Ancient Christian assumptions on "Sex and Marriage" in light of a Canonical Biblical Text

A short reflection I made during one of my class courses on scriptural on early centuries Christians' assumptions on sex and marriage

Assignment: "Choose one passage from the unit "Christian Scripture on Sex and Marriage" and analyze it using the three assumptions given here. How does reading through that lens affect your interpretation of the Christian text(s)?”

Reflection:

One of the texts that was quoted is Hebrew 13:4 "Let marriage be kept honorable in every way, and the marriage bed undefiled. For God will judge those who commit sexual sins, especially those who commit adultery."

1) The household is a basic social and economic unit; it includes parents and children of several generations as well as slaves.

Viewed through this new testament lenses, marriage has an elevated view. It is regarded as honorable. And by honorable one can extrapolate that it is expected to be the aspired norm in any given society. We know that many modern culture and surely ancient culture also were very strong on honor and their dignity, so much so that they created social strata to separate those who are more honourable than those weren't. Hence if marriage was to be considered honorable, this implies that it must have been regarded as indispensable as a basic social and economic unit in society. At least, this was the aspiration projected by the Christian confidence about the usefulness and value of marriage.

2) "Natural sex" is understood to be phallic and it should properly reproduce hierarchical norms of class, age, and gender. This means that "natural sex" always involves a penetrating male. Moreover, the penetrated person should be of a class status (whether male or female) lower than the penetrator, be younger in age (including children), or be a female.

From the Christian ideal that set all people from different socio-class status on the same rank when it comes to their value in the eyes of God, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." - Galatians 3:28 , it is unlikely that marriage was regarded as simply being a 'phallic' endeavor. And coming back to Hebrews 13:4, the text emphasis on honor bestowed to marriage, meaning on the individuals participating in this marital union, it would be a departure from its ethos if the marriage intimate act of sexuality was regarded simply as a sheer acts of sexual penetration with no other noble sentiments linked to it. I do not conceive this as being feasible based on this first century text of the New testament.

3) Sexual desire is perceived as morally problematic.

From the perspective of Hebrews 13:4, it is adultery and other form of sexual sins that are problematic and which attracts God's judgment. However, the marriage bed is expected to be distanced from unfaithfulness, a concept often linked with adultery - the breaking of one's marital vow toward one's spouse. Hence the marital bed is expected to remain undefiled by unfaithfulness.

Beside that, marriage which in itself assumes the openness to sexual activities between partners falls in the category of what makes marriage honorable according to this texts:

"Because sexual immorality is so rampant, every man should have his own wife, and every woman should have her own husband. A husband should fulfill his obligation to his wife, and a wife should do the same for her husband." - 1Corinthians 7:2-3

 Hence, there is no problematic view regarding sexual desire within marriage, it is the sexual desire outside of marriage which is regarded as problematic, and Christians readers are expected to take all necessary measures against it.