There’s a view (I’d call it the “perpetual motion machine view”) of sex that says that sex magically bonds couples together and keeps them having sex and bonding, ad infinitum.
But if that view is correct, why do married couples ever stop having sex? Or why do unmarried couples who are having sex ever break up?
There is no force in human nature that will keep someone from making a commitment and then breaking it when the going gets rough. That doesn’t mean that nothing works or that a lifelong marriage is some kind of a fluke rather than the natural and attainable end that follows marriage vows made validly and lived at a normal human level of fidelity.
It is a logical fallacy to say that a positive biofeedback loop that can be broken by an outside force cannot have been a postive biofeedback loop in the first place. What other part of married life cannot be enjoyed with a sister, a brother, or a friend? A married couple may have to do without sex for some serious reason, but sex cannot be replaced by some other “hobby.”
More to the point, participation in the marital embrace is one of the* rights* of marriage. The marriage relationship is not one in which rights are asserted in a demanding or quid pro quo way, that is contrary to the nature of marriage, but the rights of marriage are, nevertheless, real rights and legitimate expectations that may not rightly be denied except when it truly is necessary. Delayed, yes. Negotiated, yes. Denied altogether when there is no incapacity? No.
Canon law reflects the Church’s understanding of the fundamental nature of this right:
Can. 1084 §1. Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have intercourse, whether on the part of the man or the woman, whether absolute or relative, nullifies marriage by its very nature.
(
Yes, the Church is saying that those incapable of sexual intercourse are incapable of marriage, not by arbitrary law but by the nature of marriage!!)
§2. If the impediment of impotence is doubtful, whether by a doubt about the law or a doubt about a fact, a marriage must not be impeded nor, while the doubt remains, declared null.
**§3. Sterility neither prohibits nor nullifies marriage, without prejudice to the prescript of ⇒ can. 1098.
Can. 1096 §1. For matrimonial consent to exist, the contracting parties must be at least not ignorant that marriage is a permanent partnership between a man and a woman ordered to the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation.**
Adultery is singled out in canon law as a form of betrayal among all others that
automatically gives the offended spouse the right to unilaterally leave the common conjugal life, without need to show danger in delay.
Sexual relations are not “magic,” but they are among the most consequential of the aspects of the marital covenant. The marital embrace is a ratification of the marital covenant, not merely the means by which children are produced. Perpetual impotence invalidates a marriage; perpetual sterility does not.
Eh, I would say that my husband and I have a great sex life. (We’ve been married 19 years, so that’s not a newlywed brag.)
It’s not great because either of us is especially unselfish or compassionate–it’s just that we’re both having a good time.
I have often wondered the last few years–why do conservative religious people make sex sound so TERRIBLE?
While I can imagine that there might be bonding even while one spouse finds sex painful, I can’t imagine that that is so when it is both painful **and **under duress. Whatever wonderful effects sex has in a functional couple, I suspect it doesn’t have quite those effects when there is both pain (whether physical or emotional) and the spouse who is in pain is being bullied or guilted into it. If the effects were so amazing, it wouldn’t be necessary to bully or guilt the unwilling spouse, right?
Come, come. The husband he is talking about does not think sex is something terrible. He thinks it is a necessary part of the marital bond and wants his wife to understand that it is legitimately* important *that he not be denied sex with her if it is not totally necessary. If you and your husband have a sex life only because you both find it fun, well, I wouldn’t say that is the most unselfish basis for a sex life that I’ve ever heard. You’re not saying that if one of you stops having fun, the other is just stuck and too bad…and that isn’t selfish? No, you don’t really mean that, I hope.
After all, this man’s life and she alone can fulfill this role in his life. Having sexual relations with him is not “under duress.” As canon law puts it, it is assumed that people making marriage vows understand that the marriage bond involves
sexual cooperation. That is such an essential part of the bond that it is singled out among other sorts of necessary cooperation as one that must be understood to be part of marriage. Marriage is not a “well, we’ll consummate once, I’ll have done my duty, and after that I’ll let you know how it is for me.” No, while it may be that one spouse may tragically lose the capacity to share this aspect of marriage, it is of course understood that neither spouse will deem their sex life null and void until the ways they might go about having one in spite of their challenges have been exhausted.
Let us be truthful, too: to be denied sex by your spouse altogether has emotional consequences of its own. It gives the feeling of being unwanted and undesirable. I cannot understand why some people are so quick to see how this applies to wives and so stubbornly unable to see that it applies to men, too.
