. There is nothing more disrespectful to God, or the image of God, than child sacrifice—whether the altar is Molech’s, as it was for Israel, or Mammon’s, as it is today. It means you must abandon identity politics, because identity politics, by nature, is disrespectful of others. It means you must stop lying about the gender wage gap, because lying is disrespectful of others, and of God. It means you must stop backbiting others—and especially your husband or boyfriend—to your girlfriends. If you’re unmarried, it also means you must stop pretending that the ability to get wasted and fornicate with whomever you choose is empowering, because it is not—it is enslaving you to impurity.
3. Don’t adorn yourself on the outside; adorn yourself on the inside. Expensive hair-dos and jewelry, fashionable clothing, spending hours “putting on your face”—these are vanity. Just as men are inclined to certain sins, so are women: vanity, envy, covetousness. When you know these sins, you can be proactive about both preventing them, and repenting of them. Concentrate on developing the kind of beauty that does not fade: gentleness, quietness, service—in God’s sight these are precious. Sarah is commended for calling Abraham “lord,” if you can imagine such a thing. You cannot develop this inner beauty by valuing the vain kind more, envying other women and competing with them in clothes and makeup. You cannot develop it by despising your husband, or by secretly fantasizing of divorce. You cannot develop it by coveting the eyes of men, dressing to entice them. All of these things will only lead to discontentment.
4. Do good and do not fear what is frightening. If anything in the Bible was written for you, it is this. We are in the grip of a religious war. It is a war on women, by women, through the worship of women. It is a war that has almost consumed the church, which means you have few allies. It is a war which has turned your friends and your husband and your pastor into double agents for the enemy. This is frightening, but you must not fear it; you must do good anyway. You must do good by practising the things above. You must do good by teaching these things to your daughters. And you must do good by refusing to apologize for them when people say they are offensive, by refusing to be cowed when people call you a woman-hater, by refusing to compromise the word of God when people try to convince you it is backward and out-dated.
5. Finally, to be fair, here is some advice for husbands: live with your wife in an understanding way, showing honor to her as the weaker vessel. She is just as much an heir of the kingdom as you are—a daughter of the King. God will not incline his ear to the prayers of a man who lords over or looks down on the wife of his youth.
This advice, of course, is all taken from 1 Peter 3:1–7, with a liberal dose of biblical theology and modern research to pep it up.
If you’re a feminist, and you’re about to post a reply expressing your outrage, please don’t. As I have said, feminism is a kind of false religion. You are in the grip of a cult-like fervor. You don’t need to post a reply. You need to repent of worshiping women instead of God.
13 comments
Alessandra Castilho Ferreira
“It means you cannot defraud your husband of sex if you aren’t in the mood”.
There is no Scriptural basis for that interpretation. Nowhere Scripture commands women to have sex, just because her husband desires sex.
What this remark reveals is a very equivocated notion that what a husband´s #1 need in marriage is sex! Frequent, enthusiastic sex! If you do this, you will have a happy husband, indeed.
But I wonder: a man of God cannot dominate himself? First comes sex and just after that talking?
Do you really think that Scripture is saying what you think Scripture is saying?
Isn´t the whole law to love God above all and your neighbor as yourself? Would you like to be heard only after you have satisfied someone´s sexual needs?
Normally, I appreciate your texts. But here you are inserting in Scripture what Scripture does not say.
Alessandra Castilho Ferreira
One more observation:
You are giving advices to husband and wives. You are teaching men and women that a husband has a right to demand sex in order to satisfy his own egoistical desires. I say “egoistical”, because, if a husband is willing to have sex, knowing that his wife does not wish it, he is worried about *his* needs and desires only.
That is a terrible advice to give for men and women. You teach men that it would be ok for them to have sex independently of the fact of how his wife feels. It is enough for him to want it, so the wife has to agree. And if she does not agree, sge is defrauding him! But if a man has sex with his wife, knowing that she does not want, he is treating her like a body and not a person. Therefore, you teach women that they should allow their husbands to view them as bodies to be used for his egoistical desires, and so you teach women to go against their own feelings and conscience, as if women were had not an intellect and affections, as any human being. To treat someone just like a body is sinful.
We all must appear before the tribunal of Christ. It is dangerous to give advices. Be sure that the advices you give are really grounded in Scripture and that you are not adding to it. That is my advice.
Proverbs 30:5-6
Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Alessandra, no amount of modern, secular, feminist reasoning will make 1 Corinthians 7:1–5 say differently:
You cannot be more pious about sexuality and personhood than God. Either you are obedient to his word, and you treat sex as a mutual obligation; or you are obedient to feminism, and you treat sex as a weapon of control by doling it out only when your husband has pleased you and you have warm feelings for him.
Alessandra Castilho Ferreira
It is God who says that He is love, that His law is fulffiled in loving Him above all and in loving your neighbor as yourself. The same God said that everything you do without love has absolute no value – is garbage. Now, what Paul said about love?
1 Corinthians 13:4-8New King James Version (NKJV)
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
Everything you do without love is immoral. It is immoral to demand sex from someone when you know that the person is not willing it.
BTW, I am not the one who is being influenced by feminism. You are the one who is being influenced by the spirit of the pharisees. I am sorry to say that, but pharisees use the law of God to force people to do what benefits them! That is certainly not love. It is the opposite of love. It is to use people, instead of loving them. And that is why Jesus said that the teachings of the pharisees nullified God´s word!
Is it to long suffer to demand sex? Is it not to seek its own when a man demands sex? Is he enduring all things when he demands sex?
Am I following your reasoning correctly? You are saying that do demand sex from an unwilling wife is loving, kind, righteous, patient and not seek its own at all?
I hope you really reflect about what you are saying.
Paul is not defending that anyone can demand something from another person, without caring for this person´s feelings. He is teaching that both wife and husband are one flesh, that they are not independent from one another, that they should think and act like one and that they should love one another. That is far, far, very far form the sense you want to give, saying that anytime a husband wishes sex he can demands it, without any regard for her wife´s wishes.
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
You seem to think that love sanctifies sex. That is not a biblical view; it is a medieval one that Hollywood has inherited. It is the view that has caused the breakdown of marriage in the modern day; indeed, caused the belief that marriage is superfluous anyway: as long as you love a person, sex is moral. But the Bible says there is only one thing that sanctifies sex, and that is marriage.
Now, I agree with you that everything in a marriage should be done in love. That is one of the primary commands to both the husband and the wife: love each other. But it is not a command to have feelings for each other, since no one can produce feelings on demand. It is a command to act in ways that develop onetogetherness—and that is exemplified in sex.
I agree.
The problem is, 1 Corinthians 7 says that it is immoral to be unwilling to have sex with your husband.
Women are commanded to love their husbands, and the way 1 Corinthians 7 cashes out that command is in willingness to have sex. The wife should give the husband his conjugal rights because he has authority over her body.
If she is unwilling to have sex, she is simply being disobedient to the clear command of Scripture. (The same goes for him.)
Alessandra Castilho Ferreira
No, my view is not the Hollywood view. It is apostle Paul´s view, which I have quoted. It is funny that after I question if demanding sex is loving in light of what apostle Paul said, you did not answer it, but is accusing me of defending another view. What a straw man! Read 1 Corinthians 13 again and ask yourself if demanding sex from an unwilling spouse can be considered loving.
Of course it is also a problem if the wife *never* wishes sex for a long time. And this has to be dealt with, but certainly not with coercion or blackmailing. A man that demands sex with a woman, knowing that she does not want, is not better than any animal! Sorry, but that is the truth. If the wife is not willing sex, there is a reason (physical, emotional, spiritual). The same is valid for the husband too. Or do you think that only wives are unwilling sometimes?
The Bible teaches Christians to come to an *agreement*, not to coerce others!
You said:
//I agree.
The problem is, 1 Corinthians 7 says that it is immoral to be unwilling to have sex with your husband.
Women are commanded to love their husbands, and the way 1 Corinthians 7 cashes out that command is in willingness to have sex. The wife should give the husband his conjugal rights because he has authority over her body.
If she is unwilling to have sex, she is simply being disobedient to the clear command of Scripture. (The same goes for him.)//
What the aspostle is not doing is to teach that any of them, husband or wife, should demand from the spouse what they want regardless of what the spouse feels. This is not in the text, because the apostle Paul would not contradict himself when he says elsewhere that love is patient and kind!
Therefore, in light of all that Paul teaches (Scripture explains itself), it certainly is not a wise and righteous solution to coerce or blackmail anyone for sex. Do you think that the wife will love and respect the husband when she is coerced to do sex unwillingly?
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Alessandra, as long as you keep poisoning the biblical view of submission and sexual obligation with terms like “coercion” and “blackmail” and “demanding,” there is nothing I can say to you.
You are simply defying God’s clear teaching that wives must submit to their husbands, and that neither are permitted to deny the other sex, because sex is their right in marriage. 1 Corinthians 7 cannot be any clearer that, as a general principle, being unwilling to have sex with your spouse is sin.
I don’t know if you’re married, but if you are, the word of God commands you to repent of refusing to suffer your husband’s sexual desires kindly. It commands you to repent of seeking yourself, rather than seeking him. It commands you to repent of refusing to bear his sexual desires, enduring them even if you aren’t in the mood. You cannot invoke 1 Corinthians 13 as a bludgeon against him without it returning on your own head—because, as you say, the apostle Paul would not contradict himself.
Alessandra Castilho Ferreira
1 Corinthians 7:3-5 teaches MUTUAL CONSENT. It does not teach neither the husband to demand sex, regardless of the wife´s feelings, nor the same about for the woman. It teaches that they should be in AGREEMENT and intimacy. They should be ONE.
You are distorting its meaning and it is easy to prove, because the Bible teaches without any doubt that Christians should be *one mind*. Let me refresh your memory with some of them:
2 Corinthians 13:11 Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, BE OF ONE MIND, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.
Philippians 3:15-16 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. 16 Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, LET US MIND THE SAME THING.
1 Peter 3:8-9 Finally, BE YE ALL OF ONE MIND, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: (9) Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.
Romans 12:16 “BE OF THE SAME MIND one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.”
Romans 15:5-7 “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with ONE MIND and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together IN THE SAME MIND and in the same judgment.
Matthew 20:25-28 The princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them and they that are great exercise authority upon them, BUT IT SHALL NOT BE SO AMONG YOU. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Amos 3: 3 Can two walk together unless they be agreed?
1 Corinthians 13: 5 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, DOES NOT SEEK ITS OWN, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
There is no way you can combine the teachings of the Bible about Christians being of one mind and the idea of that one of the spouses should have sex with the other unwillingly.
What you do not see is that when a person does sex unwillingly, this person will suffer real emotional damage. It is not possible to have sex without it affecting you. It is not possible to have sex unwillingly without being deeply hurt.
No, I am not married. But just to imagine that any Christian man could demand sex from an unwillingly wife, distorting Scripture to satisfy his egoistical needs, makes my blood boil.
And now I rest my case.
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
You are literally describing the exact opposite of what Paul says. He explicitly says “do not deprive each other except by mutual consent” (v. 5). Yet somehow when you read it, it comes out as, “do deprive each other except by mutual consent.”
Once more: refusing to consent to have sex with your spouse is sin. Obviously no one should have sex except by mutual consent—but Paul explicitly makes this consent our obligation because of the right of our spouse over our body.
Until you can repent of your flagrant twisting of Scripture, and submit to what God actually says, there is no point in further discussion.
Tia
Although the article was interesting in itself, I find the conversation that transpired between Alessandra & Bnonn particularly interesting.
It seems like you two did not take time to define what you each meant. A husband demanding sex from his wife and physically forcing her to is obviously sinful and unloving—it’s rape. As Alessandra said, he is not adhering to any part of how God commands us to love one another.
But it doesn’t seem like Bnonn was referring to that kind of situation. It seems that he is talking about using sex as a tool to manipulate your husband. You want you husband to be more romantic, so you CHOOSE to avoid sex. It’s on the same level as the silent treatment. There is a huge difference between taking space to cool off and think issues through, and refusing to talk with someone and making them aware of the fact that are withholding conversation because you are angry.
There are sometimes when my husband initiates sex and I don’t feel the same level of ‘in the mood’ as he does, but I know how deeply it communicates my love to him and strengthens our marriage, so we do ( 1 Corinthians 7:1–5). Other times he initiates and I share with him that I’m feeling sick (I suffer from nausea quite often) or that I am really exhausted or that I’m stressed emotionally. And because he loves me, he OF COURSE does not force the issue (1 Corinthians 13).
Just my two cents, but it seems like ya’ll are arguing passionately about two completely different things. Of course Scripture doesn’t condone rape. And yes, Scripture does teach that using sex as a tool (by purposefully withholding) is sinful.
Bnonn—I’ve followed your Information Highwayman site for a long time and have benefitted from implementing in my life some of your teaching. As a fellow Christian, it’s neat to have finally found this blog.
MInTheGap
Tia,
You stated:
If the definition of rape is sex without consent, and yet the Biblical definition of marriage is consent based on 1 Corinthians 7, how then can a husband or wife rape their spouse?
I understand the use of the word because of the emotional connotations, but I believe this might better be called abuse, but even that is difficult given Bnonn’s supposition that to withhold from your spouse sexual affection is to be in sin.
I think the best takeaway here is that it is best to do as Paul suggests and practice love, respect, and sex while inside marriage.
Anne
Couple years late to the party, but this topic (wothholding sex) confuses me. I’m single, so haven’t had experience with any of this, but I’m confused over how it should work out.
First, I’m not disagreeing with the Bible the withholding sex is sin, but IS there a time where it’s ok to ask not to have sex when the other wants to? The ‘not in the mood’ line is obviously abused and used as an excuse to withhold/manipulate, but what about situations where one spouse really, with legitimate reason, does not want to have sex? I think of situations such as one of the parties is physically exhausted from a long day, or one is sick/not feeling well, something has happened that one is distraught over (like bad news about a loved one or a death), etc. In those situations, is it ever ok to say you don’t want to have sex? Would the sin be on the one who doesnt want to do it or on the one who puts their desire over the other’s wellbeing (again, in LEGITMATE situations; surely not every time a woman refuses sex is to get what she wants)?
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Hi Anne, of course. Marriage is all about mutual understanding and give and take.