Marital debt duty to have sex

[chasingcars]

Hi!

I am having a really serious crisis of faith right now. It started after I read about a Church teaching called “marital debt” which means that in marriage, both spouses have a duty/obligation to have sex if the other spouse wants to. Whether it means that a person needs to consent to sex occasionally (2-3 times a month, year etc.) or every time their spouse makes a request is still unclear to me.

Also, I do not know if this is a “real” teaching or just some traditionalist thing. They seem to have some “teachings” that are more conservative than what the Church actually teaches such as the idea that man is the head of the household or that wives should be stay-at-home-moms.

But it makes me angry. 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, not objects that can be used like sex-dolls.

I read some websites about this issue and they claim that marital debt is equal for both spouses because it applies equally to both.
I disagree.

Even if the rule is same for both spouses, it doesn’t make it equal because only the wife has to suffer the consequences of paying the debt. Husbands, on the other hand, can pay the debt without having to suffer any consequences.

Let’s put it here simply:

1. 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). 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.
   Also, in worst case scenario, pregnancy&childbirth can kill the woman and cause her damages that last for the rest of her life.
2. But when a wife initiates marital relations with her husband, she’s not demanding him to make any kind of sacrifice because she herself is the one who makes the sacrifice. Even if the woman gets pregnant, the husband (obviously) suffers no pain, no damage and his career will not suffer either.
   His life and health will not be in danger.

We are equal but we are also different and “one-size-fits-all” rules like this that don’t take the differences into account are harmful.

Can anyone help me?

 

[1Lord1Faith]

Some people overthink the “marital debt”. I don’t think it’s a formal term but I suppose it refers to married people are supposed to have sex. How often they do it is up to them, not opinionated internet bloggers.

 

[adamhovey1988]

If I was married, and and my wife did not want to do it, we wouldn’t. Vice versa, too.

 

[lilypadrees]

Never heard that expression nor viewed it as an obligation.

 

[JamesATyler]

Hi. I don’t have answers. I just wondered if a married couple should be open to having children. It seems like it would be hard to be open to sexual activity but not children, as a practicing Catholic.

 

[LittleFlower]

@Dacinom has out it quite succinctly.

There is also an encyclical of Pope Pius XI on Christian marriage found here:

https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-...ents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html

1. This mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof.

1. By this same love it is necessary that all the other rights and duties of the marriage state be regulated as the words of the Apostle: “Let the husband render the debt to the wife, and the wife also in like manner to the husband,”[28] express not only a law of justice but of charity.

Having children is risky—pregnancy and childbirth is for many not a walk in the park. That is why it is such a blessing to have children in marriage so that you are supported, cared for, and loved during, what can be, a very difficult time.

We are also called to discern our family planning to ensure that this environment is maintained. Some couples practice NFP, others don’t. This is something for a couple to discern and discuss—preferably before they get married and at any time during the marriage where there might be a disconnect. Communication is key in maintaining a good relationship.

If either is emotionally manipulating the other, then it is important to discuss it with your priest and/or seek professional help. Neither spouse should withhold intimacy as a form of punishment or similar, and neither can at any time force intimacy either.

Intimacy is given, and only when both parties can give should they proceed.

 

[Hoosier-Daddy]

When I got married my wife and I became one. The marital act is just that. And I agreed to it. i “gave” myself to her.

 

[poche]

On another forum when people complain about their wives and having trouble with the marital debt I have to ask when was the ladt time they brought her flowers and when was the last time they told her that they loved her?

 

[LittleFlower]

On another forum when people complain about their wives and having trouble with the marital debt I have to ask when was the ladt time they brought her flowers and when was the last time they told her that they loved her?

Amen to that! Also are they keeping up appearances—are they groomed, do they regularly wash, take care of themselves? Do they try to give their wife pleasure?

The same applies to the other half as well.

 

[BornInMarch]

Some people overthink the “marital debt”. I don’t think it’s a formal term but I suppose it refers to married people are supposed to have sex. How often they do it is up to them, not opinionated internet bloggers.

I think you’re right. In a healthy marriage, unless it’s a josephite marriage, the husband and wife sometimes have sex.

If one of them just never wants to have sex, then they should fix whatever is causing this (for example, if a man doesn’t want to have sex with his wife because he has come to resent her, they should go to marriage counseling).

 

[mrsdizzyd]

Let’s put it here simply:

1. 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). 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.
   Also, in worst case scenario, pregnancy&childbirth can kill the woman and cause her damages that last for the rest of her life.

I’m more concerned that this is how you view pregnancy. Pregnancy is not the negative consequence of sexual relations between husbands and wives. Married couples should be open to life. Children are a blessing.

As others have said, the marital debt teaching is taken way too far by some people on the internet.

 

[jeeter]

My understanding is that it’s supposed to be a mutual giving of one’s self to one’s spouse. I wouldn’t force relations with my wife, and she wouldn’t force relations with me. Mutual respect and love, folks.

1. But when a wife initiates marital relations with her husband, she’s not demanding him to make any kind of sacrifice because she herself is the one who makes the sacrifice. Even if the woman gets pregnant, the husband (obviously) suffers no pain, no damage and his career will not suffer either.
   His life and health will not be in danger.

No, it means that when a husband engages in marital relations, he’s potentially taking on the burden of having to work more years to support his wife and additional children, instead of retiring and enjoying the later years of his life. As far as health and life not being in danger, men already have a lower life expectancy than women, and account for 90+ % of workplace deaths, so now he has to work longer…

I don’t mean to sound negative or bitter, but both men and women make sacrifices when they have a family, and open the door to making sacrifices when they engage in marital relations. It’s called love, folks.

 

[chasingcars]

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.

 

[Convert3]

I’ve known several stay at home dads, including one of our sons. Our daughter in law has the better job and has benefits. I know the mom traditionally is expected to stay home, but it’s a decision that has to be made as a couple.

 

[fide]

The Catechism has some things to say about this:

1643 “Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values.”

The Catechism says more about this openness “to fertility”:

The openness to fertility
1652 “By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory.”<GS 48 # 1; 50>
Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said: “It is not good that man should be alone,” and “from the beginning made them male and female”; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day.<GS 50 # 1; cf. Gen 2:18; Mt 19:4; Gen 1:28>
1653 The fruitfulness of conjugal love extends to the fruits of the moral, spiritual, and supernatural life that parents hand on to their children by education. Parents are the principal and first educators of their children.<Cf. GE 3>** In this sense the fundamental task of marriage and family is to be at the service of life**.<Cf. FC 28>

 

[Genesis315]

The “marital debt” is straight out of scripture. Some translations, like the DR, actually use the word “debt.” The RSV-CE below is more direct:

Bible:

1 Cor. 7:3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not refuse one another except perhaps by agreement for a season, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, lest Satan tempt you through lack of self-control.

Of course, the law of charity must always prevail (do unto others as you would have them do unto you). Each spouse should take into account the well-being and feelings of the other. What this precept does guard against is withholding or granting sex as a way of manipulating or punishing the other person, etc.

 

[fide]

the right to bodily autonomy aka right to their own body

and, “she herself is the one who makes the sacrifice.”

The “rights” are not absolute, and the “sacrifice” is not a bad thing.
When the “two become one flesh” in marriage, that “oneness” means something real.

And to see the goodness - not the badness - of sacrifice, look to the Cross. Jesus laid down His very life for our good. A “sacrifice” has a history: “Middle English: from Old French, from Latin sacrificium; related to sacrificus ‘sacrificial’, from sacer: ‘holy’.”

When something is “sacrificed” it is given to God, it is become a holy thing, a gift to Him in Thanksgiving. Thus the “sacrifice” of the Mass, Holy Eucharist, and a sharing in His very Being, body, blood, soul and divinity.

This culture we now live in knows little of the value of self-giving love, of doing and giving for the good of another. Yet that is precisely the meaning of love: to set the good of the other above oneself. This is divine love, holy charity, a gift given in Baptism (in potency). We are called to grow in living in that holy virtue, charity, along with the virtues of faith and hope. All these we are given in Baptism, but “in potency.” It is our “duty”, our “responsibility” to bring those potencies to actuality - to grow in living them in real life.

Pray for the light, the wisdom, and the grace - as we all should - to live our Baptismal graces.

 

[1ke]

But it makes me angry. 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.

Yes it is really a teaching of the Church.

You do have bodily autonomy. And you give some of it up when you make a wedding vow. You pledge fidelity in perpetuity, and you exchange the right to intercourse with your spouse. It is not an unlimited right, but it is a right both parties have. To refuse without a good reason, is a sin against your spouse.

Don’t want to exchange that right? Don’t get married.

 

[1ke]

Can anyone help me?

I think your view of pregnancy and childbirth/child rearing is very concerning. Have you talked to a counselor about these fears and way of viewing married life? You are not your own person in marriage. The two become one. If you have some deep seated issues, fears, or phobias, I encourage you to get some help. Because marriage is a self sacrificing endeavor, and if you don’t want to or mentally can’t, you may not be called to marriage.

 

[tafan2]

Properly understood, the marriage debt says that one spouse cannot unreasonably refuse sex. Or stated another way, a spouse cannot refuse a reasonable request for sex. To do so is a grave sin against chastity. Now, the key word here is reasonable. A person is never a sexual slave to their spouse. The Church provides little concrete definitions of what would be reasonable, it is left up to our prudential judgement. But there are many reasons that are commonly thought of as morally acceptable. These most certainly include fatigue, illness, physical/mental abuse, infidelity, or knowing that artificial birth control will be used. In addition, even if a refusal is unreasonable, a spouse never has a right to force sex on the other spouse. In addition, one spouse might request sex (in whatever way naturally developes in most marriages) and not realize it is unreasonable at that point in time.

The marriage debt is to be seen as a positive thing, not negative. We give ourselves totally to our spouses when we are married. Sex is part of that. It is an important part of how we express our love to each other.

There are those on this forum who will say unreasonably refusing sex is only a sin if one makes it a habit or does it often. I do not believe that is the case, morality is about individual acts.

If a woman’s health is in danger due to a possible pregnancy, hat would always be a reasonable cause for refusal. But it should not come to that, as the couple should understand that situation and have decided together on how to act accordingly.

As to fear of pregnancy affecting the woman’s career or financial security, this would be something the couple should determine together, in a loving manner. In general, one spouse cannot decide to practice NFP without the other spouse’s agreement. We cannot withhold our fertility from our spouse.

I hope this helps. Unreasonable refusal of sex is very damaging to marriages, there is a reason why it is immoral.