The Bible on Sex, Love, and Marriage

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Lastly, I don't know if you're aware of the inherent mysoginy of your writing. True, you state that God created man and woman equal, but within the same paragraph you clearly denote man as "serving the function of headship", and woman as "functioning as a submissive helper", which pretty much blasts out any ideas of equality.

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It's more of a role assigning lesson from the Bible's perspective. The man is equal to the woman but with a different role like a laptop computer would be to a marriage. You have a display and a CPU section. You need both to work or you don't have much of a laptop, especially if you want to work on word processing or a PP presentation while flying to your next meeting. The display and the cpu are equal in importance to this task but each serves in a different capacity. Now the example isn't a one for one linear comparison to all of the dynamics of traditional marriage so don't over-scrutenize the piss out of it, but I think you get the idea.To find someone who is exactly an equal to you would make for a good friendship but a troublesome arrangement in marriage. If you are equals in a democracy, then either you both agree all of the time or you will have a war on your hands. The second that one or the other submits his/her will to the other, then you are practicing the marriage relationship according to a Biblical perspective, reguardless if you choose to acknowledge any authority to the Bible. You are practicing Biblical marrital love for each other even if that submission means you meet somewhere in between both of your positions as a compromise.In Post-Bibilcal USA, marriage is not a good idea because of the mindset that everyone is looking for someone to be their perfect equal instead of a very good compliment. I think that once you get outside of the tax benefits that marriage gives, it offers little additonal benefit to modern thinking Americans. Long term committed relationships flourish outside of marriage in this country, even with children involved, and when the split arrives, it's easier on all if traditional marriage complications are not present. Biblical marriage survives on the premise that it's 90% give and 10% take on both parties and to stay together gives honor to God.Once you get away from the idea of there being a creator or god, then the Biblical scale of economy becomes apparent as impossible and flawed and a 50/50 give and take equation is adopted as being more attainable and certainly more fair. Since there is no creator, there is no need to honor the creator by staying married even when it gets rough.(Usually this occurs when one or both parties believe that the equation has tilted 60/40 or worse to the other's side) You can very much honor the other person in a long term committed relationship outside of marriage as is happening in this country, and when the going gets rough and the split is around the corner, it becomes a dis-honor to try to keep each other saddled in a bad relationship when a better one could be just around the corner.From an educated, progressivly thinking, post-biblical American perspective, the Bible's instruction on love and sex is equally limiting and constraining.

You didn't read all of my post and you are quoting some of it out of context.

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I gotta tell you, guy... I can't imagine the idea of marrying someone I couldn't also be friends with.

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Find anywhere in my post where I said that you should't be friends with someone who you are going to marry. You know what I'm saying and instead of responding to it you are trying to play a game here.People who are exactly equal make good friends. People who compliment each other well also make good friends. The latter can also make a good marriage if the other dynamics are right. I would not recommend someone getting married unless they were friends with the person first. This actually happens occasionally in our society when people marry a body rather than for a relationship and then they find out later on that this person is not a good companion for the long haul. That's why marriage in our society is a dead institution. The media has placed unrealistic expectations on women to obtain a physical image and have planted a notion in men of what they should be looking for in a wife. Unfortunatly, what they say men should seek in a wife is little different than what they should seek in a one night stand.

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Except, of course, that the Bible does not reccomend that you meet somewhere in the middle, submitting to one another. It reccomends that the woman submit to the man.

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You read the Bible like you read my post. The Bible is clear on the roles of each in a marriage but it does not infer that the woman is in a lesser position than the man. The theme in marriage according to the Bible is that wives submit to the husband and the husband love his wife sacrificially. The second part of that is ALWAYS convienently left out when people are trying to slam the Bible.I'm not saying that the Bible is the way for our society in America since our culture has evolved futher on from it. But knowing that, it is incorrect to pull choice phrases out of it and then either try to force a partner to adhere to it, or use the choice phrase to attack it.The Biblical equation (however non-applicable it is to us today) is that the wife submits to the husband - 90/10, and the husband loves sacrificially the wife - 90/10. That is the Biblical perspective and if the husband is loving sacrificially, then he is giving 90% and taking 10% which means that both partners come out equal but in different roles.

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I don't see why equality is troublesome - perhaps you could explain. Since equality makes for a good friendship, why doesn't it make for a good marriage - your spouse should be your best friend, after all.

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The problem comes from the fact that you are using the term "equality" in place of "exact equal" to sumerize my post which is not what I was trying to say. So let me attempt to convey a seemingly easy idea again and see if I can do no better.I believe equality in a relationship is a healty thing. You will probably find that people who are good friends before they marry are of similiar mind set, have similiar intellegence, enjoy some of the same activities or atleast enjoy each other's company reguardless of what they are doing. That is an equality where both are contributing at a healty degree to the relationship.Exact equals refers to if both of you were alpha male type personalities, both craved the drivers seat in all situations, both felt that their intellegence gave them the leg up on every issue, or both were exactly the same amount of submissive and neither would take the reings in a situation no matter what. So exact equals would amplify the faults of both parties and drown out the positive attributes of each.Like in a V-Twin motorcycle engine where the timing is set so both pistons are driving down on the crank at the same time and no power is made from the fuel but the internal parts begin to stress and break. But in a V-Twin with the timing set for optimum power and torque, the back piston leads and fires first and determines the firing order but the front piston always gets to fire and recieves a benefit from the momentum of the crank from the lead piston's action. The lead piston then receives momentum from the second and it fires contributing to the back pistons next stroke.I also agree with you that your spouse should be your best friend but the Bible predicts that this will be difficult to obtain and it seems in society that this is true. For women who are in relationships with men where the man is NOT giving 90% and taking MORE than 10%, it takes very little effort and just a few choice phrases given at the right time by another man, to work his way in to the scene and reak havoc on the relationship.

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It may be my own craziness, but I don't see this as a particularly healthy view, conducive to a lifelong partnership.

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You are exactly right about that. According to the Biblical model of marriage, whenever one party attempts to subjugate the other for any reason, you end up in a battlefield and if one emerges as the victor, by default both loose because the Bible claims that the 2 become one.

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The further implication is that marriage, by its very nature, is a battlefield. Sure, you lay out a plan for marriage to work despite its being a battlefield, but that plan is simply that one side has to surrender. This, of course, does not change the husband and wife being forced into the role of adversaries, it only proclaims one the victor.

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I think that this result is a product of human selfishness more than any Biblical aftermath. In the vast majority of secular relationships, both parties go into it thinking mostly of what they are going to get out of the relationship and not how much work they are going to have to put in to the relationship. At best, a girl might notice something that she doesn't like about the guy but thinks "I'll change that in him once we're married". Problem is, she'll never do that no matter how much work she puts in to it. People are on their absolute best during the dating phase and if it's troubleing then, it will be a monster when the normal person appears and the dream person dissappears.It's kind of like the flea and dog relationship. The flea gets a free home, a free ride and a free meal. The dog gets nothing. But in American marriages, it's mostly made up of 2 fleas so you can see the battleground when neither gets what they hoped for out of the relationship but niether ever planned on how to put in to the thing in the first place.The Biblical model, (for what it's worth today) places emphasis on the putting in to the relationship and speaks far less about taking out of it the reward.This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 10-22-2004 07:23 PM

It means that they are not giving you carte blanche rule over them but that they reassure you that no matter how bad a decission turns out that you make or how hard things get, they will be right there along side with you pulling the plow as a team and reasurring you the whole way. Now if your spouse was like that and you knew she was committed to you like that and would do anything for you to the point where it caused her to sacrifice her own wishes, you are telling me that you could not look on here with complete mature love? You'ld look down on her for being that committed to you? You'ld loose repect for her? You'ld think less of her for thinking the world of you?

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How can you love another adult in a mature way if they submit to you 90% of the time.

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Hell no you wouldn't. You'ld know everything there is to possibly know about her or as much as is humanly possible and you'ld be doing everything you could for her to make her feel secure, happy and loved according to how SHE views those nessesities, even if it means that you have to sacrifice some of your own wishes out of life.That is the 90/10 equation from the Biblical perspective and since the Bible says that the man is the head of the house, it is his responsiblilty to lead by loving his wife sacrificially FIRST, without the expectation of receiving in return. But the Bible also states that if the man follows the precepts faithfully and intently, the wife will reciprocate by natural design.This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 10-22-2004 07:36 PMThis message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 10-22-2004 07:37 PMThis message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 10-22-2004 07:38 PM

I think that you agree with me at least slightly then that Biblical marriage is non-applicable in Post-Christian America. The problem is, even in the majority of so called Christian homes, the husband is not taking the lead as per the Bible's specification and sacrificing himself for his wife. If in the case of your husband, if he was doing this for you on his own without expectation of anything other than the satisfaction of knowing that he is following the Biblical principal, then you would have little to fear about being disrespected by him in the decision making process.

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I think the world of my spouse; I just don't automatically support everything he does just because he is a male. I would especially resent it if he thought he had the right to simply overrule me when we disagreed about something.

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See, your spouse hasn't been a leader to you according to this Biblical equation of 90% give and 10% take because you are very protective of your rights and power in the relationship. The Bible spells out very clearly of just how much power the wife has in the relationship and it is immence. The wife is to be a conselor and advisor to the husband and the family's financial accountant. The wife is to be imtimantly involved in all of the planning and execution of matters within the household. The Bible infers that the wife is to be an intelectual equal to the husband but not an executive equal.So from the Biblical perspective, if you as a wife are intimately involved with every faccet of the family daily matters, an intelectual equal to your husband, a conselor and advisor to him and he is practicing the equation of 90% give and 10% take in the relationship and his primary responsibity to you is your welfare and security, then being disrespected by him according to the Bible would be as big a concern to you as being traded to aliens for a glass of cactus juice.I'm not saying that your marriage is not doing it right or wrong, I'm just explaining the Bible's instruction on it. From a modern American perspective, there really is no right or wrong marriage. Just if the situation lends itself to be better in another arrangement, you are wasting heartbeats staying in the current one. You only get so many heartbeats in life and you don't know what that number is, so plan for the future but live for the here and now because that's the only thing you can verify.That's the difference between the Biblical perspective which states that there is an eternal accounting for what happens here verses a logical modern scientific perspective which states that an eternal consequence is ridiculous. If the Sun were to supernova tomorrow, then Hitler's life and deeds are inconsequential, however from the Biblical perspective, he's got some splain'in to do.But in America, few have use of this antiquated Biblical formula and again the 50/50 rule applies. Your concerns as you posted them are very well warrented and you should be on guard even though you think the world of each other.That is why if people insist on marriage for whatever reason in this country, things like pre-nums are a good idea to protect your assets that you've worked hard for.

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Second, the majority of long-term couples I know do consider each other their best friends, so I'm not sure what you are basing your 'society' idea on...

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Best friends do argue and fight and disagree. But it's rarer for best friends to drag each other into court and fight over assets than it is for married couples to in divorce court. Look at the stats in this country and ask yourself if these people are truly "best friends" or if it's just a cute title that's affectionately given to each other just like "For better of for Worse". As soon as the better leaves and worse starts to barely come into the picture, the "till death do us part" gets re-written to "I swear I'll take every last cent from you, you rancid worthless piece of crap!!"

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First, where does the Bible comment on this specifically? Second, the majority of long-term couples I know do consider each other their best friends, so I'm not sure what you are basing your 'society' idea on...

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AS far as the Bible's prediction of a "best friends" type relationship between husband and wife, read Genesis chapter 3 concerning God's decree to Adam and Eve during the post forbidden fruit eating episode.

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Any student of math would know that "exact equal" is redundant. "Equal" and "exact equal" mean the same thing.

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I'm not a math student so my terminology was not filtered through that type of mindset. But if you had an orange on one side of a balance scale, and several calibrated weights on the other side and the scale balanced, then they are equal. Are they exact equals? Well, I'll let your math student take a bite out of the calibrated weight and I'll eat the orange. That's what I ment by equal as far as importance without being equal in construction.

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Really, I still don't understand why you are seemingly arguing in favor of the 90/10 model over the 50/50 model.

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I'm not argueing for any equation. I'm just explaining the Bible's position on the matter. I think that you will find that I said that I'm not in favor of marriage in this country, but rather loose co-habitation arrangements in order to cut down on the legal mess of divorce. If children are involved, then the courts decide who pays for them because your daughter is always your child but your wife and husband can change easily through the legal system.

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Have you had a chance to thing about:
Ever have a boss or other authority figure demand you do something pointless, despite your logical arguments to the pointlessness of it? How did you feel? Frustrated and annoyed, or full of love and respect?

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I'm a carreer military person so yes, this happens on an hourly basis while on duty. But I do not overlay a worker/supervisor relationship to a marriage. The Bible says the 2 become one in marriage but not in any other contractual agreement. So a 90/10 relationship in a work place would mean that I could not fulfill my 90/10 obligation to my spouse. I give my best at work and am compensated for it and expect to be. But Biblical marriage requires me to sacrifice myself and my wants and desires for the desires of my wife which is in a different echeleon from my work requirements.You keep critisizing the 90/10 Biblical equation but I am doubting if you've read the text enough to understand what it is requiring. It's easy to scuff if off as rediculous when you just read about it in a post, but to read the text thouroghly and then comment is something different. You are making the assumption that it doesn't work.It doesn't work in America because if someone can even say that they are giving 90% and only taking 10%, they are already filled with too much self pride and it betrays a more accurate equation of them taking 75% and giving 25% but with great fanfare whenever even 1% is given back.

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Just out of curiosity, are you following the biblical marriage model and how is it working for you?

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No, not to the letter as the Bible has instructed. I follow it about like I follow the speed limit. I know exactly what I should be doing because the signs are posted, but as in speeding, I deem my own determination on how fast I can go in my vehicle over what the law says 40% of the time. It's my own selfishness and pride that allows me to speed when the sign says 65mph. And I can say, "well, everyone else is doing 74mph" and even "I would be unsafe to others if I only go 65 because I would impeed the natuaral flow of traffic", but the law still says 65 mph and if everyone obeyed it there would be less accidents.In like manner I apply the Biblical principals but my own selfishness prevents me from completeing the 90/10 equation correctly. Actually, I'm further from it than closer to achieving it. But I do sacrifice for my wife on many occations and on the big issues of life along with the small, I just don't have the ratio down yet. I can also say that when I do give sacrificially to her, the results are not always imediate but there are results and I can always trace it back to my leading by sacrificial giving to her.I can also say that she is my intellectual equal and follows the precepts better than I and so when I do sacrifice for her it means more because it came as sacrificial giving and not sacrificial negociation.

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Does that sound like a good trade to you? It doesn't, to me - it sounds like a betrayal of everything our country, and you, stand for. I think that's what Schraf is getting at - it doesn't matter how much she might benefit from someone else making the final decisions - she still loses so much by not making decisions.

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That's fine, then don't get married. Keep the relationships more along a loose co-habitation type of arrangement with the trading of financial benefits, sexual favors and meaningful companionship as the forces that hold the relationship together instead of a legally binding document. This way, she doesn't loose anything in the decision making process and when a real difficult ball breaker issue arrises, she can vote out the party and vote in another. If both parties want to maintain total autonomy in all issues, then why do they choose to model their relationship after a Biblical covanent that more resembles a King relationship?If you hold to what the Bible says, Marriage is a Biblical doctrine started in the garden of eden with God marring the first 2 human beings on the planet - Adam and Eve. It's not a secular covenant although it is practiced as such worldwide.The 10 commandemts are found to be an offense to the vast majority of people in this country and the courts reflect this majority stance by consistantly removing them from public property. You will not murder, You will not steal, You will not commit adultry, You will not lie, You will not covet are all offensive to our society. That's why we are moving away from adultry being wrong as the most popular show on TV is Desperate Housewives. It's not wrong to lie anymore if it benefits you - especially in bussiness, stealing is OK, it's getting caught that sucks, we are taught to covet by the magazines that are oriented to each genre, and murder is slowly loosing ground as bad by the prision terms that are actually being served. So you get rid of the 10 commandments and shape society accordingly.That makes perfect sence from an evolutionary viewpoint, which is the predominant viewpoint in our education system. So why not do away with Legal marriage and just co-habitate? The only benefit is the Tax breaks from the government. Get rid of them and from a secular point of view, there is no benefit to marriage especially due to no-fault divorce.

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From my own personal (anecdotal) experience, the healthiest married couples I know are best friends. These are not self-declared best friends, as you've described. While they've never said "Hey everybody, we're best friends!", it is obvious from their love and respect and communication and trust, and perhaps most importantly, how they look at each other.

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That's right. The healthiest MARRIED couples are best friends. That's common sence and I agree with you there. But something on the order of 60% of all marriages in this country end in divorce. Of the remaining, how many of them are healthy? Not all of them I know. How many more failed marriages would there be if the co-habitating couples chose to get married instead of keeping it a looser arrangement legally? And these are marriages who are doing this on a 50/50 give and take basis. Again, when one party has finally had enough of their 50% being the smallest - see ya.So my arguement was not that Biblical marriage is better. It is much better for those who can practice it faithfully but the divorce rate in the Christian church is worse than in the secular world so what does that say about how well they are practicing it? It says that they arn't doing it any different than the secular world but their expectations are higher which is like lighting the firecracker from both ends.The original question that I started responding to was what does the Bible have to say about marriage and I was attempting to represent the Bible's view on the subject. But I also said that Biblical marriage is non-applicable in today's American Post-Christian society because of what it calls for vs. what people are willing to give. Trying to adhere to a Biblically based form of marriage in a modern liberal, logical and secular society is borderline schitzophrenic.And once you get the government out of the bussiness of marriage, there is no benefit to it. Even from a security point of view it's not nessessary because our govenment has provission for anyone who is impoverished, and it sounds like the role of government in entitlement distribution is going to grow even more prominent in the short term.

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You didn't really answer the main point of the exercise, (not that you have to), which was whether or not being forced to follow through on a decision that you deem pointless makes you well up with respect and love for the person that made that decision, or does it cause frustration?

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Show me one person who would not be fustrated by something like that and I'll show you a liar. They're called relational problems and even following the Biblical precepts to the best of your ability does not guarentee a problem free ride. Only if you are perfect at it will this happen and you will not find any perfect poeple on this planet.This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 10-24-2004 04:34 PM

What I am trying to convey is that if the Biblical Marriage model is bad for women as is being supposed by those debating me, then abandon the covenant of marriage. I was using the 10 Commandments as an exapmle of our society doing this by removing them and then modifying our culture to be more accepting of the acts that the Commandments spoke of not to do.

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...or change what it means to be married.

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I think that we are in the process of changing what it means to be married right now in the last 25 years by making it very easy to get divorced and possibly re-writing the boundries of who can become legally married via the Gay Marriage initiatives.So from my perspective it means far less to actually be married now then it did 25 years ago so fast forward 25 years from now and where might we be?

OK, I see what you mean. I'll abandon that part of the disscussion and get back to what Biblical Marriage is and what the Bible says concerning it and let everyone else decide (through debate) it's legitimancy and relativity.Sorry for the straying and I hope I didn't turn anyone off from this thread.Lizard

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Where is it written that ALL marriages, everywhere in the entire world, MUST be based upon a certain interpretation of the Christian Bible?

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They don't have to be. But the Bible's example and instruction for marriage does not change through time although cultures bend around it. Traditions change but the Biblical instruction of the 90/10 equation remains the same.Secular marriage has an evolving doctrine defining it as has been witnessed in our own country in recent history. 50 years ago, pre-nums were rare but now in many 2nd marriages they are present. I have seen on one bussiness TV station that a woman has a show about marriage in the corporate world and highly recomends pre-nums to protect assests. So going into the marriage, the protection of assets is paramount to the individual, verses the longivity of the marriage.Getting married today has evolved into something like buying car insurance with a Tuxedo on. So if marriage is constantly evolving in the secular world, there must be a reason for it, and I say it's because the 50/50 equation isn't working.The Bible says that the 90/10 equation works but it is impossible for a secular person to subscribe to it because it means that you are held to a higher standard than yourself or your spouse. The secular standard has no higher authority because there is no grand design or creator to assume that role. The closest to it is government. So, will government keep people on the 90/10 equations in their marriages? YEAH, RIGHT.This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 10-24-2004 05:00 PMThis message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 10-24-2004 05:02 PM