(July 15, 2015 at 11:06 am)Redbeard The Pink Wrote: Uhh no, they don't. That "one flesh" bullshit is just a theological scapegoat you're trying to state as a fact and then offer as support for your claim that marriage somehow creates a duty to hold another person's wants/needs as higher than one's own. When people get married, they're essentially agreeing to function as a family unit for legal and social purposes. They do not stop being themselves, and they do not fundamentally change from being two people into one, spiritually unified meta-person. There is no such thing as magic. Grow up.
Soo... Let me see if I understand youre say here.. Paul in 1 Corthinians 7 is issuing an edict to support the reason you/this society defines as how and why people are to get married? And you in all of your pinky thinkie-ness can't see an issue with that line of reasoning?
Despite what you think marriage is and should be, Christianity doesn't seem to agree. Nor does it agree with how marriages were carried out before what Paul wrote in 1 cor 7 where the Man did indeed have complete control and domination over his wife. Paul was changing paradigm of marriage from a male dominated relationship to one where both partners work as one being would, He was changing the attitudes in the church that would have social classes dominate another to putting everyone on the same level or playing field. However in marriage he even went a step further. He sought to unite those who were marriage in a bond stronger than the bond between the brother and sisters in the church. Which is the reason we are to live for the other person and not for ourselves/selfish desires.
Quote:[color=#cc3399]My wife and I don't just live together. We also love each other for the unique individuals that we are, and we cooperate and help each other because of that love and because it's practical for our happiness and survival. When my wife does not wish to have sex, I respect those wishes, and I don't hold her marital "duty" over her head, even if we haven't had sex in a while. If I don't want to have sex, then she respects mine. If we both want to have sex (for whatever our individual reasons may be), then we have it. What we DON'T do is press the issue when one of us or the other is clearly not interested in having sex. What is so hard about this concept?The problem lies in the power one spouce has over the other with sex. If you live for what you 'want' then 'you' become the reason something gets done.
This selfishness is not at the center of a Christian Marriage. I'm not say you can't live like this, I'm just pointing out we have two different engines powering our marriages.
