So you keep saying but I’ve never once said men are exempt.
No way to get around that. Women just have more to lose so there needs to be a greater effort to teach women to guard their sexuality.So you keep saying but I’ve never once said men are exempt.
Men aren’t the bearers of life. Women are.
The practical consequences of not guarding sexuality, however, are not the same. WH is not discussing a moral imperative, but rather something born from practical concerns. Obviously the spiritual consequence is more significant that practical ones, but let us not pretend that a man and a now-pregnant single woman are equally affected.
That is completely irrelevant to everything that was said. No one was advocating a “boys will be boys” mentality; no one was saying that only one sex should be taught chastity; no one was saying that chastity was more important morally for one sex.
**Can. 1055 §1. **The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.
The better question is this: Why would a man not want this, except that he has no physical attraction for women or that some other vocation calls him to something even greater?
This then brings in doing good because of fear of consequences/punishment, rather then doing good for the sake of goodness, what is right.
I think the point Walking_Home was trying to make is that if you encourage people to think of women as the gatekeepers of sexuality it can lead men to get the idea that they aren’t responsible for being chaste, after all, if the gatekeeper is the woman then it is up to the woman to make sure that sex doesn’t happen. Encouraging men to think of women as the gatekeepers actually does lead to the “boys will be boys” attitude, because it encourages guys to think of the women as the ones who are responsible for chastity rather than encouraging them to take that responsibility upon themselves. Sure, insisting that women are the gatekeepers does not explicitly advocate for a boys will be boys mentality, but it does so implicitly which is where such ways of thinking become problematic. Yes it is very important to help ensure that women understand the physical consequences and risks of sex so that they can avoid unfortunate consequences, but that doesn’t mean we should start claiming that women are the ones in charge of chastity or purity, all that does is encourage men to be irresponsible.
If you want to believe the sociologists, the consequences of failing to make a happy marriage are greater for men than for women, because men enjoy greater health benefits as a result of a happy marriage than women do. Both men and women, however, reap health benefits from a happy marriage.
First, I entered this discussion in order to clarify, not to defend a particular stance. Second, if you believe that noting a factual state constitutes advocacy of a particular stance, then perhaps that is the problem. Third, we should strive to do good because it is good, but that does not mean that we must ignore all other incentives, especially if those incentives relate directly to why a good is good, such as having sex within the confines of marriage. Fourth, humans respond to a variety of incentives, and there is nothing wrong with that anyway.
Which no one was claiming in the first place.
That is irrelevant to anything I said.
I always find it interesting when people quote Eph 5:25 but fail to bring up Eph 5:21 only a few verses before. In verse 21 both husband and wife are told to be subject (or submit) to each other out of reverance for Christ. I don’t have complete answers for you as you try too understand this issue, but I do think it is important to make sure you don’t overlook any pieces of the puzzle. Not only are wives told to submit to their husbands, both spouses are told to submit to each other out of reverance for Christ.
Ok, so I’ve switched around the emphasis in the above passage, as I think it might be helpful for you to focus on some other aspects of what is being said, again, so that you don’t end up with only a partial understanding of what is being said here. The fact that the husband is looked on as having the chief place of ruling necessarily means that he is not looked on as sole ruler or as having complete authority over his wife or anything like that. Similarly, it says that it is not the wife’s job to obey her husband’s every request. But rather this passage is saying that the main point of the passage from Ephesians is that what needs to be avoided is the exagerated liberty which ignores the good of the family and, in particular which seperates the spouses from each other. In otherwords, according to this Encyclical, the point of the passage from Ephesians is that it is imperitive that husband and wife work together as one. That they must avoid selfishly doing whatever they feel like if in so doing they are damaging their union to each other, and ought rather to act for the good of their family and marriage, even when it is difficult. This passage from Ephesians is not saying that wives are not allowed to work, it is not saying that wives have to obey and submit to their husband’s preferences and opinions in everything, but rather it is encouraging both husband and wife to lose their selfishness and instead to live out their marriage in love for each other and their family, and to put the good of their marriage before their own personal desires.
Perhaps they were not trying to do so, but that is what I understood the claim that women are the gatekeepers of chastity as meaning. I assume that is also what Walking_Home took it to mean. I’m not trying to get into a fight here, I’m just trying to help clear things up. At the very least, calling women the gatekeepers of chastity, as though it is the womans job rather than the man’s to ensure that there is no sex before marriage is very prone to being understood as claiming that women are the ones in charge of chastity rather than men. Even if that is not how it is intended, the phrasing itself leads to that interpretation, which in turn leads to men thinking that they have no need to try and be responsible for their own actions. I have to say that if all anybody is trying to say is that women have greater risks so it makes sense that they would tend to be more careful, then thats totally fine, but calling women the gatekeepers of sexuality is an absolutely terrible way of trying to do that because it is so easily misunderstood as implying that it is women and women alone who are responsible for chastity.
I agree. I would have phrased that statement differently, but I do not think the poster was attempting to claim that men and women should be held to different standards.
You said: The practical consequences of sex for women are greater than for men.
Exactly.
Sexual relations are extremely important to men, and they are possessive. That’s why. Plus there is the religious component.
That is irrelevant to whether the practical consequences of premarital sex are greater for men or for women.