Selfishness vs. Marriage

Selfishness vs. Marriage

Dennis Prager, a conservative columnist, normally writes about politics and culture--but he seems to have opened up Pandora's box with these two columns about sex in marriage, provoking an interesting reaction from readers. Before getting to what Prager wrote, let's recast his argument in somewhat different terms: "Husbands, you may not always feel like doing house chores, but there are times that you really should do so, because it's important to your wife." Is there anyone who finds that argument objectionable?

Prager's argument is essentially that for a variety of reasons, the sexual drive of women tends to decline much more quickly than men:

1. If most women wait until they are in the mood before making love with their husband, many women will be waiting a month or more until they next have sex. When most women are young, and for some older women, spontaneously getting in the mood to have sex with the man they love can easily occur. But for most women, for myriad reasons -- female nature, childhood trauma, not feeling sexy, being preoccupied with some problem, fatigue after a day with the children and/or other work, just not being interested -- there is little comparable to a man’s “out of nowhere,” and seemingly constant, desire for sex.

2. Why would a loving, wise woman allow mood to determine whether or not she will give her husband one of the most important expressions of love she can show him? What else in life, of such significance, do we allow to be governed by mood?

What if your husband woke up one day and announced that he was not in the mood to go to work? If this happened a few times a year, any wife would have sympathy for her hardworking husband. But what if this happened as often as many wives announce that they are not in the mood to have sex? Most women would gradually stop respecting and therefore eventually stop loving such a man.

What woman would love a man who was so governed by feelings and moods that he allowed them to determine whether he would do something as important as go to work? Why do we assume that it is terribly irresponsible for a man to refuse to go to work because he is not in the mood, but a woman can -- indeed, ought to -- refuse sex because she is not in the mood? Why?

The reactions of readers was quite interesting. I'll engage in some very broad generalizations and say that generally the socially conservative sorts (many of them women) agreed with Prager--with some even saying that even if they weren't in the mood, they found that doing so improved the relationship with their husbands. On the other side, many of Prager's critics seem to be generally more liberal and feminist, some of them calling Prager's suggestion "rape" -- even though Prager specifically and repeatedly emphasized that this was no excuse for men pushing or demanding, and specifically excluding relationships that have significant problems.

The more I thought about Prager's columns, and the reactions to it, the more it occurred to me that one of Prager's points is quite valid:

The baby boom generation elevated feelings to a status higher than codes of behavior. In determining how one ought to act, feelings, not some code higher than one’s feelings, became decisive: “No shoulds, no oughts.” In the case of sex, therefore, the only right time for a wife to have sex with her husband is when she feels like having it. She never “should” have it. But marriage and life are filled with “shoulds.”

My experience is that almost every marriage that fails has, somewhere below the layers of depression, financial conflict, infidelity, or domestic abuse, a fundamental problem of selfishness. If one partner is selfish, and the other is selfless, eventually, there is a good chance that the selfless partner will start to feel taken advantage of. If the selfless partner expresses that anger, the marriage may break apart; if she (and it is usually she) represses that anger, she will likely sink into depression.

If both partners are selfish, conflicts over money or time will drive a wedge between them. Some couples can paper over those conflicts by spending money like Hollywood stars, but for most people in the real world, that just isn't an option.

In my experience, really successful marriages require both husband and wife to overcome the natural selfishness to which all of us are born. The first few years of many marriages are a time of adjustment, as (ideally) both partners adjust from traditional single life (what will I do next?) to being part of a couple (what does my spouse want?) It isn't a complete transformation, of course, and there are going to be conflicts between spouses, but it does reduce the conflicts to a manageable level.

Unfortunately, in a lot of marriages, one half may not abandon that selfishness--and the other spouse does all the adjusting. Or one spouse gives up a littlle selfishness, while the other spouse does nearly all the changing. This may make it possible for a marriage to survive, but it isn't ideal, and over time, a spouse who has done nearly all the giving starts to resent it.

One traditional Christian model of marriage is Ephesians 5:

22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."^[c] 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Sad to say, there are men who have used verses 22-24 to put their wives in their place--and neglected to read the following verses, which compares what husbands are supposed to do for their wives to Christ sacrificing himself on the Cross. You can see why petty domestic tyrants might be reluctant to keep reading. "A text without a context is a pretext."

Do you want your marriage to be successful? You and your spouse must both work beyond selfishness and to concern for each other. If that means doing the dishes without being asked, or bringing flowers occasionally, or surprising her return from a trip with a house freshly vacuumed--or creating a night of passion when you aren't really "in the mood"--this all part of working beyond selfishness.