Does religion advocate rape or has it been raped in advocacy?

• إذا دعا الرجل زوجته لحاجته فلتأته وإن كانت على التنور

Translation: “When the man (i.e. the husband) calls his wife for a need of his, then she should go, even     if she is at the stove.”

• Ephesians 5:21 (New International Version)
  

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

• Surah 2, verse 223:

“Your wives are as a tilth unto you; so approach your tilth when or how ye will…”

• 1 Corinthians 7:4 (NIV)

“The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.”

As you perused through these phrases, what kind of emotions did it stir within you? My guesswork:

Outrage…amusement…or maybe even guilt?

It is the “jet age” we live in. And as we subscribe to the theory of relativity, we simultaneously succumb to the dictions of our respective bibles. Tension of opposites, as the late Professor Morrie Schwartz said.

But the way we’ve intercepted our texts critically makes a difference. Either we’ve enacted as its written verbatim or under the persuasive suggestion of an ill informed priest, with an agenda of his own. More or less, we’ve reduced ourselves to religious rotes with spiritual lives that may seem noble to society but remain hollow from within. Therefore, in this context, ‘guilt’ implies blind obedience.

So in good reason, men who scoff marital rape as consensual intercourse could be deduced as parrots aka bird brains. But beware of the smart alec types who bend and twist religious codes to befit their trespasses.

Take the first verse. It is often improperly translated as to “satisfy his desire” while it is actually implicated as a general hadith (way of life) to aid the husband in any of his needs, including chores. Nowhere does the hadith allow him to force himself on her in a harmful way if she refuses.

Islam may appear as the most apparent victim of such misinterpreting translators but other patriarchal religions like Catholicism bear the same brunt. Even as the first Corinthians chapter in the bible ascribes the wife’s body partly to her husband (and vice versa), the prejudiced minds completely overlook the subsequent verse that mentions the clause of mutual consent, something that is obviously missing in an act such as rape. Moreover, an important verse in the third chapter of Colossians commands husbands to love their wives without being harsh with them, competes with the contending half baked rationalizations.

Islam may be popularly deemed as the most conservative religion but it actually has dictums on the sexual way of life as part of their hadith. In this context, the verse about wives as tilth is grossly misinterpreted as them being man’s personal property at his disposal. In truth, as the editorial staff from AAI (Ask About Islam) clarifies, it came up on the occasion when some of the prophet’s companions asked him about how to approach their wives sexually. The verse was then revealed to inform believers that they are free to approach their women in any position they like. It was never meant to suggest sexual exploitation as permissible.

However,both religions undeniably consider it sinful for a wife to refuse her husband, especially without a substantial reason. In traditional belief, marriage is a contract, which upon entering she is bound by his needs which makes sexual intercourse a religious duty. And both faiths (and evolution itself) strongly advocate the higher purpose of procreation. But I strongly contend that penetrating your wife, in pure mechanical fashion and in the absence of the sensuality and affect of sex, is nothing lesser than rape. And what of the child born of such a union?

Religious duty or procreation, nothing justifies the use of force and harm. If refusal is sin then rape is far more abhorrent to God.

So, in retrospect, take your pick between the outraged humanist or a religious parrot. That is, of course, if you care at all.

P.S. I’m not being blasphemous if I’m making a point. Point taken?

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