How does premarital sex harm an engaged couple the night before their wedding?

[jfhh]

I don’t want to know how the bible or the church says it is wrong. I want to know if and if so, how, it harms anyone. And I mean specifically between an engaged couple the night before their wedding when there is as much chance that they won’t tie the knot as there is that your putative marriage is unbeknownst to you actually invalid (like maybe you were both fertilized artificially and you were actually biologically half-siblings, making the marriage invalid, but due to privacy laws you haven’t found out).

Let’s say it also happens to be that the woman is infertile and they know this. So there’s not even a question of children being harmed or being born out of wedlock or even being conceived out of wedlock.

No one has ever given me a rational reason why this would harm anyone. So it can’t be wrong. Therefore if premarital sex is wrong, it’s only a good rule of thumb that it is wrong.

Remember this sex is unitive and they don’t use contraception. Everything about it is beautiful and no one is harmed; God is praised.

 

[mdgspencer]

Maybe this doesn’t answer this post, but perhaps if they were honest, some brides should wear bright red instead of white.

 

[Corki]

You are asking two differnt questions here.

The first is how is it wrong if it doesn’t hurt anyone. The answer is simply that sex outside of sacramental marriage is a mortal sin against the 6th commandment. It’s not about timing; it’s about the sacramental bond.

The second question is how does this harm the couple. Besides taking them out of a state of grace? And if they don’t go to confession before the wedding, they don’t receive the graces of the Sacrament. That’s cheating themselves out of a full wedding.

 

[LilyM]

It’s like someone taking a tv home from the store without paying for it, and without the store giving them permission. In the case of human beings our bodies belong to God and him alone. He’s the store owner, we’re not.

Doesn’t matter whether the person intends to pay for it tomorrow or in five years time - they don’t have a right to it until it’s bought and paid for. So a couple don’t have any rights to each others’ bodies until they’ve formally and sacramentally sealed the relationship in the presence of God.

 

[cascherman]

I’de like to put two sentences a little closer together so that they can be read together.

I don’t want to know how the bible or the church says it is wrong.

No one has ever given me a rational reason why this would harm anyone. So it can’t be wrong. Therefore if premarital sex is wrong, it’s only a good rule of thumb that it is wrong.

You have taken the Bible’s view and the Church’s view out of the equation and yet you still conclude it cannot be wrong? Or are you arguing as a devil’s advocate in this case?

Remember this sex is unitive and they don’t use contraception. Everything about it is beautiful and no one is harmed; God is praised.

I have heard teenagers argue the same about their premarital sex that is nowhere near a wedding day and that they truly believe is unitive and no one is harmed.

I like the analogy about the television. If you take it home without paying for it you are stealing regardless of if you plan to pay for it the next day. You never know if you will ever get the chance to pay. In other words, you haven’t made the sacramental commitment yet, so you cannot have the benefits without being guilty of sin.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

No one has ever given me a rational reason why this would harm anyone. So it can’t be wrong. Therefore if premarital sex is wrong, it’s only a good rule of thumb that it is wrong.

Remember this sex is unitive and they don’t use contraception. Everything about it is beautiful and no one is harmed; God is praised.

What do YOU (YOU specifically) mean by “harm”?

Since you have already concluded that premarital sex is NOT harmful, why are you asking the question?

It is not wrong because it is harmful (though it IS harmful). It is wrong because it is WRONG.

It is harmful BECAUSE it is wrong!

Do a study of “the Theology of the Body” to find out why it is wrong, and the harm that it’s being wrong does.

:shamrock2:

 

[bluerose]

I always used the “dinner party” analogy with the girls in my youth group (ages 13-16).

First there’s the appetizer course. This is when you first start meeting boys and getting to know them by dating. Just like appetizers, you don’t take as many as you can… that just ruins your appetite for what comes next… so you pick and choose carefully…

Next the salad course. This is engagement. You’ve settled in for the full meal and this is the beginning, the preparation for what is to come. It’s not heavy, but it is satisfying…

Then the main course. Marriage. The nourishing, filling part of the party, what you came for in the first place!

Then dessert. Yep, that’s the honeymoon part. Sex. Think of the best dessert that can complete the perfect meal. Maybe it’s a triple layer chocolate cake with fudge icing… the finest ingredients available. Worth waiting for.

Now, let’s say you decide you want that dessert. So you sneak in the kitchen, before the appetizers, before the salad, before everything else. And you swipe some of the frosting. Boy, that’s good, huh? So you break off a little corner. Wow, that’s really good! Well, since you’ve gone so far, may as well take a slice, right? Total ecstasy! And those fools out there, waiting to get through all the courses! How stupid!

So you go back to the dinner table and you see the appetizers, but not one of them appeals to you. The salad… blah. And the main course. Ugh! Can’t even look at it! You’re so full of that rich dessert that NOTHING else appeals to you. All you care about is the dessert. But dessert alone isn’t healthy. It doesn’t fill you up in a good way. It makes you more hungry, but it doesn’t satisfy. In fact, it can even make you sick… sick of the dessert even!

Okay, maybe it’s a little over-the-top? A little too cute? Too simple? Maybe. That was 15 years ago. Some of my girls have married in the last few years… they’ve all told me that my “dinner party” analogy stuck with them even though they tried to “blow off” their parental advice. Two of them told me at their weddings “I’ve been waiting 'till after the main course for dessert!”

So, FWIW, that’s how I look at it. And if you haven’t figured it out yet, God is the chef who prepared the meal!

 

[CatsAndDogs]

I always used the “dinner party” analogy with the girls in my youth group (ages 13-16). …

So, FWIW, that’s how I look at it. And if you haven’t figured it out yet, God is the chef who prepared the meal!

Yeah, that’s a very VERY female (I hesitate to say “chick-flick-esque”) explanation, but quite good indeed!

(( Now I’m gonna be in deep doo-doo with the female contingent! Oh no! <chuckle, chuckle, chuckle!> ))

:shamrock2:

 

[Scholastic17]

The Catholic Faith does not have a utilitarian ethic. Her ethics are ultimately Aristotelian. The act is not wrong because it’s harmful (in the sense of bad consequences), strictly speaking. The act is wrong. Period.

 

[jfhh]

It’s like someone taking a tv home from the store without paying for it, and without the store giving them permission. In the case of human beings our bodies belong to God and him alone. He’s the store owner, we’re not.

Doesn’t matter whether the person intends to pay for it tomorrow or in five years time - they don’t have a right to it until it’s bought and paid for. So a couple don’t have any rights to each others’ bodies until they’ve formally and sacramentally sealed the relationship in the presence of God.

But stores sometimes sell something on credit. God would know you are going to marry tomorrow and so you can assume he’d be willing to give you the marriage rights on a credit basis. Maybe this could be argued to be just a venial sin. So maybe premarital sex is sometimes a grave sin but in special cases like this only a venial sin.

I was mostly thinking out loud but here’s what I would counter my own OP with.

Our bodies are used like language. When we do some things with our bodies they mean something. So smiling has a meaning etc. Some things we do with our bodies may have a meaning that we can change at our whim or which is determined by culture. But other things may have a meaning that is universal and part of basic human nature. Sex may be one of those things.

Maybe sex communicates a kind of love that can only be expressed properly in marriage. So if you had sex while not being in love then with your body you would be saying you were in love even though in your spirit you would not be in love. So there’s a disconnect. Your body is contradicting your spirit and so there is disharmony. So you are harming yourself and your partner there.

But the highest kind of love and love committment would be a promise to love each other til death to us part. So an engaged couple may not have done that. That’d be a fair point if sex in the language of our body necessarily communicates that kind of love and committment. However, an engaged couple CAN do that prior to being officially married.

So let’s amend my scenario to an engaged couple who has ALREADY promised each other that they would love each other and be committed to each other til death do they part. This sometimes happens. Then even if that promise hasn’t yet been officially received by the church or government (or in Eastern tradition, the couple “crowned” by the priest), the couple would not be contradicting anything by having sex. Sex doesn’t express something besides love and committment. And an engaged couple who have already made a pre-wedding vows in private to each other are just as in love and just as committed then as post wedding. So I can’t see how sex would be wrong here. At best it would violate a rule God has set up. It wouldn’t violate human nature itself. When Adam and Eve were around there were no priests to bless marriages and you can say that God did that but what of their children? There were no priests or justices of the peace then either. Marriage is a useful tool for society and a way for couples to go public with their love and committment. But it doesn’t create more love and committment than was there a millisecond prior to the vows or crowning.

On other forms of premarital sex, I think maybe it used to be wrong due to the harm it would have on children. But now with new technology we are able to remove that consequence. We still have the consequence of disease though. When facts change, what is moral can also change. For example, charging 10% interest for a regular loan in the medeival economy may very well have been unjust usury. But as the economic variables changed, 10% interest may be fair today. The fundamental principle, don’t take unfair advantage of anyone, is the same. The fundamental principle, don’t have sex in an irresponsible way and don’t let what you do with your body contradict what is in your spirit, is the same. The last part means to have your body be true to yourself. Casual sex with strangers may not be true to yourself; you may be too precious to just hook up left and right.

IMO, having sex for the first time when you get engaged, on the night of accepting a proposal, is very romantic and beautiful.

 

[jfhh]

The Catholic Faith does not have a utilitarian ethic. Her ethics are ultimately Aristotelian. The act is not wrong because it’s harmful (in the sense of bad consequences), strictly speaking. The act is wrong. Period.

OK, if it’s not wrong because it’s harmful, then what makes it wrong? What about it is wrong? In what way is it wrong?

Anyway, I’m assuming your answer to the question I pose is that it may well NOT harm anyone. Thanks for answering that question I’m eager for your take on the rest.

 

[LilyM]

But stores sometimes sell something on credit. God would know you are going to marry tomorrow and so you can assume he’d be willing to give you the marriage rights on a credit basis. Maybe this could be argued to be just a venial sin. So maybe premarital sex is sometimes a grave sin but in special cases like this only a venial sin.

A store always makes you pay at least something upfront before you take the goodies home. Engagement is nothing - it’s an agreement to possibly pay in six months, a year, two years - that’s if you still like the TV then.

Honestly - since when is engagment any sort of real commitment? Engagements are broken off all the time. An engaged couple HAVEN’T made the ‘til death us do part’ promise - not yet. Their level of commitment is not remotely comparable to those of a married couple who have made that promise.

God knows more than we do how little those promises made at engagement really mean for most people, how uncertain the nature of the commitment is at that time. Marriage wouldn’t be a sacrament if engagement were ‘good enough’ in His eyes.

 

[Scholastic17]

OK, if it’s not wrong because it’s harmful, then what makes it wrong? What about it is wrong? In what way is it wrong?

Anyway, I’m assuming your answer to the question I pose is that it may well NOT harm anyone. Thanks for answering that question I’m eager for your take on the rest.

The goodness of an act commited comes not from the consequences of the act. An action can intrinsically be wrong. Premarital sex is such a case of an action being intrinsically wrong.

The sexual act is an imitation of the community of Divine Persons in God. Quoting St. Bonaventure:
Itinerarium Mentis in Deum 6:2:

Therefore, if you can, with the eye of your mind survey the purity of goodness, which is the pure act of the Principle loving [diligentis] in a charitable manner [caritative] with a love [amore], free and due and commingled from both,1 which is the fullest diffusion by means [per modum] of a nature and will, which is a diffusion by means of the Word, in which all things are said, and by means of the Gift, in whom all other gifts are given; (then) you can see, through the most high communicability of the Good, that the Trinity, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, is necessary. Among Whom it is necessary on account of Most High Goodness that there be a most high communicability, and from the most high communicability a most high consubstantiality, and from the most high consubstantiality a most high configurability, and from these a most high co-equality, and through this [per hoc] a most high co-eternity, and from all the aforesaid a most high co-intimacy, by which One is in the Other necessarily through a most high circumincession and One works [operatur] with an Other through the omnimodal2 indivision of the Substance and Virtue and Activity [operationem] of the Most Blessed Trinity Itself.

Just as in the Blessed Trinity we find a supreme interpenetration and conjoining of persons united in one substance tending towards the production of another person (in this case, the love of the Father and the Son tend towards the production of the Holy Ghost), so too is marriage an interpenetration and bringing together of two persons united in marriage, and this union tends towards the production of new persons (children).

To have sex in a way not conduscive to new life, or to have sex not in a state of marriage…this is to spit in the face of the Trinitarian God. It makes a mockery of the Trinity.

 

[jfhh]

A store always makes you pay at least something upfront before you take the goodies home. Engagement is nothing - it’s an agreement to possibly pay in six months, a year, two years - that’s if you still like the TV then.

Actually they don’t always do that.

Honestly - since when is engagment any sort of real commitment? Engagements are broken off all the time. An engaged couple HAVEN’T made the ‘til death us do part’ promise - not yet. Their level of commitment is not remotely comparable to those of a married couple who have made that promise.

I wasn’t saying all engaged couples have. I was saying that SOME have and that all can. There’s nothing stopping an engaged couple to in private make that promise and then later get officially married.

Let me be more clear.

An engaged couple is free if they choose to before getting married say in private to each other:

“I will love you faithfully body and soul til death to us part”

and the other could say the same.

This is the same committment. The only difference is societal recognition as husband and wife. The committment itself is the same. I’m not saying all engaged couples do this. Just some.

 

[jfhh]

Just as in the Blessed Trinity we find a supreme interpenetration and conjoining of persons united in one substance tending towards the production of another person (in this case, the love of the Father and the Son tend towards the production of the Holy Ghost), so too is marriage an interpenetration and bringing together of two persons united in marriage, and this union tends towards the production of new persons (children).

To have sex in a way not conduscive to new life, or to have sex not in a state of marriage…this is to spit in the face of the Trinitarian God. It makes a mockery of the Trinity.

Two problems.

Was premarital sex OK before the Trinity was revealed?

Are people who were and those who stil are under only the light of natural revelation and natural law then unable to discern that premarital sex is wrong?

If the answer to the 2nd is yes, then you have a third big problem, namely you are denying that premarital sex is against the natural law (since the natural law must in theory be accessible to man based on reason alone without supernatural revelation and it is a Catholic dogma that the Trinity is a mystery in the sense of requiring supernatural revelation to be known).

Trinitarian theology can shed more light on something already known to be against natural law apart from it, but it cannot establish that something is against natura law. Trinitarian theology can be a reflection upon natural law; it cannot play a role in its formation. If all you were trying to do was reflection, and not establishing a truth, then that’s all fine.

 

[LilyM]

An engaged couple is free if they choose to before getting married say in private to each other:

“I will love you faithfully body and soul til death to us part”

and the other could say the same.

This is the same committment. The only difference is societal recognition as husband and wife. The committment itself is the same. I’m not saying all engaged couples do this. Just some.

The nature of marriage is that it is a public commitment to each other, a public institution (hence the government having such interest in regulating and defining and controlling it) not just a private one.

Say whatever you like privately to each other until you’re blue in the face, until you say it in front of witnesses it aint a marriage and it ain’t the same thing as a marriage either, not legally, not from God’s point of view. Otherwise He’d talk about a man cleaving to and becoming one flesh (through sex, obviously) with his fiance and not his lawful-wedded wife.

 

[jfhh]

The nature of marriage is that it is a public commitment to each other, a public institution (hence the government having such interest in regulating and defining and controlling it) not just a private one.

Say whatever you like privately to each other until you’re blue in the face, until you say it in front of witnesses it aint a marriage and it ain’t the same thing as a marriage either, not legally, not from God’s point of view.

I know that but a private committment can be just as much of a committment as a public one. The committment depends on what is being promised and how sincere that promise is. If it is private it may not gain recognition, but it’s still there and God knows it’s there.

Besides in canon law, it is allowed for couples to do it privately in exceptional circumstances, namely in danger of death and literally when being Lost like on that island in Lost without a priest or deacon:

Can. 1116 §1. If a person competent to assist according to the norm of law cannot be present or approached without grave inconvenience, those who intend to enter into a true marriage can contract it validly and licitly before witnesses only:

1/ in danger of death;

2/ outside the danger of death provided that it is prudently foreseen that the situation will continue for a month.

vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P40.HTM

As long as you think you’ll be stuck on that island for at least one month

Anyway even if sex before marriage is imperfect, at least once you are married all that is blessed by God retroactively if you will. It’s not like He doesn’t want you to remember those moments with fondness. I’m sure you’ve seen the movie The Notebook. Do you really think God would want that couple to not remember with fondness and thanksgiving to God those memories of their premarital love making as well as all the other premarital memories? If we can remember those things with fondness, then it can’t be wrong to have done them; otherwise, we would be called to remember those things with regret.

 

[LilyM]

I know that but a private committment can be just as much of a committment as a public one. The committment depends on what is being promised and how sincere that promise is. If it is private it may not gain recognition, but it’s still there and God knows it’s there.

Besides in canon law, it is allowed for couples to do it privately in exceptional circumstances, namely in danger of death and literally when being Lost like on that island in Lost without a priest or deacon:

Can. 1116 §1. If a person competent to assist according to the norm of law cannot be present or approached without grave inconvenience, those who intend to enter into a true marriage can contract it validly and licitly before witnesses only:

1/ in danger of death;

2/ outside the danger of death provided that it is prudently foreseen that the situation will continue for a month.

vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P40.HTM

As long as you think you’ll be stuck on that island for at least one month

Well then, feel free to not marry if you’re in danger of death or if you’re stranded on a desert island. Actually scratch the desert island idea - you need WITNESSES, not just the two of you. Which kinda makes my point - at the very least it MUST be publicly done, in front of witnesses.

Neither of those exceptions apply to you in any case - and if they DID you’d probably find you’d be obligated to marry in church afterwards, if you survived your illness or were rescued from the island or what have you. They’re stopgap and exceptional measures, not ordinary rules for conducting a relationship in ordinary circumstances.

And my commitment to my mother can be just as strong as my commitment to my spouse - doesn’t make me married to her.

Marriage is a public commitment, it’s an inescapable and important part of its very definition. If you haven’t committed in public your relationship is fundamentally different in nature to marriage - the law recognises that differences, as does the Church.

As Genesis shows (the passage I quoted in my last post) even God recognises the difference, since it is only a wife, not a fiancee, who is to become one flesh, and only with her husband, not her fiance.

Anyway even if sex before marriage is imperfect, at least once you are married all that is blessed by God retroactively if you will. It’s not like He doesn’t want you to remember those moments with fondness. I’m sure you’ve seen the movie The Notebook. Do you really think God would want that couple to not remember with fondness and thanksgiving to God those memories of their premarital love making as well as all the other premarital memories? If we can remember those things with fondness, then it can’t be wrong to have done them; otherwise, we would be called to remember those things with regret.

This seriously is the biggest load of bs I’ve ever heard. God does NOT bless our sins retroactively. Pre-marital sex, whether it’s five minutes before or five years, is WRONG. And the mere fact that you ‘remember it fondly’ - means less than nothing. You’d probably remember ANY fornication or sexual sin fondly and without genuine regret - adultery, homosexual sex, bestiality, incest, you name it. Doesn’t make any of it right, or blessed by God, retroactively or otherwise.

God doesn’t want us to remember ANY of our sins fondly - and certainly not to blaspheme by thanking Him for them!

Rather they should be repenting that they so disrespected His holy sacrament of marriage as to presume to rights to each others’ bodies that belong ONLY to those who’ve taken their vows sacramentally in front of HIS minister and declared their commitment to each other in public.

 

[Snowy]

If you don’t think it’s wrong, you will do it whenever you want and not wait for the night before the wedding.

If something has held you from doing it for so long, that same thing should hold you for one more day.

Not waiting one more day would be like holding it during Mass because you know it would be wrong to relieve yourself on the pew, going to the restroom afterwards, and making a mess right in front of the toilet.

 

[Seatuck]

Because the church has bound premarital sex rightly to be a mortal sin. If mortal sins are not confessed prior to attempting to receive a sacrament- with the exception of Baptism- then there is no transmission of grace until that sin is confessed and absolved.
So what you have is a valid marriage without the Sacramental Graces from it. Very Sad and unfortunately today very common.