Does a Husband Have to Earn His Conjugal Rights?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:33

We're your host, Harrison Kerrigan, Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age -old question, does a husband have to earn his conjugal rights?

01:42

And Tim, I gotta say that this is a bit of a funny question from my perspective, just because it sounds very contradictive in its nature to say here's this right that you have to this specific thing, and you have to earn it still.

02:05

That doesn't sound very much like a right to me. That sounds more like some sort of,

02:13

I guess, like a privilege, basically, that you're trying to earn for yourself as opposed to a right.

02:20

So it seems pretty strange to say, hey, husband, if you want to gain access to your wife in this way, you've got to do

02:31

X, Y, and Z. You're already married. We're not talking about set up the wedding ceremony or find a place to live so that you can get married, get a job so that you can get married.

02:47

We're talking about husband and wife already married. And for some reason, the husband is having to earn what the

02:56

Bible says is owed to him. So that's weird. That's weird, right? It should be weird, yeah.

03:03

So this is coming from 1 Corinthians 7, essentially. So this is a passage just talking about conjugal rights.

03:10

And conjugal rights are something that are owed to a husband and to a wife in this way. But essentially,

03:16

I'll read 1 Corinthians 7 real quick, and that'll get us into the discussion. But 1

03:21

Corinthians 7 says, Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.

03:28

So what the Corinthians were being tempted with was a, I think it was a proto -form of Gnosticism, essentially, that thought that the spiritual was good and the material was bad.

03:38

And so they were under the impression that it was an unspiritual act to have sex with a woman in that way.

03:45

And that's what they're being told by these false teachers. And so they're writing to Paul and asking him, you know, is this right?

03:51

Essentially, is it good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman? But Paul responds by saying, But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

04:01

And then he starts with the husband first, which is a little bit surprising, but that's related to the question they're asking.

04:07

The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband. So it's not fundamentally unspiritual to have sex because that's a carnal act or something like that.

04:16

No, the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.

04:24

Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourself to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self -control.

04:38

But the issue is the Bible is talking about sex within marriage as a conjugal right.

04:44

It's describing it in the language of rights. But then for the vast majority of people, this is almost incomprehensible.

04:50

They conceive of sex within the context of marriage as, if anything, a conjugal privilege, basically.

04:58

So getting married, in their minds, gives you the privilege of being able to have sex, provided that both people want to in that moment.

05:07

And if not, then obviously you would want to exercise your conjugal rights in any way.

05:14

And then it is something that you need to continually earn. So if a woman doesn't feel love in particular, and that's typically how it goes, then she can just say no, because part of it is like the whole my body, my choice kind of thing, the issue of bodily autonomy and all that.

05:31

And we can talk about a lot of those things, but yes, for the minds of most people, they don't even realize that this expression conjugal rights is in here.

05:38

They view this as more of a conjugal privilege kind of thing, but then if you're actually looking at the expression itself, a right is a right, regardless of...

05:49

A right is not something you have to continually earn, and that's kind of your point along those lines.

05:55

It's a right is a right. It's not something you have to earn. Right. Yeah, it feels weird and obviously contradictory.

06:04

So I guess maybe go into some more about why are we at a place where we don't even view this as a right, and there are even

06:17

Christians out there who are trying to argue that it isn't a right between a husband and wife.

06:24

A lot of them literally have never read this verse in the Bible. I mean, we're at an all -time low as far as biblical ignorance, and this is deeply problematic to our culture in a wide variety of ways.

06:37

And so this is just... It goes against the Me Too culture. It goes against women's rights movement.

06:43

I mean, this is just deeply offensive and problematic in a wide variety of ways. But I mean, this is something that the

06:50

Bible is asserting as a right, and the Greek word for that is aphelene, essentially, and this word aphelene means...

06:59

There's two main usages of this in the Bible. The first is that which one owes in a financial sense or an obligation, and that would make people insane with anger hearing about it like that, that which one owes in a financial sense or an obligation.

07:15

So marriage is legalized prostitution in that way. But no, I mean, the second sense is that which one ought to do or a duty, right?

07:25

So that which one ought to do or a duty, and of this usage, it's that which is appropriate in social relationships, an obligation of pleasing one's spouse conjugally.

07:36

So in this way, it is a duty, which isn't any better, right? Yeah, obligation, duty.

07:42

It's not any better, right? So we haven't moved into good territory. They feel like they should be cuss words for some people probably.

07:52

Right, right. So part of the problem here is if you're trying to answer this question, should a husband have to earn his conjugal rights?

07:59

The answer is obviously no if a conjugal right is anything. No is the answer. The answer is no.

08:05

But then there's a lot of things that people hear when you say that that you may not be actually saying.

08:11

And so we're going to have to talk through what is not being said at that point. But then just answering the basic question, the answer is no.

08:18

A husband doesn't have to earn his conjugal rights any more than a wife has to earn her conjugal rights or she has to earn other features of marriage that come with marriage.

08:30

So there's a lot of – if you think about the way the rights work in the context of marriage and you think about the way the rights work in the context of just our nation in general, we have the right to bear arms.

08:44

We don't have to earn the right to bear arms, right? Right, yeah. So you have a right to bear arms.

08:50

And now the government makes you want to feel like you have to earn it by making you buy a permit and jump through all these hoops and everything else.

08:57

But that doesn't have rights that are actually supposed to work. But then there's plenty of things that come with marriage in terms of the responsibilities and privileges of marriage that don't have to be earned.

09:07

So for the most part, because of the result of feminism and egalitarianism on the church,

09:15

I think conservative -minded Christians, they basically have a lot of things they would put into the category of things that a husband owes his wife in the context of marriage.

09:25

But they have almost nothing the wife owes to the husband in reverse. And so this is uniquely offensive in one direction here.

09:34

But what I mean by that is to say that in most conservative homes, very few people would argue that a husband has a very real responsibility to provide for his wife.

09:43

So in conservative circles, that's not really being disputed. Meaning there's an expectation, an ironclad expectation, that a man will go to work and put food on the table for his family.

09:56

And regardless of whether or not the woman is allowed to work too or whatever else, there is an expectation that a man does that for the most conservative.

10:04

In liberal Christian circles, marriage almost has nothing that anyone is committing to whatsoever.

10:11

In those circles, the guy could be the stay -at -home. And that's probably better even. Probably better, yeah.

10:18

So you never know. But in the conservative circles, most people would expect that a man, a wife doesn't have to earn her provision.

10:27

So if a husband were to come home after a long day's work, he's just worked to provide for his family and he sees a bunch of dishes in the sink.

10:36

So he sees a bunch of dishes in the sink. The floors are all dirty. There's mess of clothes everywhere.

10:43

And he looks at his wife and says, Well, no food for you today, right? I guess you don't get to eat until you do your job, right?

10:52

Now, most people would think that that would be entirely monstrous, right? I mean, that would be like, it's time to cancel you.

10:59

It's time to get this lady out of that abusive relationship. What is your safe word?

11:05

Tell us your safe word, right? Blink twice if you're being held captive. Right. The thing is, people have zero category for this as it relates to the woman, right?

11:19

So there's an ironclad expectation that a man will go to work every day and provide for his wife.

11:26

And she is owed that. She's owed that provision. And if she's in danger, right? Some of this is starting to go away, but people still have an expectation that man will protect his wife.

11:42

So if there's a drunk who's held up the couple on the sidewalk with a knife and waving it around or whatever, and the husband were to take his wife and put her in front of him, right?

11:53

And shield himself from the drunk or whatever. Everyone would think, What in the world? You need to divorce that man.

12:00

You need to run from that. And he can't look at her and say, Well, I would have protected you, but you've been really mean to me lately.

12:08

I mean, I just don't know that you deserve that. I don't know that you deserve that from me because you've been a dripping contentious woman lately.

12:17

And so I don't even know why I'm going to work for you anymore. So with anything the wife is owed, whether it's provision, whether it's protection, whatever that is, it's not something that in the minds of anyone needs to be earned by her.

12:33

And that's just the way that marriage works. I mean, the way that marriage works is that there are roles and responsibilities that both parties are taking on in the context of marriage.

12:41

And these are expectations that come with the marriage commitment, right?

12:47

So when a husband and wife are making a marriage commitment, the husband is making a commitment to protect her, to provide for her.

12:53

She's making a commitment to who knows what. No one knows, right?

13:00

No one knows. But in actual reality, she's making a commitment to him to be domestic, right?

13:07

To have children, right? To raise those children. So there are very real commitments that are being made in the context of marriage.

13:16

It's just no one has any category for any commitments that a woman is making. And sex is one of those things that is a commitment that both people are making to provide for each other physically.

13:29

And that's essentially what marriage is. I mean, marriage is a one -flex relationship. So for this reason, man shall leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife, the two will become one.

13:37

That is sex, right? That's sex. So everyone wants to say, well, that's just relational closeness and unity and spiritual unity and all this.

13:45

It's like, yeah, but in the first instance, that's sex, right? Two become one, right? Yeah. That happens physically.

13:53

Marriage is meant to be a sexual relationship. I hate to tell you it. I mean, which is shocking that people are so scandalized by that because everyone struggles with lust.

14:03

Lust is the biggest problem that we struggle with. Sex is all over TV. And then it's like, oh, you know what?

14:08

That's part of what marriage is. It's like, what am I, some prostitute? Do you have any more respect for me than that?

14:17

No, but that's what it is, right? And marriage is not just an opposite -sex bestie relationship where two people come together and just hang out and do life with each other.

14:28

Marriage is a sexual relationship. It's not just a roommate, like a platonic roommate friendship kind of thing.

14:35

But the broader point being made is, as you're talking about this kind of subject, there are very real responsibilities that men and women are taking on in the context of marriage that don't have to be earned.

14:48

So sex is one of those things that doesn't have to be earned like that, any more than a wife has to earn food on the table, protection from bad guys, leadership.

15:03

These are features of the marriage relationship. So you bring up an interesting point there.

15:11

Our country is just plagued with lust, right?

15:20

Sex is everywhere. It's being normalized in ways people probably never even thought it would ever be normalized before.

15:31

Just in terms of how easy it is to access pornography and even the entertainment that we watch and consider like family shows and whatnot.

15:45

Not necessarily only family shows, but there's certainly no shortage of mature adult shows that heavily involve sex as themes in them.

16:01

And obviously music, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. I unfortunately even see high schoolers and stuff wearing shirts that I don't know how they're getting into school with because they're so inappropriate.

16:20

When I was in school, those kinds of things where you were taken to the office and your parents were called and they were told to bring you new clothes.

16:31

But we've just become totally lax on all those things. And honestly,

16:37

I think we're kind of at a point and maybe we've been here for a while where there's a lot of things that are.

16:43

I mean, it's just like it should be considered pornography and people don't consider it that.

16:50

And so given that context, given how much our society wants sex all the time, it seems like this should not even be a problem.

17:12

Theoretically, it obviously is. So what's putting husbands and wives in that kind of position where a wife is saying,

17:23

I don't want to have sex? Well, yeah, I think when you're thinking about what is causing that,

17:31

I think there's a wide variety of things that could be causing that. I mean, the primary one is obviously sin.

17:41

And this is sort of related to why we're asking it. Does a husband have to earn his conjugal rights too?

17:48

So some of it's related to that. So maybe I can talk about how sin manifests itself with certain biological realities at this point.

17:55

But men just have overwhelmingly 10 times the testosterone that women have. And what that means is that men are just like they have sex on the brain like way more than women do.

18:08

And that's just a biological feature of the way that they're made. And a lot of that's related to biological cycles.

18:16

So a lady has a monthly biological cycle. Guys have daily biological cycles that are at work that you don't have to explain, but everyone knows what

18:26

I'm talking about. So men have an overabundance of testosterone. They have these shorter biological cycles.

18:31

A woman might feel like in a non -sexualized culture, like your average woman might feel like internally pulled towards sex once a month at a predictable time.

18:46

Right? Like related to the time where she's ovulating and it's time to have a baby.

18:51

Okay. So that's the way it works. Whereas men, they're on shorter biological cycles. There's young men who are not grossly out of shape or whatever.

19:01

They can want to have sex two or three times a day. It can be perfectly fine.

19:07

If they got their way, there may be a lot of men, if the woman wasn't fighting them the whole time, that's exactly what would happen.

19:16

So what's happened is that God's designed the system in such a way that there's a remarkable imbalance between the level of desire that a man has and the level of desire that a woman has.

19:29

That's the feature of it. And so what's happening is that in that kind of framework, then we have two people who desire this same act to very different degrees.

19:43

Okay? So a remarkable difference in degree here. But then women desire other things of men to much greater degrees than men do.

19:54

Okay? So it may be that a man could go a whole month and only chitchat with his wife once.

20:00

Right? Uh -huh. Yeah, left to his own devices. Left to his own devices, like being internally compelled to have small talk.

20:08

Maybe he has internally compelled to have small talk with his wife once a month.

20:14

I mean, women might be actually shocked by how little. Yeah. I mean, they're not because they're deeply resentful of the fact that men are not initiating conversation as much.

20:24

But I mean, you can run the same... I mean, I don't know what the current research on how many words women on average have than men.

20:33

But I mean, I think it's like three times as much words as men have during a day.

20:38

And if you think about it in terms of realities like that, man uses most of them up during the day while he's at work.

20:44

When he gets home, he doesn't have very many left. Right? And then the problem is she hasn't... The wife hasn't used up hardly any of her words.

20:51

Right? Because she's maybe in more of a traditional home. She's at home with the kids at that point. And now she wants to unload on that man all the conversation she wants in her heart.

21:01

Right? All she has locked up for adult conversation. He's the one that's going to bear the weight of it all. But the issue is men and women are different.

21:09

So God made men to... Biologically. Biologically made men to want to have sex all the time.

21:19

And then he's made women to not have the same kind of desire but then have others' desires. And then part of what marriage does, you put two people together with different sets of desires like that.

21:28

And that's going to make them more complete people. Because they're not just going to look to their own interests but the interests of other people.

21:36

And so a wife has a real responsibility in this discussion to steward this sex drive that a man has.

21:45

Meaning she has to take that on as that's my responsibility. I'm the only person he can be satisfied in.

21:51

And the Bible tells him, let her breast satisfy you at all times. A biblical or godly wife is going to say,

21:57

I'm the only source of provision for this man's sex drive. It's just me.

22:03

I'm here. That's the only one. That's me. And there is a very real...

22:12

It is like a hunger pain. And women don't understand this at times because for them it's a once a month thing.

22:19

But it's one of those things where it's just like... Imagine what it's like to feel hungry every day and not know when you're going to eat again.

22:28

It is that kind of thing. It really is. It's that kind of thing. And I try to explain this in the context of marriage counseling.

22:34

It's like that. You feel this dull ache that you're having to ignore and ignore and ignore and ignore.

22:44

And the Bible says, better to marry than to burn. And that's what it's describing. It's saying it's better to marry than to just constantly be burning with desire.

22:52

And a wife is there to be a provision for her husband. So her husband doesn't have to constantly be burning with unmet sexual desire.

23:01

She's there to be a source of provision for him. But then he's there to be a source of provision for her in so many other ways.

23:07

And so there's things that she needs that he has. And there's things that she has that he needs.

23:15

And that's why they're rights. And so she's the weaker sex. You put her out in the zombie apocalypse.

23:23

She needs protection. She needs provision. She needs safety. But what if she's a boss girl?

23:29

It doesn't matter. Put her in a zombie apocalypse. She'll realize she's not much of a boss. What's happened is we live in a civilized society right now that is protecting women from reality.

23:42

And if they were just to move to the ghetto, they would realize very quickly that they aren't as much of a boss baby as they think they are.

23:50

I knew a lot of girls in college who complained a lot saying that they didn't feel safe walking.

23:58

If they were out on campus at night walking from some restaurant out on the main strip back to their dorm or their apartment or whatever, they felt uncomfortable because they'd have a truck full of guys drive by.

24:18

And they'd all start whistling and catcalling and stuff like that to them. And they complained all the time about how they felt incredibly uncomfortable.

24:26

They felt incredibly unsafe. And it's like, well, that's because you're by yourself.

24:34

You're not made to protect yourself. That's part of it. You can do the boss babe feminist stuff all day long, but reality pushes against it.

24:45

It's not real. The thing is men and women need different things, and God's put them together.

24:52

When sin enters into the world, one of the things that happens is most of the sex stuff in our culture and our society is about lust.

25:03

And lust is a desire for the forbidden. That's what lust is. Lust can be an overwhelming desire, a consuming desire, a desire for the forbidden.

25:12

But the issue is that ladies can have a significantly higher sex drive before they're married because they're fueled by lust.

25:20

And lust always wants what it can't have. But then for many women, the moment they get married, it's like all of a sudden.

25:27

And they don't understand why this happens, but their sex drive just dies. So it just goes.

25:32

It fizzles. It turns off. It's like, what happened? What happened here? And what happened was that lust wants what it can't have.

25:40

Lust isn't satisfied in what it has. And so the moment you get married, you want what you don't have, which is freedom from this.

25:52

Before you're married, you wanted what you couldn't have, which is this. Now after marriage, what you want is what you don't have, which is freedom from this.

26:00

And then the guy is just stuck with his biological. His biological clock, basically.

26:09

Which is just going to go. Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, and so then he's like, doesn't understand why all of a sudden, you know, the, the woman, you know, that he, they both struggled.

26:21

And often this happens when they fail like sexually before marriage. In particular, you have guilt and shame that are feeding into it and are shutting it off, too.

26:29

But they couldn't keep their hands off each other before marriage. And all of a sudden after marriage, it's like nothing. Right?

26:34

It's like, well, what happened? The spark is gone. It's all gone. Like, it is like, who are you? You know, like, you're not the person

26:40

I thought. And what it, what it was, it was you were feeding that for one. You're feeding lust.

26:46

And then lust is never satisfied. It just turns, you know, and so for the woman, you know, it often turns there.

26:51

So part of it's that, like, it's like a discussion of how lust works. Part of it's just a feminism discussion that says, my body, my choice.

26:57

Don't nobody tell me what to do. You know, it's like throwing off the shackles of a biblical worldview, master patriarchy and all that.

27:05

Right? And so there's that kind of thing. And then, I mean, this is a problem for some women, too.

27:11

Very, not as much. I mean, it's overwhelmingly like, like women are denying their husband, making their husbands earn their conjugal rights.

27:19

But then it can happen the other way, too. Particularly if a man is like addicted to porn or something like that, where he just grows in dissatisfaction towards his wife.

27:27

And, you know, and then he's like, you know, I don't I don't want anything to do with you or, you know, like she maybe gets like an increased libido, you know, around menopause and things like that.

27:41

Right. And by that time, the guy has kind of let himself go. And, you know, his. Maybe let himself get overweight and all of his stuff is, you know, he either has porn induced erectile dysfunction or just straight up, you know.

27:54

And so at that point, there can be a very real. It's become a problem the other way.

28:00

But then in most cases, this is like an obligation. A woman doesn't want to take on because it feels like most people think it feels like prostitution in that way.

28:11

Does it feel unloving to call it like a obligation?

28:18

A duty. Yeah. When you call it when you call it a duty. I mean, aren't you kind of taken like all of the magic out of it?

28:24

Well, that's stupid. I mean, you went for the you went for the pejorative.

28:33

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's stupid. I mean, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You know, it is.

28:38

I mean, it's so stupid. Like, it's like a duty is a good word. So you're saying so you're saying that sex should just be this passionless, just like just lay there and then and then wait till it's over.

28:54

And then I've satisfied my giving my conjugal rights for the day.

29:01

So, all right, duty. The word duty means an act or course of action, an act or course of action that is required by one's position, social custom, law or religion.

29:14

An act or course of action that's required by one's position, social custom, law or religion.

29:22

Like you think about this as it relates to a soldier. Right. So like a soldier says, like, it's my duty to serve this country.

29:34

No one thinks about that. Like, oh, man, you're just like a grit in your teeth and bearing with it.

29:39

Right. Like that's I mean, that's honorable. You know what I'm saying? Like it's honorable to faithfully fulfill your duty, like that obligation that you have.

29:49

And like most people don't like like what's happened is you have like a very feminine view of the way relationships work.

29:57

OK. And so like if you put if you take like an exaggerated feminine way view of the way relationships work, then like you've taken all the magic out of it because it doesn't feel like it's a

30:08

Hallmark movie or something like that. Right. It's not spontaneous enough. It's not spontaneous enough.

30:14

And it's like, yeah, but like but most men, they're not looking for. Like, you know, breathless on spontaneity or something like that.

30:22

Right. Like every day has to be a new magical encounter. Every day has to be a new Hallmark movie. It does.

30:28

I mean, that's not the way like reality work. It doesn't work that way. Right. And that's not like so duty is not a word that you need to view as like rote duty or drudgery or something like that.

30:41

Like duty is a word that says like, hey, it's my duty to protect our country and Hitler is an evil that has to be stopped.

30:47

And I'm willing to go lay my life on the line to stop him. Right. Right. I'll be the first one in battle to go because it's my responsibility.

30:56

And like there's honor in that. And like what you don't like if you're sitting there critiquing that because like there's not some giddy excitement behind it or something like that.

31:06

Right. It's like if there's just like a like a resolve, like a firm resolve to do what's right.

31:12

Like, and I would rather die, you know, like there are men who would go fight for our country and they would rather die than have the women go fight because that was theirs.

31:22

Right. And it's my duty. You're not going to take it from me. This is like mine. Right. And like now, if you were to treat like if a woman were to treat her husband's sex drive like that, we would have good marriages.

31:33

Okay. I'm not saying that's all that there is to it, but like there's not like there's a lot of women who need to treat their husband's sex drive like it's their, their duty that no one is going to take from them.

31:46

And that like, this is why I'm on this planet. Right. Is to take care of this thing.

31:52

Just like my husband is taking it on as his duty and his obligation to go and, you know, get the sword out and protect the village.

32:02

Right. I'm going to protect my home by doing my duty right now.

32:09

But you like, like there's a sense in which like, you know, you think about it as it relates to the soldiers. They're like, they're not all miserable doing their duty.

32:17

Right. Right. It's not just misery. It's not just misery all the way down. It's like, no, this is, there's a great sense of fulfillment in saying, this is what

32:25

I was designed to do and I'm going to do it. Right. And there's nothing that's going to stand in my, in the way of it.

32:32

Right. And so there's like, regardless of whether or not that is the plot of a

32:38

Hallmark movie or something. Like, like that doesn't matter in that Hallmark movie.

32:43

Yeah. I'm here. It's my duty. It's obligation to take care of you, husband. No, let's go.

32:49

You know, like, but I mean, so that you can, you can make it like, but the thing is, it's just like, this is a, it is a responsibility of marriage and it's something, it's something you need to guard.

33:01

And it's something you need to protect. It's something you need to own. And, and, you know, there is great fulfillment, like, you know, just like a soldier has great fulfillment in being a good soldier.

33:11

Right. You know, wives can find great fulfillment and husbands can find great fulfillment and be, you know, taking care of this duty, this responsibility.

33:21

And there's honor in that. And it doesn't have to be a miserable drudgery or something like that. That's just, it's one of those things where it's just like, it's a false dilemma essentially.

33:30

You know, and, and as you've kind of been talking about this, one of the things that it reminded me of is let's think about like someone who doesn't want to read their

33:42

Bible. Right. Right. They don't want to read their Bible, but they know that they should, they know that they should be reading it every day.

33:50

They don't want to. And so, you know, they, they try and find these like really complicated

33:56

Bible reading plans and they start them, but then they never stick to them or whatever. Uh, it's, you know, part of the advice that I tell people with that is like, just,

34:07

I mean, literally just commit to doing it, you know, like quit making it super complicated, making it this big ordeal.

34:16

It doesn't have to, like, it doesn't have to be this big thing. Just like open it, read it for re you know, like start small, read it for a few minutes and like, you've done it for the day, you know, do it, do it again tomorrow and, and just try and like build up that good habit over time and pray, you know, and ask

34:36

God to help you and give you a desire to want to read his word. And, um, you know, you might find like at first you don't really understand very much at all of what you're reading.

34:46

But then over time as you do it more and more, you find that you do start understanding it more and more in, in larger capacities.

34:54

And it seems like this is kind of a similar deal maybe where a lot of times it's hard to even just like, like attack the problem at all.

35:07

Right. Uh, where there's certainly a sense in which just like Bible reading, like people do the same thing with Bible reading or prayer or any kind of spiritual activity.

35:18

Like what, what's happening is is that they, they get it in their mind that in order to do something, well,

35:26

I have to basically, um, do it perfectly, do it perfectly. You know, there's like different components to a moral action.

35:32

So, you know, obviously we need to love the Lord our God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Right. And like, you don't need, like God loves a cheerful giver.

35:40

He doesn't just love a begrudging giver or something like that. So God loves a cheerful giver. But the point is just to say that, yeah,

35:47

God loves a cheerful giver. So that doesn't mean that you don't, you wait to give money to your church until you can do it with a good attitude.

35:53

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're never going to do it because you're never going to be cheerful now, but then part of how you get to be a cheerful giver is to like grit your teeth and do it.

36:02

Right. Right. Like, and so like, there's something to that, but then like, I don't think that that's all in the word duty.

36:08

Okay. So one part of the discussion is that like, just like the word duty does not have to be begrudging obedience.

36:14

Okay. And a lot of like, I think thoughtless Christian pastors, pastors have, and I'm, some are coming to mind have treated the word duty as if it's a bad word.

36:26

And it's like, no, it's not a bad word. It's a good word. Like treating it like a bad word. It's a good, like, that's a great word. Okay. So dutiful obedience is great.

36:34

Like we need dutiful obedience. Okay. Like we need people to accept their obligations and you know, now that doesn't mean you can, it's joyless.

36:43

It's like, you can find great joy in it, but yeah, I mean, sometimes you have to do things that you don't really feel like doing. And like, if you're that selfish as a spouse that you wouldn't want to give to your husband who is working, you know, 50 hours a week to provide for you and put a foot roof over your head.

36:57

If it's that hard to bring yourself to want to sacrificially take care of literally probably the only thing he, you know, cares about.

37:08

Like that one thing he asked of you, like, like, uh, you know what? Like he would probably, you could get, you know, he could probably deal with a lot of your, you know, dishes in the sink and clothes lying around the house.

37:18

If you just give him that one thing, you know, you know, but like the point, the point though is just to say like, if it's that much of a chore to you.

37:26

Yeah. I mean, there might be a sense in which you need to like say, all right, this is my obligation. I'm going to be honorable.

37:32

I'm going to do this. I'm going to do when it's hard and then like get to a point where it's, you know, easier.

37:38

Right. So, but, but yeah, that isn't, that isn't necessary. It's not necessary to view any sense of duty like that.

37:46

And that's not really what the Bible is saying when it describes a conjugal rights as a duty. It's duty is a fine word.

37:52

It's not a word that we need to reinvent, but. So the majority of this conversation has been, you know, women withholding sex from their husbands.

38:05

You know, why is that? Why are we only talking about women withholding sex?

38:10

I mean, can't you make an argument for, there are men out there who do the same with their wives.

38:16

So in the case in first Corinthians, it starts out with the man giving it to his wife for conjugal rights, because there was there was a understanding at the time that they were, that Paul was combating, which was to say that man shouldn't have give to his wife as conjugal rights, because that'd be fundamentally unspiritual.

38:33

And I mean, then there are scenarios like that that can happen. And I think it's, you know, statistically speaking, you know, you're talking about like a 95 % 5 kind of thing, right?

38:45

Like you're talking about a 95 % 5, I guess 95 % of the time it's, it's the wife not wanting to give to her husband, the conjugal rights at this point in history and 5 % of the time, it's the husband not wanting to do it.

38:57

So overwhelmingly that's just what the statistics are. If you don't like that, then, you know, I hate to tell you, you probably aren't don't really have a good understanding of what, of reality at that point.

39:08

But even if you want to argue, it's more like a 70 30 that would still justify talking about it.

39:14

Like predominantly a male problem, which 70 30 is pretty exaggerated the other way. So, you know, this is predominantly that kind of problem, but, so I think it's like, but either way, it doesn't matter.

39:29

This, this goes with the territory, you know, regardless of who's doing it either way, you know, a husband has no, has no right to deprive his wife, has no right to deprive his wife anymore.

39:41

Right. It's a, it's a mutual right shared amongst both of them. People have, right.

39:47

I think biologically is a right that husband would typically want more. Right. And I think in terms of where we're at society right now, it's overwhelmingly like it, it's one of those things that's funny because it's like most people would respond very badly to a man, not giving his wife her contical rights.

40:09

Oh yeah. Yeah. Even the wife. Right. Like, can you imagine how that would look in most of these relationships

40:15

I'm talking about? If, if a wife were to try to approach her husband for sex and he would say, ah, yeah,

40:21

I'm not really in the mood right now. I mean, yeah, you should, you know, you should have, you should have done a poll on that,

40:27

Tim, you should have done a poll the day before that's like, you know, if a man, if a, if a man's wife approaches him and asks for sex and he refuses her, has he, has he sinned?

40:42

Has he failed as a, can you imagine like what, what, what, how that would go if like a wife would approach your husband and the husband were to say, yeah, you know, you've kind of let yourself go a little bit.

40:54

I'm good. So like what's happened,

41:02

I mean, that would never happen. That would never, I mean, so meaning like everyone would think, man, that whatever that guy is just like, like the worst kind of guy imaginable and the wife, there's obviously something wrong with him, you know, and the wife would take such offense to that, right.

41:19

To where like, and no one would, no one would take the guy's side on that. Well, I think,

41:25

I mean, I think she should take offense to that. She should. She should. Yeah, she should.

41:30

But like no one would be on the guy's side is my point. Right. But then like with this, what happens is like with, with when it's the man wanting sex from the woman, everyone is predisposed to take the woman's side.

41:46

Right. And like in, in the way that the question is asking meaning like, you know, well, you must not have earned it like you should have, right.

41:55

Right. So like on the woman's side, like it really is the situation where if a man were to say no to a woman, there's almost no conceivable situation.

42:05

Like everyone would instantaneously take the woman's side on that and think she doesn't have to earn that.

42:10

You should love your wife. Right. Right. Like it's very imbalanced in that way. But then on the other side is like, everyone would take the woman's side and like part of what's happening in this discussion.

42:20

And we haven't even talked about it yet is if you just say like, as we have an unqualified, no man doesn't have to earn that.

42:27

Obviously it's right. Then what people instantaneously here is okay. So a guy can just be like a lazy slob.

42:35

He can be abusive, abusive, like horrible husband, and then demand sex for his wife.

42:41

And that's immediately like they get the self -righteous indignation and the, you know, imperious tone in their voice.

42:48

Oh, okay. So you're saying that the abusive husband can just do whatever he wants and then demand sex of his wife and she just has to give it to him.

42:58

Is that what you mean, Tim? Right. That's exactly the tone I was talking about. Yes. So that's exactly what's understood in the background, but then that isn't what has been said so far.

43:08

Right. So no one has said that like none of us, I haven't said that you haven't said that that hasn't been the operating assumption.

43:15

We're just talking about how we're talking about. Yeah. We're just talking about the rights. Yeah. We're just talking about how rights work.

43:20

Like, so like, meaning like a wife could be a horrible, contentious woman and she shut.

43:25

And everyone still expects that man goes to work for her every week and does so without complaint and puts food on the table.

43:31

And no one could imagine a scenario where the husband were to look at his wife and say, Hey, you haven't been a good enough wife this week.

43:37

So you don't eat. Okay. No one can imagine that scenario because it's ridiculous.

43:45

Like, because that's not the way this works. She's not, doesn't earn her keep like that. Right. That's pretty funny though.

43:53

But I mean, like, if you were to think about it the way that you thought about sex, like everyone thinks about sex as a privilege, then why not?

44:00

Hey, honey, you didn't work today. So, you know what happens in the real world when you don't work, honey. Right.

44:06

Like in the real world, like my job, if I don't work, I don't get paid. So you didn't work today.

44:11

You don't get paid. Right. Now, if that's the way you're viewing it, like a transaction, then like, that makes perfect sense in the context of any, any normal relationship.

44:21

Right. Then with marriage, like there is certain, um, like responsibilities that come with that covenant you made.

44:27

Right. So, and so here's the issue. God holds like men responsible for protecting, providing, aiding, right.

44:36

Giving conjugal rights to his wife, no matter what the wife does. Right. Yeah. Like, no matter, like for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, till death do you part,

44:46

God holds the man responsible for his part. And you know what? God holds the woman responsible for her part too.

44:52

Like the commitments that she's making. She's making some very real commitments in the marriage too, regardless of how well her husband does, if that makes sense.

45:00

So she's, she's held responsible for hers. And like, God isn't going to look at her and say, Hey, yeah, well, you know what?

45:06

Like, I know I told you to give your husband your conjugal rights, but he wasn't a very good guy.

45:12

So, you know, off the hook and God doesn't apply to you, doesn't apply to you.

45:18

And God's not going to look at the man and say, Hey, you know what? Like I commanded you to provide for her, but she's kind of a miserable life, a second of this from which there's no escape.

45:25

So you're good. You know, like you just make her go work for herself. Right. You know, it's like, hey man,

45:32

I get it. I get it. He doesn't do that. He doesn't. So he doesn't do that both ways.

45:37

Right. And so now, I mean, so like a man, like there is a type of man who is going to say, Hey, give me my conjugal rights.

45:44

And then he's just going to ignore his wife all week. Right. He's going to ignore his wife all week.

45:49

He's not going to talk to her all week. He's only going to approach her when he wants something from her. The only kind of physical affection he's going to show her is that when he wants sex and she's going to be calm on it, it's like,

45:57

Oh, you're going to ask me for sex now that you just came up and gave me a hug. Right. You haven't touched me all week.

46:03

You haven't looked at me all week. And now, now you want to touch me. And right. Like, so there is a kind of guy who's going to do that.

46:10

And like that kind of guy, it's like, Hey, yeah. Do you want her to enjoy giving to her given to you?

46:18

Right. Do you want her to enjoy it? Or do you want her to feel like she's like gritting her teeth, gritting her teeth, giving to Jabba the

46:25

Hutt or something? Do you want her to be repelled by this?

46:32

Right. So like, what do you want? Like, it's so now, I mean, like in the same way, like now in the same way on the other end, do you want your husband to feel good about going to work for you every day?

46:42

Right. To provide for you. Or do you want him to deeply struggle with like temptations towards resentment for the fact that he's working 50 hours a week and he comes home and you haven't done anything.

46:54

Right. So you can make it like a joy for him to say, I love this woman.

47:01

I want to take care of her. Or you can make it a temptation to be hard. Right. Right. So you can make it a temptation to be hard or you can make it a joy.

47:09

Right. And like, if it's like you want her to enjoy it, then do the kind of things that will help her enjoy it.

47:16

Make it about her as much as about you. Right. Like I just about you getting your thing and being done.

47:23

So you can move on, like make it a thing that's enjoyable. And like, as much as she'll let you as far as that goes.

47:30

And I mean, in scratch, you know, obviously, you know, you love her the way that she wants to be loved.

47:36

Then, you know, you're putting her in a better situation, you know, and, and, you know, often like when women feel deeply unloved or they feel like there are problems within the relationship that are dismissed and minimized and unaddressed.

47:50

They really do struggle with this kind of area, you know, or if you're not like very, like you're not a man, you're not a leader.

47:55

You're just kind of a, you know, whipped, you know, little tail between your legs, puppy dog kind of person who, you know, follows your wife around and ask her, you know, make all decisions.

48:07

She may not be very attracted to her. So, I mean, there's obviously things you can do to make her attracted to more, right.

48:13

To help her to grow in her attraction to you be the kind of person she finds attractive. I mean, you may not be able to, she may have an unrealistic standard of what that things are at times, but you can do that.

48:23

You can make it easy. You can make it hard. Right. But then the point though, is just to say rights are rights.

48:28

And like, there are things that come with the marriage covenant and God wants both people to be absolutely committed to their responsibilities, regardless of what the other person does.

48:40

Right. Now, the last question I did want to ask you sort of in the same vein is, do you think there are ever times where, you know, a wife,

48:50

I guess a husband or a wife, but probably more specifically, a wife should actually withhold sex.

48:57

And it would be like the best thing in terms of honoring God. I mean, you know,

49:06

I would answer the same question with is, is there a times when a husband should withhold food from his wife and it would be the right thing.

49:13

Yeah. So, I mean, I guess it's probably like in first Corinthians maybe, but I mean, doesn't

49:22

Paul talk about like, you know, really the only time you should withhold is for the purpose of prayer and only for a short and mutual agreement and only for a short time.

49:35

Right. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, this is a part of marriage.

49:41

Now, I mean, there may be things related to this topic that a wife should say no to, right.

49:47

Whether you're talking about, and without just giving an exhaustive list of those kinds of things, but I mean, if your wife, if your husband's asking you to watch porn, well, right.

49:56

Like something like that. Like while you give him his conjugal rights and like, that's just a different topic.

50:04

Okay. Right. Yeah. Like in that way, you know, or if there are certain ways that a husband is wanting conjugal rights that are like unnatural or something unnatural or like a naturally harmful or something like that.

50:20

Right. Yeah. Like, like there are, there are lines like he can go beyond this authority with those kinds of things.

50:28

and I mean, you know, if a husband is really realistically just taking no consideration whatsoever about like the time of night, you know, it's three in the morning and he is having trouble sleeping.

50:41

And so he, and you got to get up and breastfeed in a few minutes or whatever. I mean, there are very real, like,

50:48

Hey, you know, you're selfish kind of conversations that needed to be had, you know, with those kinds of things too.

50:55

But then there's always, I mean, like you can, you can confront people of their selfishness without sending to, right.

51:04

Like, you know, or the frequency is just like, you know, a guy's wanting it four times a day or something every day as an expectation.

51:10

Anytime I asked you better, you know, I think there are times where you say, Hey, I mean, your primary posture should be yes.

51:19

And then there are times where you go and talk to church leaders and ask them to help sort out some difficulties. And, and the part of the problem is that a lot of people are in these kinds of situations.

51:28

They don't have a church that practices church discipline. They're going, going to. And so, you know, there's a lot of, there's no channel for like correction, really.

51:38

Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yep. What about like sickness and stuff? Yeah. I mean,

51:45

I, I think a guy would be pretty much of a jerk if he's, you know now this is a hard one.

51:54

This is a hard one because yeah, we have to, we have to figure out like, what is the line basically between reasonable and unreasonable?

52:09

Well, there's sickness and there's sickness. Okay. Okay. There's sickness and there's sickness.

52:16

And so there's a, there's a kind of woman who thinks she's like, we'll constantly be talking about how bad she feels every day of her life preemptively in order to ward off her, you know, husband's sexual desires, you know?

52:34

And so there's, I mean, there are kind of, I mean, there are like, you know, feeling bad kind of stuff that come from being lazy and there's feeling bad like guilt and shame and condemnation from being lazy and being slothful.

52:47

And like to where, you know, there's like, you know, fibromyalgia, right.

52:54

Which is just chronic body pain that has no biological cause, which is probably the result of being overweight and lazy and everything else.

53:03

Right. And so, so part of this is like where it gets complicated is like, what, like, what are we talking about with sickness?

53:10

You know? And, you know, there's a lot of ladies who like really will claim to be not feeling good.

53:19

You know, we probably should do a podcast on not feeling good, you know, like they'll use not feeling good as an all purpose excuse to get out of ever having to cook or clean or take care of their husband because they're not feeling good or they have a headache or whatever else.

53:33

And so like, just, you know, if you were to, the other extreme would be the guy who's like, all right, if you're not feeling good,

53:46

I want a doctor's excuse. But, but, but,

53:59

I mean, I do think like you get this many sick days. Yeah. No, I mean, but there is a very real sense in which like, um, a lot of ladies are kind of working that system, uh, to not be productive homemakers and to not take care of their husbands to where like in real life, you know, if a guy's going to call off work, he needs a doctor's excuse kind of thing, you know, like, like meaning like reasonable, real people.

54:23

They only have so much tolerance for you can't handle life, right? Like you should.

54:29

And so, so yes, a guy shouldn't be asking when his wife is legitimately doctor's excuse, sick kind of thing, right?

54:38

Now, if you're going to like generally not feel bad, feel well, because like for months and months of your life, because you don't take care of yourself and you never move and you eat too much and you're just lazy.

54:49

And like at some point you're just going to like, like you're just, yeah, you got to think about what you're saying here.

54:56

Right. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up this conversation on.

55:03

you know, hopefully this has been a challenging conversation for a lot of people. I think, you know, in my experience, this is just something that seems like it's an issue often in marriage, which is understandable in the sense that we're all sinful, right?

55:23

We all have a temptation to gravitate towards sin in general. and we have to deal with sin our entire lives and fighting it off through the power of the spirit.

55:34

And so I understand. It makes sense why it's so common, but then that doesn't excuse it as something that we can't address, obviously.

55:42

And so, so, you know, hopefully this has been pretty challenging for a lot of men and women listening out there in terms of, you know, it's like just having like sitting down and saying, hey, we need to have hard conversations about this because at the end of the day, what's happening is, you know, you're ultimately not only are you not being faithful to your spouse when you don't, when you don't regularly have sex with them, but then you're also not being faithful to God because you made a, you made a vow before him, right?

56:15

Saying you would. And God is, God is clearly specified what marriage is supposed to be and sex is a part of it.

56:25

And it's a regular part of it. So, so this is, this is a pretty serious topic that we're talking about.

56:31

And hopefully all you out there listening are thinking about it that way, or if you weren't, you know, now is the wake up call to say you really do need to be taking it that seriously and, and understand that these are actually rights that are owed to one another, the husband to the wife and the wife to the husband.

56:49

So we appreciate all you guys listening weekend and week out. We appreciate all the support and, and getting to interact with you guys throughout the week.

56:57

And, and it's, it's been a lot of fun to see how things have been growing over the last year, you know, year and a few months, however long it's been.

57:06

And so Tim and I have been really encouraged hearing from you guys, getting episode suggestions, questions that you guys have that you want us to talk about seeing how, you know, seeing how you guys interact on the polls and whatnot.

57:20

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57:27

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57:38

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57:45

And that, that really helped that goes a long way in helping us to be able to do this every week.

57:50

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57:58

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58:10

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58:19

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58:30

Now go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.