On “rape in marriage” you are clearly wrong. Freedom of contract is morally superior, the traditional contract for the past two thousand years being that a man and a woman each gave their consent to sex once and forever:
The concept of “rape” in marriage defines marriage, as it was originally understood out of existence, marriage as it was originally understood being the power to bind our future selves to stick it out
According to the New Testament:
let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time,
If consent to sex is given moment to moment, rather than once and forever, then marriage cannot be a durable contract: Consent to marriage then has to be moment to moment, which is to say routine hooking up, rather than marriage, thus producing the present situation where men are reluctant to invest in children and posterity, and where eighty percent of fertile age women have sex with twenty percent of men.
The concept of “rape” in marriage defines women as incapable of contract. Like so much of feminism, it infantilizes women in the guise of empowering them.
Saint Paul phrased it more delicately than I phrase it, or people in the eighteenth century phrased it, but what he meant, and what he rather delicately implied, and what people in the eighteenth century said plainly enough, is that if a fertile age wife is not getting done by her husband, she will be getting done by someone else pretty soon, and if a fertile age wife knocks her husband back, she is probably thinking about getting done by someone higher status than her husband, and pretty soon will be so. If she violates the marital contract by not servicing her husband, she is about to violate the marital contract a lot more drastically.
I could consent to have you shoot me, but it will still injure and possibly kill me. A child or their parent could consent to being shown graphic sexual or violent imagery, but it would still cause psychological damage. Rape is not theft but assault, and society does not allow such harm to be perpetrated just because someone thought they could handle it.
If consent to sex is given moment to moment, rather than once and forever, then marriage cannot be a durable contract
Not technically true. Since you have already said marriage is being redefined it just means that the redefinition must be to something which does not necessarily include sex—that is, a contract that allows enforced abstinence. A logically coherent concept even though I find the notion repugnant.
But as Saint Paul rather delicately said, and people in the eighteenth century rather more plainly said, enforced abstinence is not going to fly.
So, if “rape” in marriage is a concept, marriage is not a concept. If marriage is not a concept, massive drop in female fertility and male investment in offspring, decrease in total children, increase in fatherless children.
While the detail of your arguments don’t follow I do agree that enforcing moral values from our time onto another time without taking care to first change all sorts of other parts of the culture would make the selected change we call “progress” actually do significant damage to the people we force our values upon.
Being able to consider the issue of once-off vs ongoing consent to sex to be the particularly significant issue regarding marriage morality is something of a luxury. Compare this to the issue of easy no-fault divorce… which can translate to “the ability to casually destroy the life of the divorced (female) party, leaving her to starve or be forced into prostitution”. This is another thing that I recall Paul speaking on and something far more controversial at the time.
It can be dangerous (and naive) to try to judge or force our values on other cultures without thinking through the effects such changes would have.
But as Saint Paul rather delicately said, and people in the eighteenth century rather more plainly said, enforced abstinence is not going to fly.
Yeah, in certain circumstances people are going to have incentives to break promises (and/or contracts). I don’t think that this is specific to marriage, and I don’t think it makes the concept of marriage invalid.
You cannot, or at least should not, ask people to contract to that which they cannot perform. Thus, moment to moment consent to sex, requires in practice moment to moment consent to marriage, which abolishes marriage. Abolishing marriage violates freedom of contract.
On “rape in marriage” you are clearly wrong. Freedom of contract is morally superior, the traditional contract for the past two thousand years being that a man and a woman each gave their consent to sex once and forever:
The concept of “rape” in marriage defines marriage, as it was originally understood out of existence, marriage as it was originally understood being the power to bind our future selves to stick it out
According to the New Testament:
If consent to sex is given moment to moment, rather than once and forever, then marriage cannot be a durable contract: Consent to marriage then has to be moment to moment, which is to say routine hooking up, rather than marriage, thus producing the present situation where men are reluctant to invest in children and posterity, and where eighty percent of fertile age women have sex with twenty percent of men.
The concept of “rape” in marriage defines women as incapable of contract. Like so much of feminism, it infantilizes women in the guise of empowering them.
Saint Paul phrased it more delicately than I phrase it, or people in the eighteenth century phrased it, but what he meant, and what he rather delicately implied, and what people in the eighteenth century said plainly enough, is that if a fertile age wife is not getting done by her husband, she will be getting done by someone else pretty soon, and if a fertile age wife knocks her husband back, she is probably thinking about getting done by someone higher status than her husband, and pretty soon will be so. If she violates the marital contract by not servicing her husband, she is about to violate the marital contract a lot more drastically.
I could consent to have you shoot me, but it will still injure and possibly kill me. A child or their parent could consent to being shown graphic sexual or violent imagery, but it would still cause psychological damage. Rape is not theft but assault, and society does not allow such harm to be perpetrated just because someone thought they could handle it.
Not technically true. Since you have already said marriage is being redefined it just means that the redefinition must be to something which does not necessarily include sex—that is, a contract that allows enforced abstinence. A logically coherent concept even though I find the notion repugnant.
But as Saint Paul rather delicately said, and people in the eighteenth century rather more plainly said, enforced abstinence is not going to fly.
So, if “rape” in marriage is a concept, marriage is not a concept. If marriage is not a concept, massive drop in female fertility and male investment in offspring, decrease in total children, increase in fatherless children.
Which is not moral progress.
While the detail of your arguments don’t follow I do agree that enforcing moral values from our time onto another time without taking care to first change all sorts of other parts of the culture would make the selected change we call “progress” actually do significant damage to the people we force our values upon.
Being able to consider the issue of once-off vs ongoing consent to sex to be the particularly significant issue regarding marriage morality is something of a luxury. Compare this to the issue of easy no-fault divorce… which can translate to “the ability to casually destroy the life of the divorced (female) party, leaving her to starve or be forced into prostitution”. This is another thing that I recall Paul speaking on and something far more controversial at the time.
It can be dangerous (and naive) to try to judge or force our values on other cultures without thinking through the effects such changes would have.
Yeah, in certain circumstances people are going to have incentives to break promises (and/or contracts). I don’t think that this is specific to marriage, and I don’t think it makes the concept of marriage invalid.
You cannot, or at least should not, ask people to contract to that which they cannot perform. Thus, moment to moment consent to sex, requires in practice moment to moment consent to marriage, which abolishes marriage. Abolishing marriage violates freedom of contract.
Which is not moral progress.
It’s not as though people cannot obey a marriage contract that requires moment to moment consent to sex.
I don’t understand this.
NOTE: please, no-one downvote the parent. I don’t want another conversation cut off mid-discussion by the Troll Toll.