Does Church Keep Black Women Single? - 2
Christianity places a strong importance on marriage.
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Scragged writers pay close attention to reader comments because we learn more from disagreement than from agreement. Sometimes a question reveals that we weren't as clear as we should have been.
When the first article in what is now becoming a series pointed out that men pursue women because every man knows in his heart that a woman can give him a taste of the joys of heaven, we received this comment:
Good article, but when you say "Every man knows in his heart that a women can give him a taste of heaven right here on earth" I think you're wrong. I'm assuming your talking about sexual pleasure, which is a wonderful earthly thing but highly doubtful to be present (or anything remotely like it) in the afterlife.
That insightful comment goes to the heart of what's gone so badly wrong with so many modern marriages. The article said that men and women ought to marry with the goal of giving to the other party rather than getting. Plainly we didn't sufficiently emphasize this point: Biblical teaching holds that God expects a husband and a wife to serve each other all their days.
It's hard to serve another person whose sins and shortcomings are as evident as those of the person to whom you're married, but married people can console themselves with the thought that in doing what God expects, they're serving God. A marriage prospers when each party serves God by serving the other.
Obstacles to Marriage
The earlier article was a reaction to a relationship consultant's claim that women who attend church won't date men who don't attend church and thereby limit their choice of mates. This is true, but not bad - in fact, limiting the choice of mates to well-qualified ones is a very good idea, as any number of unhappy ex-wives (or single mothers) could tell you.
We see no reason why a woman would want to marry a man who wasn't willing to take on the obligations which the Bible assigns husbands, but that isn't the biggest problem women have finding husbands. Every man knows men who've been badly hurt by their relationships with women. This makes men reluctant to open their hearts to women, and that's the main problem a woman has in settling into a satisfactory relationship with a man.
She has leverage, however, in that a man knows she can give him the joys of heaven if she's inclined to do so - regardless of precisely what you feel those particular joys to be. If she explains how she plans to do that and explains what she'll need from him in order to give him the joy he expects, she may stand out from the crowd enough for him to marry her.
And if not, well, is that such a bad thing? Why would a sensible woman marry a man who isn't interested in her plan to give him joy?
Commands To Married Women
Everybody has the right to choose the minimum requirements of their potential mates. It's only natural that the religious would consider religious teachings when making that most important of life decisions.
Unfortunately, the Christian divorce rate is not that different from the secular ones. If a woman has decided that she wants to obey the Bible's teachings, she should be more aware of the obligations marriage would place on her.
Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
- Ephesians 5:33
Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
- I Peter 3:6
The Bible teaches a woman to honor and obey her husband - "obey" was part of the traditional marriage vows - and call him Lord, which is the equivalent of saying "Yes, sir" today.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
- Colossians 3:18
Titus 2:3-6 commands older women to teach younger women how to love their husbands. This command has two startling implications:
A) Women don't naturally know how to love their husbands; and
B) Men are pretty much the same in their needs and desires.
There is no similar command for men to teach younger men because women are far more different from each other than men are. A man has to spend hours in open heart-to-heart talk with his wife to learn what pleases her. What pleases the older woman's husband will probably please the younger woman's husband, which is why it's possible to teach a woman how to love a man.
How to Give the Joys of Heaven on Earth
As our commenter implied, from a man's point of view, the heart of marital happiness begins in bed. Plenty of secular sex therapists would say the same, but the Bible goes further into the emotional underpinnings which are of great concern to women.
The comment described sex as a "wonderful earthly thing," which it is. The problem is that modern American society has debauched the physical joining of man and women, applying very negative words such as f**k and s***w to what God intended to be a powerful force to hold husband and wife together through the strains of life. What is the difference between a man f**king his wife, s***wing her, and making love to her? The physical act is the same; the difference lies in the man's attitude toward his wife.
This is explained clearly in the Song of Solomon. The wife states three times that she belongs to her husband. The third time in 7:10, she rejoices that "his desire is toward me." Song 8:2-3 explains how she handles his desire - she encourages him to make love to her; most men would stand up and cheer at the idea.
Movies such as the James Bond series give the impression that women are eager to have sex, but real men find that most real wives are considerably less interested in sex than they are. The Song of Solomon is a picture of a woman who is so much in love with her husband that she wants to give herself to him, not so much because she's interested in sex itself, but because she knows it makes him happy.
Having his wife give up her immediate wants to make him happy makes a man very happy. A man can get some pleasure by taking a woman who's not in the mood, and many do. They have to grow up a bit to realize that real joy in a woman comes when she gives herself to him out of love instead of just letting him take her out of lust.
Belonging to a Man is Hard
The Bible teaches that God made women for men:
For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
- I Corinthians 11:8-9
Many unchurched women are surprised to hear that, and certainly bra-burning feminists find the thought horrifying; but it is nevertheless true in the biological sense, and the religious one as well if you're so inclined. Women are made for men, and there's little they can do about it. God designed women so that most women have a strong desire to hang around with a man.
It's hard enough for a woman to belong to her husband and submit to him as the Bible teaches, particularly in this day of women's lib. If a woman gets involved with a man who isn't honorable, whose leadership she can't respect, it will be even more difficult. That's a good reason to restrict her dating pool to worthy men.
This is a part of marriage that doesn't get much talk because it's no longer politically correct. The Bible says in two places (Deu. 21:14, Eze. 22:11) that getting involved with a man humbles a woman. Opening herself to a man whenever he wants her and encouraging him when he hasn't asked tends to wipe out any sense of independence she may have had, gets her emotions bound up in him, and she ends up belonging to him.
The Bible teaches this - the woman in the Song of Solomon declares three times that she belongs to her husband (2:16, 3:6, 7:10). A woman can give a man physical pleasure without loving him or belonging to him, but a husband's joy comes from having his wife give herself to him out of love and because he appreciates her so much that she likes belonging to him.
What of the Man?
A lot of men think that having a woman belong to him would be truly wonderful and wonder what's the problem? Why won't their wives do as they expected when they got married?
They forget that God intended that a man should also belong to his wife. Two of the three passages in the Song have the woman rejoicing that her husband belongs to her. He tells all her friends that she's "but one" (6:9), which means that he doesn't even see any other women. That's why she can be so confident that his desire is towards her - she's the only woman in the world as far as he's concerned.
The Song of Solomon shows a man relating to his wife in detail. He praises little things about her including the shape of the roof of her mouth, no doubt having explored it at some length. This shows her that he's paying attention to her and opening his heart to her. Opening his heart to her out of love when he's not in the mood to talk gives his wife as much joy as he receives when she opens herself to him when she'd rather do something else.
The Bible Tells How To Receive Joy on Earth
The Song shows a husband who is made happy because his wife likes belonging to him. This wasn't clear enough for most men, however, so the New Testament fills in a bit more detail:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.
- Ephesians 5:25
How did Christ love the church? He died for it. A man is supposed to dedicate his life to serving, nourishing, and cherishing his wife.
The Greek work translated "love" is agapao, which is not an emotion, it's an act of will. Agapao means serving the other person's best interests. The Bible says that the husband is the head of the wife, but after Jesus washed the disciples feet, He told them that Christians were not to lead by command as others did, but to lead by serving.
But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.
- Mark 10:42-44
If a husband desires to lead his family, he has to serve them; the more he wants to lead, the more he should serve. A Christian husband is commanded to lead his wife by serving her. This works only if the wife is willing to follow.
If a man obeys the Bible's commands by praising his wife, appreciating his wife, and serving his wife, he'll make it make it more likely that his wife will enjoy belonging to him.
The Joys of Heaven
The major joy of heaven is that Christians spend eternity in a close relationship with the person Jesus Christ. The major (though far from only) punishment of hell is that the sinner spends eternity cut off from all relationship to God. The joy of heaven is based on a permanent, unconditional relationship to God, the punishment of hell sunders that relationship.
The joy of marriage is based on a life-long unconditional relationship between husband and wife; the marriage relationship is supposed to be a picture of the relationship between Christ and His church. Thus, the joy a wife gives her husband by truly enjoying his joy when she gives herself to him and the joy a husband gives his wife by truly enjoying her joy when he gives himself to her, mimic the joys of heaven.
Mark 12:25 implies that there probably won't be sex in heaven as we think of it today, but there will be relationship. Lovemaking and conversation are expressions of the relationship between husband and wife and represent the highest form of giving between husband and wife in this life.
The Bible teaches that Christians have to die to themselves in order to be one with Christ:
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
- Romans 7:4
This passage is one of many which emphasize the way that marriage illustrates the relationship between Christians and Christ. Christ gave His life to sustain the relationship between Himself and His people; Christians who are willing to die to their former lives receive joy in Christ.
Similarly, the only way husband and wife can belong to each other as God expects is for each party to die to their individual selves and become one in marriage. Both husband and wife must give their lives to sustain their relationship; that gives them joy in each other.
Christian women, and Christian men for that matter, are well advised to limit their dating to people who understand and agree with God's view of marriage. Otherwise they are expecting two totally different things and are doomed to critical disappointment. This is no way to start off what is supposed to be a life-long relationship.
So to return to the original topic: yes, churchgoing women who expect their mates to be equally devout are, indeed, limiting the dating pool. Many churches have far more single women as members as they have men; on its face, this could be a serious problem. But the writer forgets one important point: religious membership is not static.
If a Christian woman is not finding enough men already attending church, there is another alternative: go out and convert some - for many is the man who has had his life changed and improved by the love of a good woman.
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What does Chinese history have to teach America that Joe Biden doesn't know?
The woman I have committed myself to is strong, independent, and earns three times what I do. She doesn't NEED me -- she WANTS me. Neither of us feels like we own or are owned by the other. Her sex drive matches (or possibly exceeds) my own, and while we do often make love, we just as often f**k. It's important to do both.
The assumption that women somehow don't want or enjoy sex is puzzling. In my personal experience I've found it to be mainly true of the sort of milquetoast "moon maidens" who will settle for living in orbit around their men; Me, I prefer my "sun goddess" who can kill her own chickens, ski better than I can, and suture a sucking chest wound.
In the past, I have argued with friends (unsuccessfully) that most woman that "don't want sex" have simply repressed the urge based on years of sexual disappointment with their partner.
Given a generous lover, a woman will want sex quite a bit. If she knows that she isn't going to be satisfied, it turns into a chore with a solitary goal of making the man happy.
It's also true that satisfying a woman is rather more difficult than a man, again on average.
It will be interesting to see how this works back around to politics as promised.
I have read several comments to the effect that as women reach middle age (the point where their ability to reproduce isn't gone yet, but won't be around much longer), their sex drives increase. This would make sense from a genetic standpoint for a few reasons.
An earlier series of articles on this very website considered male versus female sexualities and reasons for marriage; IMO this series, while interesting, missed the mark on the typically less-considered aspects of both male and female desires (both heavily influenced by the cold amoral logic of their genes). For example, the vast majority of men actually do have a desire to pair-bond and provide for one woman and her children by them, and women have very similar drives to "cheat" on their partners as the ones their menfolk do (though they are typically more selective in who they will choose to "cheat" with, the percentage of women who "cheat" is very close to the percentage of men who do).
In short, both men and women have strong drives to form loving pair-bonds; and both men and women have strong desires to get a little sex on the side, probably without their pair-bonded partner knowing about it. Both desires carry risks, but the potential rewards are strong enough (even if they aren't consciously realized) that the drives producing them remain.
Male and female sexualities are indeed different in many ways, but one must be careful not to ignore that many many ways in which they are also very similar -- although sometimes for slightly different reasons.
http://www.webmd.com/sex/features/sex-drive-how-do-men-women-compare
"...a large survey published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology last year, in which about 40% of women reported some sort of sexual problem -- most commonly low sexual desire -- but only 12% report feeling distressed about it."
"Lack of sex drive (lack of libido) is common in women, but quite rare in men."
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/sex_relationships/facts/lackingsexdrive.htm
"No more calling me baby, no more loving like crazy, no more chicken and gravy, I ain't gonna have your baby, til you take me down to the little white church."
"You can't ride this gravy train, anymore anyways. There's a price for keeping me. I might be cheap, but I ain't free." Etc.
The majority of men - especially young men - want one thing (sure they want to have a good time, laugh, connect, but they don't feel settled until they get): sex. You see it all over, and even on TV, where sure a couple builds a relationship and falls in love and all that, but the man doesn't feel like it's "for real" yet until they've had intercourse. (Don't mistake what I'm saying. There's so much more to a marriage than just sex. But you remember what you were like when you were a teenager, don't you? Don't you?)
The barrier-of-entry is where the woman sets her "price," so-to-speak. If he can have her on the first date, well, he's very likely to choose her to go out with, and she thinks she's snagged a man. Giving herself to him, in her mind, makes her his. But she forgets that it doesn't make him hers, not so far as he's concerned.
Therefore, a woman who puts out on the first date is defining her value to the world as being very low, very easy to "own" (or "have," as the term lately has become; "I had her"). It only requires dinner and a movie - that's her price, a price she herself set.
A woman who won't have sex until marriage sets for herself a high price, a price that actually costs a man to pay. She has declared her value to very high. Most men won't bother, in our Hollywould society. But that's exactly the point. A woman shouldn't want to get a man, any man, who cares what kind of man so long as she got a man. No. She should determine that she will only give herself to the man who is prepared to pay such a high price for her.
You see, if all it took to get your girl into bed was dinner and a movie, then that's her value. She's cheap, and in fact that's a term that we use for such a woman. A man doesn't think he's bought her; he just thinks he "had" her. But on her part she's sold herself for that price, and if she's not delighted with the result, the quality of man that was willing to pay her barrier-of-entry, she shouldn't be surprised. If it cost a man, however, his sexual freedom, a band on his finger, a vow before God, to "have her," she'll get a much higher quality of man, a man who at that point has already proven that he is willing to sacrifice for her, to put her needs above his own, to respect her wishes and her person, and to decide to value her exactly how highly she demands to be valued. That kind of a man is a much more valuable catch.
So in a very real sense a woman determines her value. Course, I didn't say it was easy.
God intends to create in you a picture of his son, and for the Christian what better, more effective, more immediate, more constant, more present, more powerful tool does God have for doing this than your spouse? A husband and wife are two sinners choosing to share the same bed night after night after night, the same house, the same life, year after year after year. What more constant presence is there than your spouse, often a source of dissent or discord (because you're both sinners), and therefore a way to practice agapao love, grace, gentleness, forgiveness, longsuffering, etc., over and over. In the sanctifying process of II Corinthians 3:18, your spouse is God's most potent tool for shaping you.
Sinners acting towards each other in a Christlike manner makes those sinners to be put on display as a trophy of God's grace, an example and a showing forth to the world of how God acts toward us. Acting towards each other in that way glorifies God, and that's the point.
Furthermore, when Paul says in Ephesians (well, elsewhere, too), that husbands ought to love their wives as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, it is naive to take the obvious implication (he died for the sinner's redemption) and leave it with that. It is necessary and extremely profitable to think about, perhaps enumerate, the ways in which he gave himself for his bride. We think it's a nice snapshot of Christ and the church, when instead it is so much more a detailed macro shot of how men ought to give themselves for their wives.
Christ was so much more concerned with the individual sinner's fallen state, his spiritual deadness, that he sacrificed. He had that giving love, that self-sacrificing love, a love which cost his something to display. He left heaven's glory, he left the praise of the angels, he took on a frail human body, subject to appetites and illness, weariness and inconvenience, out of love. He set his own pleasure aside, preferring instead out spiritual welfare over his own well-being.
In our state of spiritual deadness, separated from our creator because of our sins, so far that God would not even hear us, who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, Jesus chose to place more importance on our healing, our life, our relationship with God, than he placed on his own convenience, his own life. We were more important than he, according to his actions.
The point of what Paul says is that husbands ought to love and value their wives in like manner. My wife's spiritual well-being, her walk with God, her relationship to her creator, ought to be more important to me than anything that might provide for me glory, pleasure, honor, or convenience. It ought to be more important for me to drag myself out of bed and drag her to church than to stay in bed, resting, exhausted from working 16 hours the day before. Her spiritual growth, the state of her heart, ought to be more important to me than my own idle pursuits and hobbies. Her spiritual condition ought to concern me more than the newspaper or the news websites. I ought to be more interested in leading her in devotions and prayer than I am in sitting in my favorite chair reading a book. Because such things were so for Christ.
That's how he gave himself for us, for the church, for his bride. That's the example (Ephesians 5; go take a look): Husbands, love (agapao - self-sacrificing love) your wives (helpful, serviceable, profitable in its form), even as (exactly in the same manner as; especially like) Christ also loved (agapao) the church (same root as wives, but different emphasis), and gave (surrender, yield up, transmit, betray, imprison, hazard, give over) himself for (for the sake of) it. Why? That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself (just as we ought to wish to present our wives to God) a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing (spiritually, of course - you and I both get wrinkles); but that it should be holy and without blemish. And you can read on.
So, yeah, as soon as you start demanding your "rights" in marriage, you've become a idiot, having forgotten what the point is in marriage, according to the one who instituted marriage.
Tom, the thing missing from your equation is that women want sex, too. However, according to your view, the ideal thing for a woman is to have no sex drive whatsoever so that she can increase her market value by holding out indefinitely. Now what barbaric "medical" practice does that sound in line with?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/mystery-and-evidence/
But from your reply to Tom, I think you missed the point. Scientific research shows that most women don't want sex particularly strongly. Of course this is on average, there are certainly exceptions such as apparently your wife.
For most women, though, the answer to "How long would you stay celibate before strongly wanting sex?" would be vastly longer - like, 100x or 1000x longer - than most men would answer the same question.
At the exact same time, you as a woman are protecting yourself from a man who has little self-control, little sense of your value, little desire to sacrifice immediate gratification in favor of long-term gain, and possibly low standards. If all it took to "have" you was dinner and a movie (or whatever), you've displayed to him your true value in the world. If he could not control himself in regards to "having" you, how do you think he will fare once you've been married and the next strumpet comes along - how much self-control has he displayed thus far? These might not be a big deal for men, and of course in any large enough pool you will find exceptions among women as well, but these kinds of things are more important to women, and can be very key in the decisions they make (even if they don't always think of them in as plain terms as rationally as we have above).
It's not so much about how bad a man or woman wants sex. It's more about their determination to resist that desire (however strong) in favor of other benefits. A player (promiscuous male) is worth next to nothing; he is a dime per dozen, and there's nothing special about him (even if he makes you feel special for ten minutes). On the other hand, a 20-year-old girl who is saving herself for her husband is dearly precious, and, according to Lemuel's mother, her price is far above rubies (Proverbs 31 has a lot to say about this, especially v11).
It isn't just my SO that I'm thinking of, it's a lifetime of different sex partners, starting back in the late 80s when I was a young and gallant 15 year old who made it clear to his young lover that he respected how dangerous it could be for her to have sex and wouldn't ever pressure her to do so. She dumped me shortly thereafter specifically BECAUSE I wasn't pushing for sex.
I'm not in any way bitter over the above. I'd say I have an average sex drive for a man, and about half the women I've dated have seemed to have lower drives (and about half, higher) than myself.
In any event, IMO too many contemplations of female sexuality do not adequately involve the thinker taking much time to "think like a gene", a completely logical and amoral gene trapped in the body of a woman. A gene whose only real concern is to replicate itself in offspring that are likely to have offspring of their own.
I would expect to see a great deal of difference between male and female sexuality in terms of selectivity (and indeed, studies back this up). In terms of drive to seek out mates other than their pair-bonded ones -- not so much (I can provide several cites that back THIS up).
As for frequency of sex desires -- I think the jury is out on that one. Your cites specifically mention women with sexual problems, ie outside the norm, and don't give us any solid rates for similar male problems to use as comparison. I don't see any studies revealing the frequency of sex desired by the normal, healthy man or woman, or any comparison of the two (and I say this after having spent some time looking). I think it's a tricky thing to measure.
I would agree that most people in American society do seem to think that women aren't really interested in sex -- I also think that they are wrong. Too many personal experiences -- short-term and long-term -- tell me otherwise.
However, it is erroneous to think that female sexuality ends there. It does not. For solid genetic reasons, most women also have urges to experience sex outside of their pair-bonding, just like men do. Since both men and women have similar desires (borne from slightly different reasons) for their pair-bonded partners to NOT engage in sex outside of the pair-bond, sex outside of the pair-bond carries with it a certain amount of risk. Most often it is done "on the sly", and the tension resulting from these two at-odds genetic urges is present to some degree in most relationships (save those where one or both partners fall outside the norm, either in lacking any desire for sex outside the pair-bond or lacking any desire to prevent it on the part of their partner).
Even outside of pair-bonding, women can and do seek sexual adventure that they have no expectation or desire for developing into a pair-bond. Whether or not this is in their best self-interest is debatable, but it's worth noting that WOMEN THEMSELVES are prone to be the source of the most negative reaction directed towards women who are openly sexually active with men outside of a pair-bonding. This is another dimension to the sexual landscape, where women (consciously or not) realize that having another female in the area who is "giving it away" inevitably brings down the "market value" of their own sex.
Human sexuality is a fascinating subject, and not one easily charted and summed up. All I am really trying to say is that many discussions on the topic of female sexuality are overly simplistic and seem painfully blind to the fact that women too are possessed of sexual urges that they are willing and able to act on. Female sexuality is not a two-dimensional caricature of passivity. Too many beliefs in our society rely on this myth as a framework.
One figure often mentioned around these parts is Genghis Khan, who took it has his prerogative to force himself onto many, many conquered women. He clearly had all the sex he wanted, in all the variety he wanted. He didn't NEED a wife.
But he chose to have one.