Clearing Up Marital Debt Confusion

Should you ask your husband?

The topic of sex, marital debt, the role of spouses has been a big topic of debate lately…and because we care about helping marriages be holy and healthy, we decided to go to the sources and consider what is the truth.

Cherry picking scripture and appealing to writings out of context can be disastrous - especially if implemented incorrectly by couples.

When we forget the true end of marriage and focus only on sex, we will lose more than we can ever gain.  Sex is an integral way of spouses to express their love and commitment to one another, and the Devil wants to attack anything good that God has created.

That is why we felt the need to tackle the confusion surrounding marital debt head on with clarity and charity.

Catholic in Context

For those of you that may not know, the marital debt refers to Catholic teaching that spouses should engage in the marital act, barring a legitimate reason. Because sex is holy, healthy, and good for spouses, it should not fall by the wayside in a health marriage. However, a recent book has gone a little further beyond affirming the goodness of an active sexual union within marriage.

The recent book release by Stephanie Gordon, Ask Your Husband, makes the very bold claim that, “according to St. Thomas, the wife assumes mortal sin upon her soul for denying what is rightly owed to her husband by God unless she has a legitimate reason.”

In order to support her claim, the author cites three separate resources:

St. Thomas Aquinas who says: “Since the wife has power of her husband's body, and "vice versa," with regard to the act of procreation, the one is bound to pay the debt to the other, at any season or hour.”

The Papal Encyclical Casti Conubbii that reads: “the blessing of conjugal honor which consists in the mutual fidelity of the spouses in fulfilling the marriage contract, so that what belongs to one of the parties by reason of this contract sanctioned by divine law, may not be denied to him or permitted to any third person.”

And St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: “But because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.” (1 Cor 7:2-7)

At first glance, it looks like Church teaching supports the notion that denying a spouse marital intimacy is actually immoral.

However, this is a prime example of why we can’t take individual snippets or Church teaching out of the grander context that they were originally written in.

The True End

One example of how the context can change our perspective is when you consider the above quote from Casti Conubbii, in light of the following quote from the same document:

“For matrimonial faith demands that husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other, but as Christ loved the Church. This precept the Apostle laid down when he said: "Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church," that Church which of a truth He embraced with a boundless love not for the sake of His own advantage, but seeking only the good of His Spouse.

The love, then, of which We are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of the moment nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment of the heart which is expressed in action, since love is proved by deeds.

This outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help but must go further; must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partnership in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that they may grow in true love toward God and their neighbor, on which indeed "dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets."

This quote holds spouses to a much higher standard of love that goes beyond the marital act. When considering the call of marriage that Pope Pius the XI is placing on couples, it is not far off to say that sex seems to be the culmination of a journey traveled together by spouses. An active and virile sex life is not the sole purpose of Holy Matrimony, it is a result of a Holy union lived out as intended by God.

But there is only so much that we could write about this in a blog post. Honestly, this is only a snippet of a much larger conversation that is being had in many Catholic circles.

For a Full Conversation

To get our entire perspective and response to Tan books more recently publication of Ask Your Husband, take some time and listen to our latest podcast episode below!