What’s So Good About Married Sex?
The conversation the other day in response to my post about the virginity fetish got me thinking about the oft-repeated statement one should wait for marriage before having sex. That statement contains within itself a set of assumptions that need examined about the “goodness” of married sex.
First, and foremost, that statement assumes that sex within marriage is moral. Well what makes that sex moral? The couple is married. What makes sex outside of marriage immoral? Well the couple isn’t married. Flawed reasoning. Given that the Guttmacher Institute found that 95% of Americans engage in premarital sex, it seems unwise to declare 95% of Americans are immoral. What is it about marriage that makes sex moral? Perhaps it is the fact that the couple was married in a church and their relationship “sanctified” by the church? Well, that begs a whole host questions about the validity of weddings not conducted by pastors and churches - are couples who get married by a Justice of the Peace engage in immoral sex? No one makes that claim so it’s not the church aspect that makes the sex moral. so is it that a couple has a state sanctioned marriage that makes the sex moral? In what way does a legal marriage have anything to do with morality? It doesn’t. So the claim that married sex is morally good sex rests exclusively on the concept that marriage makes it morally good.
It’s not the church aspect or the solely legal aspect that makes it good. What are the qualities of a marriage that might make the sex good? The mutual commitment of the couple to each other? Unmarried couples frequently have a deep and serious commitment to one another. It’s not the fact that the couple is living together since more and more couples live together without marriage, and share household finances and make decisions together and act exactly like their married peers - without the legal ropes tying them together.
If it’s not the actual marriage that makes it good, maybe it’s the sex itself. So in what way would married sex differ from unmarried sex? Is married sex consensual? The need for laws about marital rape suggests to me that consent isn’t always present in marriage. Agreeing to marriage isn’t the same thing as a standing agreement to sex at any time one’s partner wishes. Being married doesn’t mean persons are always in the mood for sex or that the sex is always great. Dissatisfaction with sex is probably the second most common complaint of married couples. Familiarity with one’s partner can in fact increase the quality of the sex - one learns what one’s partner likes or dislikes, you feel secure and willing to lower you guard and have a more emotionally intimate encounter. Any couple - married or not - who have been together for a time will in fact learn the same things. Perhaps the fact of being married increases communication between partners? I think the real world evidence shows that’s not true. Communication in any relationship requires practice and many unmarried couples are far superior communicators than many couples.
So I’m left with a question: What is so good about married sex? Or, to rephrase, what is it about marriage that makes sex morally acceptable? And the answer ultimately comes down to - not much at all.
The argument that marriage makes sex moral is deeply flawed. It is a lazy argument because it it sets a clear dividing line between moral and immoral, but it misses a broad array of important matters. A theory of sexual morality that establishes the act of marriage as the primary means by which one determines the morality or immorality of sex doesn’t define sexual morality. Is it consensual? Is it mutual? Is it free of exploitation and harm? Is it life enhancing? Is it free of coercion? Can the persons involved actually manage the possible outcomes? Is there communication and trust? Has the couple discussed their contraceptive options and made the right choices for them? These qualities can be present or absent in marital relationships and they can be present or absent in non-marital relationships. Not to put to fine a point on it, by these measures, a one night could be moral and intercourse between a couple that’s been married 20 years can be rape.
Crusades to keep people virgins until marriage rest on the assertion that sex outside of marriage is morally bad and sex inside marriage is morally good, with no effort to define what makes that sex good or bad. And so we’re left with nothing more than a dividing line set in place for no reason other than defining who is good and who is bad - and that seems to me more immoral than a bit of sex outside of marraige.
December 29th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
The answer ultimately comes down to not much, for you. For me it’s just what I believe. I think it’s okay to not agree. :) While I think sex outside of marriage is a sin, I’m not going to tell other people that they have to agree with me. It’s not my place to judge how someone else is living their life.
December 29th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Allie -
That’s what I’ve been trying to think about and figure out.
What is it about sex outside a marriage that makes it a sin and what is it about marriage that makes sex not a sin? What happens with the act of marraige that makes sex no longer a sin? Is that something that is impossible outside of marriage? If not, then perhaps marriage isn’t the standard we use to determine the morality or immorality of sex.
December 29th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
It is simply a matter or religious based training. Either you accept the “Proclamation on the Family” if you are LDS or you do not. If you are non LDS the issue is a moot one unless your faith based values teach something else.
December 29th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
I just got back from Vegas and those little drive-thru wedding chapels, next door to the drive-thru divorce un-chapels give this whole discussion a surreal twist.
December 29th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
The argument isn’t lazy. It simply irrational.
December 29th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
The reason why married sex is better is because it lacks the negative personal and societal consequences of unmarried sex. The reason why marriage is such an important institution is because it creates an automatic support structure for both the partners involved and the children that result from having sex. The cost to society is great when unmarried mothers are left to take care of children. They must either accept welfare or pay someone else to take care of their children. In general children are much better off when they are raised in a stable environment. I say “in general” because of course children can grow up to be fine outstanding and productive citizens having been raised by a single parent, and a child who grows up in a stable home with a mother and father can grow up to be an axe murderer but overall children who grow up in stable homes have greater advantages than those who did not. That is the main reason why married sex is better.
December 29th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
“lacks the negative personal and societal consequences of unmarried sex”
Only if you live in an unmodern culture like the LDS on and other extreme religions..
Lets be realistic. Sex before marriage and living together is virtual accepted as on par morally with marriage in the entire industrialized cultures.
For those seeking true enlightenment, love is love is love. we all need it, and it is always better for the world than its absence.
Sex happens. The only thing sinful about sex is unwillingly and bad sex.
When a man forces himself on a woman, its called rape…unless you are married and living in Ken’s world. Then its called….
Anyone?
December 29th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
…actually, its still called rape. But if you are a good obedient wife, because your Dad was a shallow asshole and/or Mom was a wet noodle, and let you believe you should submit to your husband, then you don’t call it rape, you just hate your husband secretly and stay in denial your entire life, learn to hate yourself behind a sweet pasty smile (in public) and fuck up your kids without knowing it.
December 29th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
…obligatory?
Jeez Cliff, You snuck in another comment while mine ground its way thru.
December 29th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Cliff
My wife comes from a divorced family while my side of the family divorce is very rare and there hasn’t been any in my immediate family (knock on wood). We are always arguing about whether it is better, for children, for a couple to stay together even if they are unhappily married or if children are ultimately better off if the parents divorce. I think as long as there is no violence or infidelity involved it is still better for the parents to stay together for the sake of the kids. My wife disagrees, and I think our perspectives have a lot to do with how we were brought up. Her side of the family has many problems such as alcohol and living in abusive situations while my side there is none of that. Not that my family is problem free, but none of my family members have ever been to jail or been beaten by their spouses or boyfriends. unmarried sex has brought a lot of pain not to mention poverty to my wife’s side when my side is a lot better off.
December 30th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Ken - The negative consequences of non-marital sexuality that you cite strike me as consequences of sexism not sex. I think that the story your response assumes is inaccurate - it assume sex leads to pregnancy. But access to and education about contraception and abortion makes that untrue. The example of European nations in which people enage in sexual behaviors at the same or greater rates than Americans and yet have significantly fewer unintended pregnancies than Americans springs to mind - precisely because they have greater access to and knowledge about contraception and use it consistently and correctly.
Why should single motherhood be stigmatized? As an interesting example, the majority of children in Sweden are born outside of marraige but live with both their biological parents. Technically, those children are illegitimate and born to single mothers but there’s no stigma. The stigma of single motherhood is associated with supposedly illegitimate female sexuality.
I think that it’s far better for a couple to divorce rather than stay together “for the kids.” Frankly, I know too many people whose parents stayed together when the outcome was just a whole miserable family rather than one that can, to put it bluntly, cut everyone’s losses and move on. The much ballyhooed negative effects of divorce are as often associated with the decline in income of divorced women, which is traceable to sexism which results in lower pay for women. I think most adults are actually better off emotionally after divorce which makes them better parents.
December 30th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Glenn,
Thanks for addressing Ken’s rather narrow erroneous screed. Not only was it sexist, nut I worry for his wife. It sounds like she will suffer Ken’s perception of her family for the many years it takes for Ken to find his inner Jesus.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
This might be too much information, but I tend to think that sex outside of society’s morality code is much more exciting and fun — especially when I was young and adventurous. Perhaps we as a society create such strict moral codes so that we can get off on breaking it — see examples of religious leaders who are caught coming on to women not their wives or prostitutes or underage kids or those of the same gender after opposing such practices publically.
Now that I’m older, I do kind of appreciate having a commitment, but that needn’t be marriage. The legal privileges that we are granted by being married are nice though — like insurance coverage and the ability to make medical decisions for each other if necessary.
The weakness in the sex = kids argument is that there are many couples who are either too old to produce kids, or that can’t have kids or who have taken care of not having kids permanently that are held to the same standards as those of childbearing ability — and as Glenden has pointed out, if we give people the tools of accessible birth control and comprehensive sexuality training, even those who are potential fertile can have sex without kids . If sex is just about having kids, then why can’t granny shack up with her elderly gentlemen friend and it not be a moral issue?