Marital debt duty to have sex

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If the father isn’t making sacrifices, he’s a sack, to put it politely.
chasingcars said:
Think about the stress of supporting your wife through pregnancy with a job as the breadwinner, with an employer that’s unsupportive of you taking time off because you’re not the mother. Ever been asked if your wife “**** that kid out yet” but you have to bear it, because you’re the income. Ever been denied more than 1 week of time off with your wife & baby because of deployments, work, etc? No mother ever has to suffer like that.
And men always, always have to sacrifice something when they have a baby and those sacrifices are huge. Having a baby usually causes damage to the father’s career and financial security because he now can’t accept that promotion, as it would require additional time away from his wife and children. This causes him being months or even years away from a better job, as people don’t see him as a “company man” since he’s focused on his family.
Mothers don’t have this problem. Usually they can scream “gender pay gap” if they don’t get a raise after being out post-delivery, while someone else has taken on their work.
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Fixed it for you.😁

Seriously, both the husband and wife make a sacrifice when they get married, and then when they have children. The sacrifice and contribution of either party shouldn’t be taken lightly. And the duties of who will be the primary child should be worked out as best as possible before marriage and having children.
 
I hope the posts above have given you a clearer view of Christian marriage.

A basic principle to internalize:
Love only exists in freedom. Love cannot be coerced.

That should inform all of your thoughts on this issue.
 
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chasingcars said:
…

Can anyone help me?
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Justified Abstinence

Abstinence can lead to a weakening of affection or a risk of impurity, yet here are some situations where refusal (abstinence) is ordered, even if not mutually agreed upon:
  1. if the spouse has been unfaithful to the extent of adultery (until forgiveness of the injured party).
  2. if there is a danger of the infection of disease.
  3. if the request is unreasonable.
  4. if it be under conditions that are genuinely harmful and distressing.
  5. if it is going to be abused by the sin of onanism.
  6. if a pregnancy would be fatal or highly dangerous.
  7. medical, eugenic, economic and social so-called "indications, may exempt from the positive debt (of fecundity) for the entire period of marital life, however natural sterile periods may be utilized.
  8. not allowing the proper amount of time or privacy.
T.G. Wayne states in Morals and Marriage -The Catholic Background to Sex:
“There is no obligation of asking for the due except when harm would be done by abstinence, a weakening of love, a risk of impurity. In this connection, husband and wife will learn to interpret and anticipate the wishes of each other.

By mutual consent married couples may abstain from intercourse either for a time or forever, not as evading the obligations of their state, but as an offering and sacrifice to God. They must not deny the existence of the right, but may forgo the exercise of it.”
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Re: Section V. Obligation, in T.G. Wayne - Morals and Marriage, published in 1936, EWTN has the document in their library:

http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARRIAGE/MORMAR.txt

From: Natural Family Planning
 
chasingcars said:
It’s true that having children usually means that fathers have to make sacrifices. However, sometimes they don’t and even when they do, it’s nothing compared to the sacrifices women have to make.
Think about pregnancy, childbirth and what they do to woman’s body. No father ever has to suffer like that.
And women always, always have to sacrifice something when they have a baby and those sacrifices are huge. Having a baby usually causes damage to the mother’s career and financial security because most mothers have to stay at home for a while after delivery and take care of the baby. This causes her being months or even years away from the work force which can be very detrimental to her career.
Fathers don’t have this problem. Usually they don’t stay at home taking care of their children even when they’re babies.
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Take a look at the people around you. In fact, look in the mirror. Is what you see good? Or do you see pain and inconvenience?

Every person you see is a gift, and if we all lived in fear of the gift, there would be no people, in fact you would not be here.
 
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That EWTN library document on marriage from 1936 is excellent, I thought about posting it earlier. When reading it, one can see that despite common perceptions, the Church’s ideas about marriage have not changed much from before Vatican II.

I would also recommend the following section of the excellent moral theology book The Way of the Lord Jesus by Germain Grise, in particular section 1G:

twotlj.org/G-2-9-E.html
 
Couples have conversations outside the bedroom and can make decisions on family, children, spacing of children, in a rational, thoughtful way. When a couple is dating, that’s the time they learn how to show affection without ending up having sex. It’s a time of chastity and love together. There is a certain amount of chastity involved in married life. However, the pill has introduced the idea that a woman is ‘always’ available. I think your worry of women being treated like sex dolls is more prevalent when the pill is used. With the pill there doesn’t seem to be a reason for chastity. In a Catholic marriage where the couple is practicing NFP there are times of chastity that honors God in the way he designed human sexuality.
 
PennyinCanada said:
There is a certain amount of chastity involved in married life.
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I agree with your post, indeed I like it. I will take exception to this one sentence. It is a misuse of the word chastity. I assume you mean there is a certain amount of abstinence involved in marriage life. There is a lot of chastity involved in married life, we are all expected to live fully chaste lives. Indeed, violating the marital debt is an extreme sin against chastity.

Just a clarification of the meaning of the word chastity.
 
chasingcars said:
No father ever has to suffer like that.
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I know one Father who suffered a bit more than that. It’s interesting that your thesis seems to revolve around the word “sacrifice”. Curiously, much of our faith does as well. Take for example this passage from Ephesians 5:

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her 26 to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, 27 that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 So [also] husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body.”

I wonder how husbands might love their wives as “Christ loved the church”?
 
chasingcars said:
Also, I do not know if this is a “real” teaching or just some traditionalist thing.
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This is indeed a teaching of the Church, even though it isn’t talked about very much anymore. As multiple people have already mentioned, it is found in scripture, and in many older moral manuals.
chasingcars said:
I believe that every woman (and man) has the right to bodily autonomy aka right to their own body which means that if they are not willing to have sex or get pregnant, they can refuse to do so and it is not a sin. I do not see any reason why getting married should change that. Women (and men) are human beings who have value and dignity
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In a sense, both the husband and wife forfeit this autonomy. If a woman does not want to get pregnant, she should not be married.
chasingcars said:
Husbands, on the other hand, can pay the debt without having to suffer any consequences.
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As others have already said, the conception of a child is not merely a side effect of the marital act, but THE END of it.
chasingcars said:
Pregnancy&childbirth and the damage caused by them (both physical and psychological) are not only painful, risky and bothersome but they also have a negative influence on woman’s career and financial security.
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Again, if a woman does not want to get pregnant, she should not get married. That is what you accept when you enter the marital covenant.
 
Very true.

Of course, it goes the other way. A woman who wants her man to be romantic can’t just expect it to happen either. She should also be treating her husband as a cherished spouse. I know of more than one man who has been emotionally abandoned by his wife because she is locked up in work, or with the kids, or with both. They stay faithful, they try to do the little things, but after awhile are exhausted with trying to reach out and being denied any kind of attention, yet again, because a project is due or junior has homework.

I know this happens to women too, I’m not saying it doesn’t. But so many times you just hear it from the female side.

Marriage is a mutual giving by both sides.

I think here we have a situation where the OP is a bit hung up on the verbiage (and I understand why). But in this case, I always interpreted it as like the man having to be like Christ. He has to die to himself. Neither partner should withhold sex for invalid reasons. Similarly, neither partner should pursue sex for invalid reasons.

Sex properly understood is the physical manifestation of love; so one spouse shouldn’t be pursuing it when it might be detrimental to the other. If it’s viewed that way, there will be no danger of having to give in or subject themselves to the risk.

One last thing; I’m somewhat skeptical of the ‘body autonomy’ argument. In a marriage, my body is to a very real extent co-owned by my wife. Because of that, I must remain faithful. I must avoid risky behavior that might endanger her. I can’t view porn or masturbate or do other things. (I know these are sins by themselves, but to me marriage adds an extra dimension to them).

Maybe it’s just because I hear it as a pro choice argument too much.
 
It’s called the marital right when you get Married you have that right over each other’s body I’ve abused this myself not tearing my wife with love but you don’t have a right to deny one without serious reason
 
You know that last point you had was spot on. This my body my choice thing has been repeated so often that it darkens our view of marriage and family. And that’s really the lie of all the birth control, abortion, sexual revolution, sexual freedom, and I’m sorry militant feminism that we have experienced in the last half century or so. It has completely turned women into objects, things to be used and disposed of. Marriage, and the mutual self giving and loss of control is really the freedom and respect that people try to find in an amoral gender separated world.
 
I spoke the phrase “marital debt” to my wife and she asked, “What on Earth are you talking about?!”
I reckoned it best not to answer.
 
Yes, I prefer, " your opportunity to get down" gets a better response.
 
Mortgage payments, car payments, and credit card debts, made after marriage.

😉
 
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chasingcars said:
When a husband initiates marital relations with his wife, he is not sacrifing anything but he’s demanding his wife to make a sacrifice (=taking the risk of getting pregnant).
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If this warped view of the world is a premise, there is no possible reasonable conversation.

The notion that pregnancy/children is a burden on women and a blessing for men is . . . hmm, no appropriate words to complete this with.

The couple is in marriage together, not as two separate persons.

hawk, married a couple of decades with four children and six grandchildren, none of which are burdens
 
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