The Do’s and Don’ts of Marriage
it’s no surprise to me that the church would try to say what is acceptable and what is not. Even today churches have rules based on scripture in most cases of what is appropriate for the average family. What we have here is that a marriage must be 1) consensual 2) procreative and 3) unadventurous as set by the church. It’s obviously important that the marriage was consented by both parties and not forced. It was important for family to be able to procreate because bigger families usually meant more work got done and also more children to carry on the family name if they were male. Last but not least a couple must be unadventurous which I assume means be boring and do the same thing over and over again. Now I can understand why the church wags its finger at many of the items on the lust list but I never got why masturbation is a sin. I haven’t read the bible or anything and if anyone has an answer for that let me know. But the rest I can see as bad, sex for pure pleasure I can see as wrong, adultery obviously. Incest has always been a big no no except for in monarchies where it’s been encouraged. Rape is wrong no matter what and should be punished now abduction is sketchy. One person could say that they were kidnapped but I know that some were probably happy to get away from their lives to be with someone they loved. I went over my confusion about masturbation but I can surely understand sodomy and bestiality. The church is often seen to many as the role model for everything good and we always lash out when they mess up but people forget that the church is run by humans and temptation gets the best of all humans from time to time. So these rules are set in place to keep people from straying down the wrong path or at least to remind people to be good citizens. Nowadays I don’t see that unadventurous thing flying and I think that if a couple is happily married that as long as things are kept within reason that they should be able to expand their love making beyond the simple and boring.
In my honest opinion though all these rules can also backfire on the ones that put them in place. I know from observing others and reading news that when rules are strictly enforced that many times it just makes people want to break them just to experience what was so forbidden. So I understand why the church during these times had rules like this in place but I also understand why many acted out against them.