Marriage is 'prostitution'

I was listening to a reformed preacher recently and heard something so shocking that I had to listen to it again. And again. I don’t know why it was shocking. It shouldn’t have been. But it was. And so I replayed the video not once but twice. I have a pretty good idea I will listen to the section of video where what he said shocked me…and prompted this post…again as I write this.

The concept is just so…beyond belief…that I can’t wrap my mind around it.

It isn’t that I have a hard time believing that there are people that think and feel the way he said, it’s that it is such a foreign concept to me that I can’t begin to fathom the idea of holding such a belief.

I even find myself having a hard time putting the concept here in black and white. You see this preacher spoke on marriage but it wasn’t marriage as I would define it. He said there are many women…feminists…that want to do away with the state of marriage. That part I could understand. Our society…our culture…even our world…has and is attacking the institution of marriage from just about every side imaginable. But this…. This belief held by some…maybe many…just baffled me.

It wasn’t just that they wanted to do away with marriage but the reason why they wanted to do away with it. It appears that there are some women that believe marriage is prostitution. In those that hold this belief they say the woman is owned by the man as his exclusive property. They claim that the man puts his name on his wife like a brand as if she’s livestock, that he keeps her as his own personal prostitute, engaging in sex with her at his will, and the only way to break this cycle is to get rid of marriage.

That concept is so foreign to me that I can’t even begin to fathom it. I was shocked when I heard him say there are women that believe that way and I’m still shocked now. It’s isn’t so much that there are some that believe that way that’s shocking. For me it’s the very notion of looking at marriage in such a derogatory way…and these women, I assume, not only see it that way but promote their beliefs to others and try and convince other women to believe the way they do.

The more I thought about women thinking of marriage this way, the more it bothered me. And so I decided to not only write about it but to do more research on it. An internet search proved that the preacher I listened to was right…not that I doubted him.

In the last few months the traditional view of marriage…the Biblical view of marriage…has come under so much attack that it’s been almost obliterated…or so they want us to believe. Marriage has been under attack for a very long time. So much so that we could almost say that marriage as the Lord designed it is an endangered species…except of course it isn’t a species. But it is endangered.

So hearing that anyone has spoken against…or attacked…marriage isn’t surprising. It wasn’t that someone spoke against it that shocked me, it was what they were saying about it, what they were likening it too.

Prostitution.

My mind just can’t wrap around that. The very word prostitution brings to mind a sin-filled, act where there is nothing but filth and money. It’s such a sickening institution that all I can see is the sexual immorality of it. It takes something that should be beautiful and right in the Lord’s eyes and makes it such an act of filthy sin that it is so far removed from the Biblical definition of marriage I can’t see any connection between the two.

So I did the research. I read the reasons, the examples, the reasonings. And still…it’s such a far reach for me that I can’t see the connection but at least I can see how they came to that reasoning…sort of.

The women (and probably some men) that hold to the belief that prostitution is marriage aren’t seeing it as the Lord defines it. They aren’t seeing what it is…or should be…and are instead putting their own ideas on what they believe it to be. Some of them are probably married, others probably have been, and some probably never have been nor will they ever be married. I have to think that for anyone holding such a view of marriage it would probably be best if they never married. Not for themselves but for the men they might marry.

Today, in our country, we see marriage as usually the result of a love so strong you want to spend your life…or at least part of it…with that person. It starts with that emotional attachment and become a relationship that should…let me stress that: Should….encompass so much of the husband and wives life that it isn’t simply a relationship, isn’t simply a role they have, but that it’s who they are.

Yes…I know that goes against everything our society teaches women to be. I’ve heard the statements about how a woman should know who she is apart from her husband and children. I’ve heard them but I don’t believe them.

When I was a kid my grandparents were well known in the town where we lived, they were well known in the surrounding towns. Not because they had a lot of money, not because they were a prominent family, but because they knew a lot of people. As a result of that my identity was often tied up in who my grandparents were. I could walk into just about any business and tell them I’m _______________ granddaughter and immediately I got different treatment. They knew who I was because they knew who my grandparents were.

I didn’t stop being me because I was their granddaughter. I was still me, still my own person, but I knew…even when I wasn’t making use of the position…that I was my grandparents granddaughter. And I knew that that relationship carried weight, it had merit. It opened doors for me that would never have been opened without that relationship.

I have that now with my husband. There are places I can go, people I have spoken to, that where I was just another unknown when I walked in the door, once they know who my husband is I become someone else. I’m no longer just me but I’m the wife of someone these people know. And it garners instant differential treatment.

I know that isn’t exactly what is being spoken against when women are told they should know who they are without their husband and children. That they should have an identity apart from their husband, apart from being mom to ______________. I don’t see it that way. My most important place in this world is as my husbands wife, as my children’s mother. I don’t need, and don’t want, an identity apart from that. That is who I am. It’s who I want to be.

            But there are those that would say who knows what about the fact that I feel that way.

            In reading about the concept that marriage is seen as prostitution I came across a number of ideas and views. I read in one article that marriage is seen as being ‘marriage is this’ but that by this person’s definition there is no ‘is’ in marriage because everyone’s marriage is different.

            That idea to me can only be true if you look at marriage in some way other than the way it’s defined in Scripture. We are told exactly what marriage is…in black and white…in Scripture. There is an ‘is’ in marriage when viewed through the eyes of Scripture but of course to hold to the belief that marriage in any way constitutes prostitution one can’t be looking at marriage through the eyes of Scripture.

            This same article had a long list of what marriage is based on ‘I have been told…’. What, I have to ask, does it matter what you’ve been told…no matter what you believe…about marriage? All we have to do is look around us to know that everyone holds different beliefs and views on things. My husband and I share many of the same beliefs and views but there are still things that we see differently.

            There are a number of things that I’ve heard about marriage that I wouldn’t want to even consider much less apply to my marriage. Ideas like…there’s no such thing as a happy marriage, marriage is hard work, people are happier single than married…  And who knows what else.

            This article went on to advise single people that there’s no such thing as marriage, there’s only a legal contract that gives certain legal rights and responsibilities. After that…supposedly…marriage is simply what you make it.

            This article did at least go on to dispute the idea that marriage is prostitution. Not only that but the author spoke of marriage as something they had committed to for life. That wasn’t the case with anything else I read.   

            There seemed to be a big distinction between wives that work and wives that are homemakers. Among what was defined as ‘legalized prostitution’…or what we call marriage…just how much ‘prostitution was happening seemed to be defined by whether or not the wife had an income of her own. The women that worked weren’t seen in quite the same way as those who don’t hold a paying job. I actually saw ‘women who are not financially dependent on any man.’ Just the way they worded that…any man…makes it sound like a bad thing.

            Apparently feminist theorists that have studied ‘sexual economics’…whatever that is…believe that all women have been prostitutes at some point in their life. The idea goes something like it’s only a matter of whether or not they’re a prostitute to one man, because they got married, or to many men. Not only that but apparently the women that ‘prostitute’ themselves through marriage receive poor pay for their work and are subject to being controlled to the point of not having control of their own lives and being abused. And all of this is supposedly a part of, or possibly a spin off from, the idea that marriage is slavery.

            In the things I read…which admittedly wasn’t much…it said that any marriage without love is nothing more than trading certain ‘favors’ for money under the respectability of marriage. But even at that…Scripture doesn’t tell us that love is a prerequisite to marriage. How many marriages in the Bible were began between a man and a woman that didn’t know each other prior to being married? We aren’t told that these marriages were any less honorable because the couple didn’t love each other. We aren’t told that the woman became a prostitute or a slave because she married a man she didn’t love. Love doesn’t seem to be the standard for which marriage is considered honorable.

            I know someone that admits to having married a man for the simple fact that she couldn’t support herself and her children. She has said many times that she didn’t love her husband, that she never loved him.

            Does that make the marriage any less of a marriage? Does her feelings for her husband negate what the marriage was?

            According to some of what I read that made this woman a legal prostitute. Nothing else.

            What therefore God has joined together…Mark 10:9

            I don’t see anywhere in Scripture where it defines the methods through which God joins a couple together. It doesn’t say that He joins them together through love. In fact Adam and Eve couldn’t have loved each other when they became husband and wife because they were married from before the moment they met. Eve was created for the purpose of being Adam’s wife. She was his wife before she was. Love, if it happened, came later.

            I’m in no way disregarding love in marriage. I’m just saying that I don’t see where it’s a prerequisite for biblical marriage.

            But there are those that say that a woman marrying for those reasons is simply selling herself to her husband, not only that but these same people say that all marital intercourse is rape. As I understand it rape becomes rape when the woman is an unwilling participant. How then can all marital intercourse be rape? Whether marriage is involved or not, most cases of intercourse involve a willing woman.

            In my research I read a comment by someone that takes the whole marriage is prostitution theory and turned it around to say a woman will become a prostitute for dinner and a movie. Others seemed to believe that money and possessions were the main reason women get married and therefore they were prostitutes.

            These comments weren’t the feminist theory but the beliefs held by the average person responding to articles where the theories were presented. Which shows the minds of people that may not be the activist type feminists. They are the ordinary people we encounter every day. Which shows that this is the view now commonly held by our society…or at least part of it…about marriage.

            Apparently everything a wife is can be summarized down to what she will do physically in return for the security of room and board. In other words she is what they used to call a kept woman where her only purpose is the physical satisfaction of her husband. Having children may or may not be part of that role. Her husband’s role is then, by default, nothing more than that of ‘keeper’ or bill payer.

            That isn’t how Scripture defines marriage.

            In order to get to the point of seeing marriage in any one way or another we need to go back to what marriage ‘is’. If, as that one article pointed out, marriage ceases to be anything particular once the legal contract is signed then we have no definition of what it actually is. In that case why couldn’t it be legal prostitution? If there is no this-is-what-marriage-is than there is no this-is-what-marriage-isn’t. And when we take out the what marriage ‘is’ and the what marriage ‘isn’t’ then it can be anything.

            We’ve seen that in the recent laws that have been enacted over marriage.

            Without the clear definition of what marriage ‘is’, we have no standard to refute what it isn’t or what it can’t be.

            Marriage can’t be prostitution, even when love isn’t involved, even when a woman admits to marrying only for money, because it IS marriage. And marriage has a distinction that removes the possibility of prostitution from the relationship. Even if a wife was constantly telling her husband ‘I’ll do this in exchange for that’ it still wouldn’t be prostitution. It would be wrong. It would be immoral. It would be…something. But it wouldn’t be prostitution. Because it would still be marriage. The physical act would still be happening within the bounds of marriage.

            And anytime marriage as defined by the Bible is there…prostitution isn’t. Marriage by Biblical definition is an institution created and brought about by God. In every single marriage that ever happens. What God has brought together. It doesn’t get any plainer than that. God brought them together. They are joined in marriage…a relationship that comes not only with certain legal rights and responsibilities, but with God given rights and responsibilities.

            By Biblical definition marriage is the union between one man and one woman…

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

Joined together so that they are no longer one person but two…

and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH '? 6"So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Matthew 19:5-6

For life…

What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. Matthew 19:6

That is what marriage ‘is’. It is…and should be…the definition through which we look at marriage. It should be the high standard for which we view all of marriage. It is a union created by God in the garden of Eden…

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. Genesis 2:22-23

            In this we see that the woman…the wife…wasn’t just made to be a wife but she was…and is…literally a part of her husband. She was made from his body. This was the first marriage, it was the marriage where God literally presented the wife to her husband. She was made for him…from him…and handed over to him. It was God ordained then…without the benefit of love between the couple…and it is God ordained today, with or without love.

            It doesn’t become marriage without it being…what God has joined together.

            That is the basis of what marriage ‘is’. There is a definite defining of what it is and what it should be. If we look further into Scripture we see more of what marriage is beyond the very basics.

            Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.  Hebrews 13:4


            We are told that marriage should be honorable among all. There’s no distinction for how the marriage came to be or the feelings between the couple. We are just told that marriage is to be held in honor. It’s an honorable state. Not only that but we’re told that the marriage bed is to be undefiled. Any form of prostitution would defile the marriage bed, it wouldn’t be honorable in any way. How then, can marriage in any way be likened to Biblical marriage?


            Scripture also gives us other insights into what a marriage should be…

 

He who finds ¹a wife finds ²a good thing and ³obtains favor ⁴from the LORD. Proverbs 18:22

 

Other versions say that a wife is a gift from the Lord. She is a gift…it doesn’t say she’s a possession, a slave, or a prostitute. And it doesn’t define how the marriage came to be or why either the man or the woman entered into the marriage. It simply says that she is a favor, or a gift, from the Lord. I can’t imagine a prostitute ever being a gift, or a favor. Even if she was sent to a man as a gift what she’s bringing, what she’s offering isn’t the kind of gift I envision when I read this verse.

To me this verse is saying that a wife is a gift from the Lord, she’s something special given…or entrusted…to him. As I think of that verse, among others, I think of how some see men as branding their wives with their names as if they are livestock. And I think of my own marriage. My husband never asked me to take his name, never said I had to, never even mentioned it. I WANTED to take his name. For me, taking my husband’s name was a part of the marriage. It was part of the sacred union that I entered into…willingly…with him. By taking his name I was announcing to all that I belong to him, much the way wearing a wedding ring announces that I belong to my husband.

It wasn’t about being branded as the feminists described it. It was about becoming one…completely…with my husband. I think of how people used to refer to a woman as Mrs. And her husband’s name. She was completely within his identity at that moment. She didn’t have the distinction of her own name, of her own person. Who she was was completely wrapped up within her husband. She was referred to as the female part of the husband. He was her identity.

That practice has long been set aside but when I think of it…I think of how it should be. Woman was created for man. The first woman was literally made from her husband’s body. She was not only his, but her identity was in him. Because he was…she was.

Being a wife wasn’t a role she played. It wasn’t like saying she was a teacher or a waitress. It was the very identity of who she was. She was first and foremost her husbands wife. Then came all her other roles.

And the Lord says she was a gift to her husband.

I see no slavery in that. I see no prostitution. When I think of being the Lord’s gift to my husband… it makes me realize just how important my role as wife is. As a gift to my husband I know that I have been entrusted to him by my Lord.

That places me in a position where I’m not ‘just’ my husband’s wife but where I ‘get’ to be his wife. It’s an honor. It’s precious. It’s priceless.

Scripture goes on to better define our roles as husband and wife. Ephesians 5 tells me how to act as a wife and my husband how to act as a husband. It defines the love and respect that should be between us, not just in thought but in deed. Ephesians 5:33 summarizes it…

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.


If that isn’t enough 1 Peter 3:7 shows us how to live that out…


Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.


That verse is directed to the husband but for me it shows a lot of what the marital relationship should be. It tells my husband how he should treat me…with understanding and honor…but it also shows me where my place in the marriage is. I’m the weaker vessel but by Scripture that is an honorable place to be. I’m not ‘just a wife’, I’m not a ‘legal prostitute’. I’m an heir of the grace of life with my husband.


As a wife…I might belong to my husband…but it isn’t in a degrading ‘prostitution’ or ‘slave’ sort of way. It’s in an honorable way. I was a gift given to him by the Lord, created for the purpose of being my husband’s wife, and it is an honor to be his wife. If sharing my husband’s name is a brand he ‘put’ on me…it’s a brand I gladly wear. If my husband owns me…I willingly give him the right to do so.


Quite honestly I want to belong to my husband. I want him to know that I am his and his alone, that he has exclusive rights to me.


My marriage in no way looks or feels like the feminist definition of marriage as ‘legal prostitution’. It is a precious union that I willingly entered into and it’s an honorable union that I’m happy to be a part of.