“Why do men always insist on transferring all responsibility for their actions onto women?” That was one of the many responses Will Knowland received online for claiming that wives are the main weapon afforded to married men who struggle with lust. You can argue that using the word “main” was a bit careless, but his point is clear. He is speaking about the main material weapon that men have inside marriage. It seems to be a trustworthy statement that the man who “lets his wife’s breasts fill him at all times with delight,” as the psalmist says, will not be as tempted to let his eye wander.
Despite this, Knowland’s assertion seems to be a controversial statement among many and that is an issue for several reasons. First, because if the consensus among women is a rejection of this idea, then it is almost certain that many of them are depriving their husbands, which weakens him, burdens her conscience with guilt, and strains their marriage. Second, it demonstrates that women are not genuinely concerned with helping their husbands; rather, they only feel contempt towards them.
Before I begin in full, let me define a few presuppositions that will be ignored by those who are easily offended by any discussion related to this topic.
1. All people are held accountable for their own sin, not the sin of others.
2. Men must demonstrate self-control.
3. Men cannot blame their lack of self-control on anyone else.
4. Men and women are obligated by vow to be sexually intimate with their spouse.
5. It is possible for a spouse to wrongfully deprive conjugal rights.
6. Providing marital intimacy solely out of duty is not the ideal goal. It is better to strive for genuine desire than merely duty alone.
A Call to Faithfulness for Men
First and foremost, as was mentioned in the presupposition section above, men are held accountable for their sin. If you are a man reading this and you expect your wife to magically fix your porn addiction, you will be sorely disappointed. You are called to demonstrate self-control in all areas of your life. This includes sexual desire. Many men mistakenly believe that once they get married, all their lust will disappear. This is a foolish thought.
Very rarely does sin disappear overnight. It may take years before you fully rid yourself of a certain sin. Killing sin is a war, not a single battle. This makes sense when you fully consider it. Why would you expect sin to disappear overnight if it took years of festering for it to grow to be what it is in you today?
Fight your sin and kill it, or it will kill you. You will not be able to go before God and excuse your sin by complaining that your wife withheld sex from you. So, take responsibility regardless of the help you may or may not have from your spouse.
God’s Design for Marital Intimacy
Having addressed the men, wives must understand they will also be held accountable for their sin. It is misguided for a wife not to view herself as a guard for her husband against his lust. Therefore, I want to make this next statement as clear as possible: It is sinful for a wife to continually withhold herself from her husband.
The Bible makes this painfully clear. First, Paul teaches that both the husband and wife no longer belong to themselves. Instead, each belongs to their spouse.
The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. — 1 Corinthians 7:4
Following this, Paul commands the couple not to deprive one another except for prayer.
Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. — 1 Corinthians 7:5
When a woman consistently refuses to be intimate with her spouse, she is rejecting God’s design for marriage and violating his command. Just as it is sin for a man to lust after other women, women are in sin when they withhold intimacy.
God has designed intimacy to be a great boon in marriage. It increases love and trust toward one another and protects both parties from sexual sin. Paul confirms this a few verses later:
But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. — 1 Corinthians 7:9
Both parties protect the other from burning with lust. This is the clear teaching of Scripture. Many women deny this clear teaching because they don’t always struggle with sexual lust and simply do not want to be intimate. This refusal is typically born out of their own selfish desire, and the longer the Church refuses to acknowledge this, the more destructive the sin will become. It has already become a major issue in many marriages, and as we neglect dealing with it further, it will continue to hurt marriages and ultimately the Church herself.
The Effects of Rejecting God’s Design
First, it significantly hurts the husband. God purposefully designed intimacy to be a protection against sexual lust. This is true for both parties, but especially so for the man. Men typically have a far more active libido than women due to men having 10-20 times the amount of testosterone that women do, and so God has designed man to be given a wife, in part, to satisfy that sexual desire.
Women often fail to understand just how intense the desire for intimacy is within men. Many times, they even associate increased desire as a bad thing. However strong this thought may be, women would do well to understand that, even though they may not struggle in the same way, it is a significant battle for men, and God intends the wife to be a help in the fight.
Wives must be concerned for the purity of their husbands. When someone is genuinely concerned about the purity of another, they typically do a few things. They will ask that person how their battle is going, offer prayer for that person’s struggle, encourage them in the fight, and commit to helping in any tangible way. The wife who genuinely cares for her husband’s sexual purity will do all these things. She will ask him about it, she will pray for him, she will encourage him, and she will help him by being his reprieve and delight physically. This is what it means to bear one another’s burdens. It ought to be a wife’s great joy to be the desire of her husband. She should relish the fact that she is able to help him in a way that is also pleasurable for her.
However, when a wife refuses to be intimate, it demonstrates selfishness and a disturbing lack of sympathy toward the man fighting against his sexual sin. When wives remove their help, men are left to battle on their own, and additionally, they are being tempted to experience feelings of resentment because the husband knows he is unjustly being denied something that is owed to him. He continues to give all that is rightfully owed to his wife, yet he is denied what she owes in return. This also fosters guilt in the woman. She knows that she is refusing to fulfill what she has promised to her husband, but even worse, she is disobeying a direct command from God. This guilt will only grow and typically results in misdirected anger toward her husband if ever confronted.
To deny one’s husband intimacy is, in effect, to tell him he is on his own. It communicates little to no care for the husband’s purity. Even worse, the wife is making herself a stumbling block for her husband. She makes herself an enemy in his struggle. She has trapped him in a marriage where he is only allowed to have eyes for her, but she will not be intimate, so he has no reprieve. He has been robbed of the help God provided to him through the design of marriage by a selfish wife. Wives must understand just how valuable they are in this fight and seek to be an ally, not an enemy.
If not, she will be like a mother who refuses to feed her children, then complains when they steal from the pantry.
Addressing a Common Retort
Some would hear this view, that sexual intimacy is owed to both spouses, and retort by saying it is akin to sex slavery. What a foolish objection. First, as was stated earlier, this is a biblical reality. God designed it this way. For someone to take issue with this teaching is to take issue with God. Second, this assertion is an abject insult to the victims of legitimate sexual slavery.
Millions of women are trafficked every year. It is a billion-dollar industry. Women’s lives are destroyed, oftentimes from a very young age, as they are forced to do unspeakable things until they are no longer viewed as valuable. They are taught that their only worth is in the pleasure they can supply to men and are forced to do so against their will. To compare that atrocity to a wife’s biblical duty of intimacy within a loving marriage is a serious error.
However, I will qualify this by saying that a wife is not required to fulfill every desire her husband may have. The requirement is regular intimacy, not unqualified compliance with every demand. There are certain distortions of intimacy that a man who is addicted to porn may want. In these situations, the wife is right to reject acts of indecency so that the marriage bed can remain undefiled.
Similarly, it is worth pointing out that while a wife must fulfill her marital vows even if she lacks the desire to do so, it is far better if the desire is present. This is a complex issue that varies from case to case. There are, no doubt, plenty of times that her lack of desire stems from a husband who puts little effort into their relationship. There are plenty of other times that the husband does put the effort in, but the wife still lacks desire. This is difficult to address in a general sense, so I will leave it at this: the ideal is both parties desiring marital intimacy. The lack of desire is no excuse, and if one party lacks desire, they should both be able to acknowledge that as an issue and commit to fixing it together.
Conclusion
It’s imperative that we return to a biblical understanding of the role of intimacy in marriage. If we neglect it, men, women, marriages, and the Church will all suffer. However, once we return, we will see men who are better equipped to be strong and self-controlled, women unburdened by guilt, thriving marriages, and a Church that is further unified.
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