Just the term...."marital DEBT"

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Okay, am I the only one that thinks using the term “debt” as in “Marital Debt” to describe marital intimacy (aka sexual intercourse) between husband and wife removes the loving aspect of it? Debt always brings about a negative connotation, so why oh why must we keep using this term to describe sex? Yes, I know it’s been used in the past (but so have plenty of other words that we now try and delete from our vocabulary).

How about it, fellow CAF members? Let’s start making the intimacy shared in marriage (yep, you know…“sex”) a positive thing by choosing to not refer to that special “gift”, “embrace”, “act” as a “debt” !!! Besides, most of us know that the real marital debt is the mortgage 😉

Sex is a beautiful gift to share between husband and wife…not another bill to write a check for on payday!! Let’s start presenting it as such!!
 
It merely means that a spouse of either sex has the right to share marital intimacy with his/her spouse, and so it should not be withheld except for grave cause, such as ill health or both agreeing as a form of fasting for a brief time. It shouldn’t hold a negative connotation when understood that way. Knowing what it means it doesn’t say anything negative to me. 🙂
 
Marital debt is exactly the right term and to call it something else is to misunderstand what it is.
 
The Church’s current term to refer to the old marriage debt is “conjugal rights”. Its the same thing but the opposite side of the coin. Ultimately we have to recognize the right of our spouse to have sex with us and need to make sure that we’re not just waiting for the times when the desire is mutual.
 
Wow! No wonder we have so many threads about sex on here! Debt? Seriously? I’ll stick to calling it something a little less negative! And people wonder why Catholics are thought to have issues over sex? (and again, have so many threads about it here) Calling it a “debt” sure doesn’t help that any, now does it?
 
1ke said:
Marital debt is exactly the right term and to call it something else is to misunderstand what it is.
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Gee, I thought it was a loving act between a husband and wife…all these years I should have been treating it like another nasty bill I had to pay! :rolleyes:
 
LightBound said:
“Debt always brings about a negative connotation”
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I don’t think that is true. Let us hope that we pay our debts out of appreciation and a sense of justice.

Remember, what the Lord said in Exodus, “If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate.” Ex. 22:24-26.

Maybe the Church is misunderstood because the understanding of debt and the relationship between those who owe and those who are owed is a bit different than in secular society.
 
twoangels said:
The Church’s current term to refer to the old marriage debt is “conjugal rights”. Its the same thing but the opposite side of the coin. Ultimately we have to recognize the right of our spouse to have sex with us and need to make sure that we’re not just waiting for the times when the desire is mutual.
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Hmm, after thinking about it I almost prefer debt to conjugal rights. If we are thinking in terms of ourselves and not our spouse, debt, implies something I owe to my husband. A very loving concept if you think about it, and I thinking about him and his needs. But “conjugal rights” implies something I am entitled to, which tends to be a more selfish concept. Of course we can talk about the conjugal rights of the other spouse or the debt owed to me, but generally when thinking in terms of oneself, “debt” has the more selfless connotation. IMO
 
My landlords provide a clean and well maintained house for my family. In return for living here, I owe them the debt of rent each month. That is not “nasty”, it is something I am happy to pay.

Same thing for electricity and gas and cable, I get to enjoy these wonderful things, paying that debt is something I do joyfully, thanking God that I live where I can have luxuries that many people in this world cannot have.

How nasty a debt is depends on your attitude.
 
jilly4ski said:
Hmm, after thinking about it I almost prefer debt to conjugal rights. If we are thinking in terms of ourselves and not our spouse, debt, implies something I owe to my husband. A very loving concept if you think about it, and I thinking about him and his needs. But “conjugal rights” implies something I am entitled to, which tends to be a more selfish concept. Of course we can talk about the conjugal rights of the other spouse or the debt owed to me, but generally when thinking in terms of oneself, “debt” has the more selfless connotation. IMO
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Sex is something you are entitled to and that your spouse is entitled to. Regardless of if it is debt or rights, the point is that there is an obligation to have sex when you don’t feel like it. When I think of debt, I think of myself. Its my requirement, I have no right to refuse, almost I have no dignity. I owe my husband and I owe God. Whereas when I think of conjugal rights, I think of his rights. It gets me thinking about his needs, his wishes and the fact that he is indeed entitled to be loved by me sexually and that I should not selflishly deny him.

I think you’d have to overall have a “me” focused attitude to see “rights” as something selfish.
 
Castello said:
My landlords provide a clean and well maintained house for my family. In return for living here, I owe them the debt of rent each month. That is not “nasty”, it is something I am happy to pay.

Same thing for electricity and gas and cable, I get to enjoy these wonderful things, paying that debt is something I do joyfully, thanking God that I live where I can have luxuries that many people in this world cannot have.

How nasty a debt is depends on your attitude.
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This is a really bad analogy. Marriage is not about give and take. Its not a contract for services, it is a covenant between a man and a woman.
 
twoangels said:
This is a really bad analogy. Marriage is not about give and take. Its not a contract for services, it is a covenant between a man and a woman.
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It is not intended as an analogy for marriage but a way to look at the idea of “debt” as something other than “nasty”.
 
“Marital Debt”
never even heard of it, ha ha.

obligation to have sex when you don’t feel like it. When I think of debt, I think of myself. Its my requirement, I have no right to refuse, almost I have no dignity. I owe my husband and I owe God.

is this in the Cathechism too??

Hey if I"m not in the mood , he does not get it, but I can see a problem when one spouse is never in the mood, then theres a problem.
 
Luvtosew said:
“Marital Debt”
never even heard of it, ha ha.

obligation to have sex when you don’t feel like it. When I think of debt, I think of myself. Its my requirement, I have no right to refuse, almost I have no dignity. I owe my husband and I owe God.

is this in the Cathechism too??

Hey if I"m not in the mood , he does not get it, but I can see a problem when one spouse is never in the mood, then theres a problem.
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Sigh… This is a teaching of the Church (remember, if the Catechism contained every teaching it would be 10 feet thick).

vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html
 
Canon Law

Canon 1084 §3 … The reason behind this impediment is explained in the Summa Theologica:[17] “In marriage there is a contract whereby one is bound to pay the other the marital debt: wherefore just as in other contracts, the bond is unfitting if a person bind himself to what he cannot give or do, so the marriage contract is unfitting, if it be made by one who cannot pay the marital debt.”
 
OP – why do you think obligation and love are mutually exclusive? We are obligated to go to Mass on Sundays, does that mean that we don’t really love God? We make wedding vows, swearing to love one another in sickness and in health. That’s a form of obligation as well, and is certainly not contradictory to love.
 
twoangels said:
This is a really bad analogy. Marriage is not about give and take. Its not a contract for services, it is a covenant between a man and a woman.
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And a covenant means - guess what - obligations and/or rights on the sides of all parties. It’s essentially a fancy word for a contract.

God and Abraham made a covenant. Abraham had the obligation to be faithful to God, God had the obligation to help and protect Abraham and his descendants so that they would be a numerous people.

This understanding is referenced in several places in scripture, such as after the golden calf incident when Moses reminds God of His promises to Abraham. And in the psalms, when David pleads for God’s protection for Israel and himself, reminding God that it is ‘for the sake of Abraham your servant’ or equivalent words. Mary also mentions it in the Magnificat.
 
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