I commit to you! Now I commit to you! Now I commit to you!
“Clue” on Yahoo Answers asks: Is it considered cheating if I divorce my husband to date another man?
I met a man 5 months ago and we are good friends, nothing sexual, I do not allow this to happen b/c I am married but I have been falling in love with him and since I don’t want to have extramarital sex I am thinking about divorcing my husband. Would this be cheating?
And would it be cheating If I finally have sex with this other man 1 day before my divorce is final for example?
Isn’t this just a convention?
This is an excellent question, and something which many are likely wrestling with. In the past marriage was for life and this left serial monogamists in a moral bind. However, now the rules have changed. Under the new definition of marriage so long as she waits until it is “official” she is fully within the letter and spirit of marriage to jump to another man. Those who are moral sticklers would of course insist that she marry this new man before having sex with him, and when she is ready for the next man after that divorce husband number two and then marry husband number three, etc.
The above however only represents the modern secular/legal perspective. We should also consider the modern Christian perspective. Here the rules are fundamentally the same, but you need to work up a biblical cause if you are a Protestant or declare that the marriage never occurred if you are a Catholic.
Sheila Gregoire explained the Protestant view in a comment responding to my post Promiscuity is good, so long as it is on the woman’s terms.
And so in the movie Fireproof, she was in a relationship where divorce was permitted, and she was planning on divorcing, and planning on remarrying. Thus, I wouldn’t say that’s whorish. He’s the one who cheated.
I’m just uncomfortable with you saying that Christians are allowing people to “whore” around because we’re permitting divorce, when I don’t think that’s the case. I believe there are very narrow grounds for divorce: abuse, affairs, and in some cases, addictions.
Protestant aficionados of serial monogamy may initially be disheartened by Sheila’s apparent strictness in what constitutes biblical grounds for divorce. However, there is no need to be concerned. Nearly everything is now considered abuse, and in the case in question Sheila was explaining that the husband viewing pornography was adultery. The key thing for Protestant serial monogamists who want to avoid the sins of fornication and adultery is to legally marry first and then gin up suitable pretext for divorce when you are ready for the next “commitment”. Otherwise the same strict moral rules which apply to marriage 2.0 are in effect.
Catholic serial monogamists would seem to be in a tighter bind here, since the RCC position on divorce is that it is never allowed. Civil divorce is allowed in some situations, but this doesn’t release Catholic serial monogamists to jump to the next stone in the path via remarriage. However, Catholic lawyers have discovered that perhaps as often as 90% of the time people who thought they got married really didn’t. This is especially common for Catholics thinking they were married in the US, because roughly 80% of RCC annulments are granted in the US, which accounts for only roughly 5% of Catholics worldwide. In these cases remarriage is permitted, and this is so common that one Catholic priest advises couples who fear they divorced in sin to go through the annulment process as a form of healing.
So many people misunderstand the Church’s teaching of divorce, annulments and remarriage. I encouraged those in the congregation to speak to me or another priest about getting an annulment to help move on with their lives. I’ve heard of so many people staying away from the Eucharist because they are divorced and as a result cannot receive communion. NO! Divorce in and of itself is not a sin, is not a reason to stay away from the Eucharist. Being remarried outside of the Church would be a reason one should not receive Holy Communion. The Church recognizes the difficulty that so many people have when it comes to this area of life. She stands ready to assist those who are in pain.
This just leaves the question of all of the sex which occurred after your wedding and before your divorce when you weren’t actually married. You may be concerned that this sex outside of marriage was fornication. However, you are covered here as well. Since you mistakenly thought you were married it turns out all of that unmarried sex wasn’t fornication.
I’m not the final authority on finding the appropriate moral rationalizations for serial monogamy, but hopefully this post has helped my readers start thinking about the right way to engage in serial monogamy. As always, consult your local divorce attorney/pastor/priest for guidance on the proper way to engage in serial monogamy to make sure you aren’t accidentally doing something immoral.
Woman on stepping stones pic licensed as creative commons by Steve-h.
“NO! Divorce in and of itself is not a sin, is not a reason to stay away from the Eucharist. ”
Lord preserve him. You are right to point out that then, de facto, fornication occurred. I’m assuming you accept that annulments, that is _true_ defects in form can exist. However, that they are currently abused in a truly epic way.
How do you know if you are abusing your wife? If you do not allow her to get a credit card in your name…. http://www.learnvest.com/2011/07/what-if-you-had-to-ask-your-husbands-permission-for-a-credit-card-583/
This would, of course, justify her in getting a frivorce. So go ahead and fork over your beta bucks, are you are an abuser….
This is why I can’t endorse a church. While the protestants are in full-prone prostration to feminist interests and “man-up”ing, the Roman Catholic Church merely lacks a backbone. It’s a bad, bad world when the Orthodox Church is the standard of marriage hard-asses in the West because it, “blesses the first marriage, performs the second, tolerates the third, and forbids the fourth.”
What spousal-cheating women never seem to understand is that part of the reason a male views her as attractive is that she managed to wrangle commitment out of another man. That’s the female equivalent of social-proofing. Once this commitment ceases, her SMV drops according to her age, physique, attractiveness, temperament, and femininity. Very few women get their “misters” to marry them. Very few men have a problem getting a ring on to their mistress’ fingers.
Seriously. This is what feminism has brought us to. This is what serial monogamy is. It’s not “I’m not haaaaaappy”. We’ve now graduated to “I’ve met someone else and I want to be haaaappier”.
Because I have sons, the oldest of whom is of marriageable age or nearly so, I fear for their future. The unlikelihood of any of them finding a bride who is in it “til death do we part”, no matter if they wed a Christian or non-Christian, is overwhelmingly sad to me. But observing marriages in and out of the church in recent years, leads me to believe that you accurately portray the present and the future of marriage. How does one advise sons without painting too bleak a picture for their youthful sensibilities? They instinctively reject any hint of gloom, choosing to focus on brighter,more entertaining thoughts.
Marriage 1.0 from the Catholic Perspective, Leo XIII’s 1880 Encyclical (it is a good read)
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_10021880_arcanum_en.html
(This and the later link might be closer to the ideal Protestant perspective, they do discuss the nature of marriage and the consequences of allowing divorce – it is hard to find good contemporary material, so I would invite my Protestant brothers and sisters to read them to see what was being said earlier)
The Catholic Church here in the USA seems to wish to be the Whore of Babylon more than the Bride of Christ. I’ve often tried to shout the problem is not “gay marriage” but “no fault divorce”, i.e. if God would answer one prayer – a return to indissoluble marriages, but it would apply to homosexuals (civilly, no requirement for churches to perform them) – or using the current “one man and one woman at a time”, we should prefer the former. In the past election the Bishop of Maine in his letter talking about marriage mentioned “open to life” but didn’t mention “till death do us part”. The Bishops could do more for marriage and their own credibility by stopping the annulment factory. (But I’ve read church history, it has been worse, rarely better).
As to Divorce, that doesn’t excommunicate you, only remarriage. Sometimes this is a problem when people come back to church (or convert to Catholicism with an apparently valid first marriage). While waiting for the annulment to be decided upon, they are to live as brother and sister – no sex, since in the (rare) case it wouldn’t be granted, that would be adultery.
All I can say is I know what my church teaches. The Catechism says it too. I’ve never been married and right now in the feminized culture that has infected everything, how do I find a wife? I’m hoping somewhere in a faithful church, but I’ve known women who abandoned their faith – divorcing God and Husband. No man lives up to the standard. The difference is we have 2000 year old standards and can’t play word games on scriptural texts to change their plain and long understood meaning. So the teaching is holy, the teachers corrupt.
The best construction (which I don’t admit, but am playing devil’s advocate here), is that the USA is so feminized and the churches so bad at explaining matrimony (remember baptized protestants that were married and divorced might be sacramentally married so converts would need an annulment), that it is possible that most marriages were not entered into with full knowledge and consent, therefore no sacrament. Sort of like a complex contract that is thrown out because no one CAN understand the provisions – something written for college grads but signed by illiterates, or where coercion is used or it isn’t of the will but of the emotions or lower.
Another good Marriage 1.0 Catholic perspective is from Archbishop Fulton Sheen: http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARRIAGE/3GETMARR.TXT
Excerpt When the ecstasy does not
continue, and the band stops playing, and the champagne of life
loses its sparkle, the other partner is called a cheat and a robber,
and then finally called to a divorce court on the grounds of
incompatibility. And what grounds could be more stupid than
incompatibility, for what two persons in the world are perfectly
and at all times compatible?
Shelia Gregiore as you noted has an expansive definition of abuse or affair – not bringing me breakfast in bed or looking twice at a “10”. But as Leo 13 noted, once you open the door, it keeps opening. Is marriage a civil institution or is it a sacrament. If it is the latter then no man can break apart what God has joined. If it is the former, then it depends on what man finds convenient at the time.
After clicking the link to the “Catholic Forums” it took about one second to realize that “The Holy Mother Church” has her Rationalization Hamster in overdrive. What a crock!
Where in the Bible does it say this? I can almost sort of see how people get the idea that men can initiate divorce based on adultery or past fornication of the wife. But where are women permitted this, and where in the Bible does it say that abuse of any kind or addictions are grounds for divorce?
Hint: It doesn’t. I’ve read the whole book. It isn’t there.
Wow, I just read Ms. Gregoire’s statement again. The key words are I BELIEVE. Not “God says”. It’s what she says because it’s what she wants to be true.
The abuse one really infuriates me. The vast majority of what women say is abuse is bull crap anyway, but even in the case of physical abuse, divorce is not Biblically permitted. The thing to do in the case of severe physical abuse is separate for safety reasons.
Unsurprisingly, he did a terrible job of explaining this. The misconception he was probably trying to address is that in a divorce/remarriage situation, it’s the divorce that’s sinful, not the remarriage, when the truth is that the remarriage is the bigger problem. A divorce doesn’t change anything in the eyes of the Church — if you were married before, you still are, and if you repent you can be in the state of grace and receive the sacraments again. But remarriage makes you a bigamist and adulterer, and you can’t confess that and be in good standing as long as that’s the case, so it’s the remarriage that leaves people feeling out in the cold.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no sin involved in divorce. Even if the civil act itself isn’t sinful, it’s bound to be accompanied by plenty of sin. There’s the fact that the divorcing spouse is almost certainly withholding sex from the other, for instance. It’s quite likely that the process will involve lies, covetousness, child neglect, and a whole laundry list of other sins.
Ssm,
I suspect addictions are labelled as a form of abuse. Hence the free pass.
Mellie,
Hope your sons experience the vicarious divorce of a close friend. I saw a lot of friends marry and divorce. It was a very eye-opening learning curve to see the behaviour of good, church girls in a new light.
@Dalrock: Just checking – I haven’t read through your archives in quite some time. What’s your stance on divorce? Is it allowable in real cases of abuse and adultery (not “I’m not haaaaappy” abuse, but “he beats me regularly” abuse)? If so, is re-marriage allowed afterwards?
Unless I’m mistaken, I’ve seen feminists in the past claim that unexpected pregnancy is abusive to women. This would make all untimed/unplanned pregnancies a form of abuse and hence most all husbands are now abusive.
Only humanity has the self-deception capability to deny their own biology.
Jeremy – I’ve seen feminists in the past claim that unexpected pregnancy is abusive to women. This would make all untimed/unplanned pregnancies a form of abuse and hence most all husbands are now abusive
Everything is abusive now.
Can’t knock ’em down, can’t knock ’em up.
Interesting post. It appears even the church has turned into just one more legal authority, what with all of its rules and rigors of when, why, and how one should divorce, or annul, to be “covered” against sin. I wonder what happenned to repentance and forgiveness….
Why can’t they just call it sin?
Why the big song and dance and spin trying to avoid the obvious?
Why not just admit the sin, go to God with it, and then go forward in life? All this hand-wringing by people like that priest to Miss Gregiore… well..
they’re just a bunch of clowns.
Hard to imagine anyone consulting them for “expertise” on anything.
All this rationalization whilst the Emperor clearly wears no clothes.
If I had to guess, I’d speculate that this isn’t how God intended us to work out our salvation- with big piles of bullshit trying to justify and cover up the stench.
@GKC
My point isn’t to object to the idea of annulments, but as you say the current abuse.
@Mavwreck
As with the question on annulments I’m not claiming there are no legitimate reasons for divorce, but am objecting to the rampant abuse of the process. As I understand it adultery is a legitimate reason for divorce. For abuse I would agree with your definition but I’m not certain that it is grounds for divorce/remarriage. SSM states above that the issue there is separation for safety, and this might be all that is biblically permitted. However, even here this isn’t where my objection lies. The vast majority of what we are seeing is barely dressed up serial monogamy with a moral stamp of approval. You can see this with the original question on Answers. The woman asking is convinced that if she files for divorce from husband #1 before jumping into bed with man # 2 she is being moral.
Solomon:
“I’m not haaaappy” divorce and then remarriage to someone who makes you haaaappier as sin, is “a hard teaching. Who can hear it?”
My friend has received a text, from an old girl-friend or to use the modern and perhaps more accurate terminology a Friend with occasional Benefits. The FwoB says that she has failed to fall pregnant by her Husband whom she married ten years ago and who is not a Fireman but a Medical Doctor, and further that they are living separate-lives as she stays sometimes with her now widowed Mother; that she is thus entitled to go out and enjoy herself, and with the hint that she would still like a child (although she is forty-seven). I told my friend that out of every 1000 live births only 2 were to women aged over forty-five. When he reminded her that she, being a Roman Catholic, was unable to Divorce, she texted him to say that ‘Jesus would not want her to be unhappy’. If she is right, I was wondering what responsibility my friend, who owns a copy of the King James Bible, might have, to ensure that she becomes happy and acquire that child she now longs for?
Dalrock, thanks for the answer. It sounds like you’re, perhaps, a little bit more flexible than the official Catholic answer, but not by much. I definitely agree with you that frivolous divorce is far too prevalent today.
Question to everyone – do you think that abolishing alimony (at least in no-fault divorces) would reduce the amount of serial marriages we see?
My opinion – yes, but not as much as you’d think. Younger potential divorcees would feel like they had a good chance of marrying up financially; older career women would think they’d be OK on their own. I don’t think either of them would be as correct as they think, but it’s their perception that matters.
Mav:
Abolishing alimony probably won’t reduce serial marriages; but it might reduce frivorce.
What would really reduce frivorce is default child custody to the father, as it used to be before divorce reform in the 1960s and 70s.
PS – I don’t think morality is going to sway too many of the serial monogamists out there. Our country is full of many different religions and moral frameworks; someone who wants to morally justify their actions will find some way to do it.
There should be neither a Catholic nor a Protestant rule for divorce, but we all should apply what Scripture says. The clearest application of Scripture that I have seen is John Piper’s personal position paper on divorce which is at http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/divorce-remarriage-a-position-paper. Some would say that it is a very hardline position, but then again, when Jesus gave his teaching on divorce and remarriage some disciples were recorded as saying that marriage was not worth the trouble if it was going to be so very difficult to get out of one.
The other problem is that Jesus used hyperbole as a means of teaching. Just as I am sure he did not mean for anyone to amputate their own limbs or gouge out their own eyes, but rather to keep away from situations in which they were tempted to sin and likely to give in to the temptation, his suggestion that a man looking at a woman with lust had already committed adultery in his heart was not literally true, but He knew men: attracted by appearance first and then sorely tempted to follow their baser desires despite being married to another woman or despite the woman being married to another man. I see this teaching as a command to get out of the position where you can look at her with lust before your thoughts become deeds. Sheila Gregoire sees it differently.
Good grief, I can still remember hiking to the bottom of Grand Canyon in 1982 and coming around a blind bend in a trail to meet a (well-endowed) woman coming toward me wearing only shorts, footwear and a rucksack. As a twenty-something year old male I could not avoid looking, but as a Christian, I kept going so as not to be tempted to do any more than look as she came along the ten yards or so of trail before we passed each other by. I had not engineered the situation. I had not foreseen the situation. Should my fiancee have ditched me for looking? She was with me and knows what happened. Taking the logical extension of Sheila’s teaching, I could argue she possibly should have ditched me for looking. I’m glad she did not.
Dalrock: even here this isn’t where my objection lies.
I understand the desire to be pragmatic, but in some ways, this is where Christians’ objections must lie. If the Church says (in contradiction to the Bible) that divorce for abuse is morally permissible, women are going to use that excuse. That’s why we have abuse checklists like the one that ballista74 put up:
So, if you have criticized your wife, controlled the finances, or believe in gender roles, you are an abuser and she has moral cover to file for divorce.
The adultery one is murky for some people; I have stated in a discussion at my site that it seems like this is only permitted for men.
I think there is a good reason to interpret it that way. As soon as women think they can use it to justify divorce (or as soon as the Church permits them to use it as moral justification for divorce), then suddenly viewing porn is adultery.
So, I understand the desire to look only at how women are abusing this, but I think without a clear, consistent NO DIVORCE message from the Church, women will always find a way to abuse the process.
Mark 10: 11-12
And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.”
Well, the truth on the ground is that Serial Monogamy is the game these days. Churches interested in keeping those expensive sanctuaries full are not going to turn away Nick and Anita and their thrice-blended “family”.
The way it worked when I was an Evangelical is that you got a free pass to remarry if you married and divorced “before you were sayved” or “while you were away from the Lawrd”. Needless to say this caused a lot of people to dodge in and out of the umbra of salvation in order to allow the ecclesiastical hamsters to grind out the necessary justifications for Nick’s fourth wife or Anita’s third husband (but seventh LTR hint-hint-wink-wink).
Now the Orthodox Church doesn’t born anyone again. You’re just a rotten sinner like everyone else and that doesn’t change as long as you are in the skin. But we do allow the laity to go three marriages before we forbid them the cup, I wish that were different.
Well if you leave the kids with the husband thats cool go ahead and move the fuck on bitch. That is the answer to the question. PS handle your bills have it all paid in full before you go.
IMHO Solomon has it right. Sin is sin is sin. It seems the game is to sanctify the re-marriage, or any other sexual sin/action in the eyes of the “moral authorities” AKA the Church.
The Bible states plainly that since the days of Moses we’ve been feeding the sexual activity rationalization hamster instead of just coming right out with the sin. Seems like a quite feeble effort to short circuit the simple Confess -> Repent -> Forgive/Receive Grace model.
Seems like this whole “is divorce and re-marriage” discussion is all about seeking forgiveness for an action through men that is “100% pre-approved” by God, so there is no guilt or shame.
Maybe…somewhat. Some states are moving in that direction, or at least cutting down on permanent alimony.
However, there is a countervailing trend. Feminists fervently lobby to change the laws so that any kind of sexual association a man has with a woman (whether or not it produces offspring) carries virtually the same kind of liability and perils as an official marriage. They couch it in terms like “unmarried couples should have the same rights as married couples” and such. Yeah, I’m sure that they’ll happily support a woman’s unemployed, skinhead boyfriend milking her for palimony payments after the two break up.
Nsr,
Part of the ‘my body, my choice’ mantra, I presume.
The husband/father (not always the same person) has little say in the matter. After all, he’s only a male.
“Why can’t they just call it sin?”
Because we have to be living in the end times. Everything that is bad is called good and vice versa.
Thankfully in Heaven…we won’t have to deal with marriage anymore.
lozozzllozlzlzozozooz
technically spekaingz the act of sexual intercoucrse establiheshes a marriage of one fleshz
so i would arugue dat da diovrce rate s much higher
for it does not coutz all the couplez that live and sex toghter have lots of sexytimez and cohabit the same home, which is marriage, minus the formailty of wedding cake (Whcih da american womenz make up for anyawayz by eating twinkiez zlozlzozoz)
nor odes it count all da one hnight sexy time stone nigt stands, or twom month relationships, or six month “marriages” let’s play house for a week in vegas tripz.
add it all up, and there are trillions of divorces every day every year lzozozlzlolzozo
but do not despair, for the GBFM, as usueals as usual has aBRILAINT SOLUTIONZ!!!!!!!!!
at the exit door of every club, we need to post modern day churchians and ministerz.
becua etheyr they no longer preach against pre-marital sex, i am sure they would be happy to marry the coulpez leaving the club, so that they scould have sex and buttehxt sin-free in the context of a modern marriage.
the priest and minsitez could stand bseide the club bouncers with stacks of marriage certificatez, and fill them out as the couplez waited for cabs to go and sexy sex sex timez.
an added benefit is that such maariagez may also allow the state to seize a man’z assetts, like at least his play station for a one-night marriage, or his collection of MAXIM magazinez and Ipad for a weekend-marriage.
if any of you churrchiansz haz contacts in da church, i would like to move forward with this proposal which i call, the “SEX (& BUTHETXTT) WITH LOVE IS NOT LIVING IN SIN” movementz whereby we can help sanctify and save the soulsz of this fallenz geenrtizonzz generationzzlzozlzlzoozoz
lzozozolozoz
DA BIBLE OLD TESTAMENT STATES:
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
JESUS STATESZZ DAT HE CAME TO FULFILL THE LAW
BU TTHE CHURCHIANS TEACH
THAT JESUS CAME
TO ABOLISH
THE
LAW
Today my girlfriend said,
“Forgive the Churchians, GBFM
for teaching that Christ came to abolish the law
for that is what they were taught
by thier butthexting churchian elders
who prefer material welath, divocre, adultery, hypergamy
worldly pride, butthext, fornication, greed, sophistry,
over the simple teahcings ahd truths of Christ
and thus use and corrupt JEsus Christ
so as to abolish the law he came to fulfill.”
forgive the churchians
for reviling and persecuting you
for quoting jesus christ
forgive the churchians
for reviling and persecuting you
for explaining that jesus came
to fulfill
the law
as jesus
stated
thusly
forgive the churchians
for reviling and persecuting you
for “fixating” on the teachings
of jesus christ
forgive the churchians
for reviling and persecuting you
and accusing you of creating “noise”
for quoting multiple translations
of the glorious words and ideals
of jesus christ
for it is not ye that they hate
but jesus christ and the law
He came to fulfill.
you can see chruchians churchians stating that jesus came to abolish the law here:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/what-we-need-is-more-chivalry/#comments
One huge problem with an abused annulment process is that it turns large numbers of people into material adulterers.
As a traditionalist protestant, I can see an argument that secular marriages are not valid in the eyes of God. If a Muslim woman comes into my church and converts to Christ and asks if she can divorce her abusive Muslim husband, or deny him sex, will I uphold the Christian standard and tell her no? If my atheist sister gets married to a real atheist loser am I really going to tell her to stick around because it could get better? If a Christian has gotten married outside of the church, under the sole authority of The State, am I going to uphold their marriage as ecclesiatically binding?
This is what makes me lean toward a movement for Christians to abandon state marriage, and turn to ecclesiastical marriage. But I’m sure that won’t go over well with secularists- claiming it to be like Sharia law for Christians.
@GB4M,
You are absolutely incorrect in your holding of what makes marriage. So absolutely fundamentally wrong it hurts. God makes marriage. Full stop. Those who do not engage him as a partner in marriage commit sexual sin, they do not spontaneously become married.
GBFM, I hate to interrupt your trance, which no doubt you require for such great performances and to maintain sanity under dual personalities, and which likely enables your special typing and grammar skills, but you are RIGHT ON, BRO.
This is my opinion so far as I’ve looked at the matter. Don’t call me a false teacher, I pray I am not! Jesus came to fulfill the law. Before His crucification, the penalty for the *commission* of an act of adultery was DEATH. And he died on the cross for our sins. Yet adultery today is still why He had to die back then, therefore it is still sinful. Further, adultery was only charged when married women were involved. Single women would not be stoned for adultery. Men took multiple wives and also concubines without anyone being called adulterers. When Jesus teaches about adultery in the heart, he is talking about looking at women married to other men; he is talking about ADULTERY. Otherwise, under Jesus’ “literal” teaching, men would not be able to look at their own wives (the scripture says: “A woman”), nor would men be able to look at prospective wives while they are courting. Paul says that we should marry if we have a sexual desire for women, or stay single, like him, if we have no such desire for women. So it is not adultery to lust for the right woman, and the “right woman” is: your wife, or your prospective wife. If it is for another single woman that you lust, you have not committed adultery, and if you’ve looked at porn, your wife would have to try to claim that looking at porn would be punishable by death under the law, or raise the question if whether or not the woman was single or married. This is not found in the OT or the NT as “adultery” but it can indeed be viewed as “fornication” or “sexual immorality.” My point is not to excuse adultery, but to define it so that it cannot be used as a weapon for Churchians to reject Christ.
i wrote “technically spekaingz the act of sexual intercoucrse establiheshes a marriage of one fleshz”
and da chcurch and god can santcifty and make this an exalted proper holy matrimony marraige of one osul an soul and spirit
or else it is sin
but dat is bnot not what the churcians preach dese days
as GKChestron labled multiple quotes of the beautiful words of Jesus Christ as “Noise.”
lzozoozozozoz
The best advice I have for a young man today is to think children with no wife. Think father not husband and wife.Sarrogacy,adoption but at all times limit legal exposer to women. Learn game and why women behave the way they do. this is for a man that wants children. Overall I wold advise any young man to put the whole idea of a wife out of his head.
Any parent of boys should start at age twelve teaching your son the laws of misandry (age 12 is the cut off age for boys at womens shelters).
This advice is not based on who women are but on the law and how it is enforced. Men have no rights at all in any relationship with a woman.
Earl says:
“As a traditionalist protestant, I can see an argument that secular marriages are not valid in the eyes of God. If a Muslim woman comes into my church and converts to Christ and asks if she can divorce her abusive Muslim husband, or deny him sex, will I uphold the Christian standard and tell her no? If my atheist sister gets married to a real atheist loser am I really going to tell her to stick around because it could get better? If a Christian has gotten married outside of the church, under the sole authority of The State, am I going to uphold their marriage as ecclesiatically binding?”
You should:
1 Corinthians 7:12-14: “…If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband…”
If you’re going to uphold marriage, you need to uphold marriage. The Devil loves exceptions to the rules. He loves the qualifiers, the what ifs. As soon as you start wiggling around the rules you’re going into sin. “Pragmatism” is probably his favorite word:
Revelation 3:15-17: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm–neither hot nor cold–I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
The Devil is a lawyer after all.
As for the questions of if he is abusive. The choice was made when you married him, which is why, as Dalrock has pointed out that choice should be so carefully made and celebrated.
Mark 10: 11-12
And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.”
That reads to me that the “sin” is in the re-marriage not the divorce itself. Though God hates divorce but allows it because of hardening of the heart but only allows re-marriage under very limited circumstances.
But judging divorce in the church can be found in the following verses.
Matthew 7:1 — “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”
Romans 2:1 — You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
John 8:7 — When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
8:1-11 Christ neither found fault with the law, nor excused the prisoner’s guilt; nor did he countenance the pretended zeal of the Pharisees. Those are self-condemned who judge others, and yet do the same thing. All who are any way called to blame the faults of others, are especially concerned to look to themselves, and keep themselves pure. In this matter Christ attended to the great work about which he came into the world, that was, to bring sinners to repentance; not to destroy, but to save. He aimed to bring, not only the accused to repentance, by showing her his mercy, but the prosecutors also, by showing them their sins; they thought to ensnare him, he sought to convince and convert them. He declined to meddle with the magistrate’s office. Many crimes merit far more severe punishment than they meet with; but we should not leave our own work, to take that upon ourselves to which we are not called. When Christ sent her away, it was with this caution, Go, and sin no more. Those who help to save the life of a criminal, should help to save the soul with the same caution. Those are truly happy, whom Christ does not condemn. Christ’s favour to us in the forgiveness of past sins should prevail with us, Go then, and sin no more.
Pretty much sums up
Mellie, perhaps you could encourage them to marry in a church before God but not get a marriage license. Which would keep the state out o the equation. Won’t work as well if your state does common law.
Excellent post by greyghost as usual
Men HAVE to radically rethink marriage, limit the legal exposure to women
Women will ALWAYS twist the definition of morals, watering it down to the point it becomes the exact opposite, immoral
Giving women any form of legalese in a relationship or marriage, is a ticking time bomb
The only way to raise a family is to raise your children without a mother
Today a mother is THE worst enemy to her own children & your family
Women have already replaced morality for feral primitive behavior
Surrogate is probably the safest & the only option for men today looking to raise their own sons
Men will have to presume theyre already divorced & raise the kids on his own
It’s only a matter of time before women start claiming any sort of commitment to a man is abuse ..
Some seem to be making an argument that divorce itself isn’t a sin.
God HATES divorce. Kindly explain how an imperfect, sinful man (or woman) doing something that God hates isn’t sin. If one divorces, what would be appropriate repentance?
Dalrock’s basic thrust is correct, but it doesn’t really go far enough. Until the humanist philosopher Erasmus’s positions on divorce were incorporated into fledgling Protestant thought and doctrine in the 16th century, the Christian standard was no divorce. Period.
Did the Word itself change over the course of the last 5 centuries? No.
SSM wrote:
As I understand it, the new VAWA reauthorization makes these things that were originally listed (I listed them because they run specifically counter to God’s true plan for marriage) child’s play compared to what the standards are now:
Solomon wrote:
Because they are wicked, plain and simple. Sin is sin is sin. Speaking on topic to this post, it’s disgusting to see how much sin is tolerated and supported in all circles, especially in the name of the form of marriage they have devised. This using of another word to cloak their sin and not calling it what it is. Annulment is divorce. Divorce is annulment. Then they have the gall to slander the name of the Lord and claim that “God made it.” Especially in having third-hand witness to a current Roman Catholic frivorce going on, and desires for another one expressed by another person, it’s not hard to see (especially given other things) that Marriage 2.0 is fully in force everywhere, inside the church, outside of the church, you name it. No corner of the nation or the Church is exempt.
Marriage in the sight of God is for LIFE. If you can’t go in with that expectation and be fully committed to it, you have no business considering it.
Ras, your scriptural answer satisfactorily begins to address my first situation, but does not take into account the other two situations I mentioned. Why not comment there? Do you see the progression– the slippery slope of holding secular/pagan marriages hostage to Christian standards? If a woman is unequally yoked, there is your answer, yes, thank you for that. But what about the rest?
Great post.
From the brilliant deductions provided by Rollo there are three inducements to male and female sexual interactions:
Arousal – Pure sexual chemistry, limbic animal lust (hyperagamy?).
Attraction – Positive social and individual qualities.
Love – Selfless giving of one’s self for the betterment of another (not necessarily requited nor for one’s happiness).
The problem with frivolous divorce is that arousal is conflated with love, whereas biblical marriage is solidly grounded on love, falling out of ‘being aroused’ is not a biblical ground for divorce.
Truth be told, married men are constantly aroused by attractive women but do not act out on their ‘impulses’ whereas women are encouraged to act on impulses (and arousal is purely an impulse).
The common thread is, “I fell out of love,” or “You can’t help who you fall in love with.”
It should read, “I fell out of being aroused,” or “You cant help with whom you are aroused.”
Bloody oath you can’t help who you are aroused by (that’s why it is an impulse) but it doesn’t justify acting out on it.
Marriage that can be terminated by such frivolities no longer deserves being attributed the title of biblical marriage, I’m sure better minds can can conceive of a better term, I prefer ‘civil union’ because essentially that is what modern marriage has become. A union no longer sanctioned by the God of the bible (despite the hokey-pokey ceremonies) but a union sanctioned by the god of the state.
@BikerDad: The act of divorce in and of itself is not sin or sinful. Even killing is not sinful, but murder, absolutely. God has killed, he cannot sin, God has divorced, he cannot sin. Yes, we are not God, but what reason ties God’s killing and divorcing? He did so to preserve his Holiness and remove sin from his presence.
Jeremiah 3:8 I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery
God may hate it, but if you believe Jeremiah, he did it.
This is why I think Solomon nails it, it really isn’t about divorce and re-marriage, it is about sin. If you are one flesh, and your spouse, who is your flesh, is sinning and is not going to heal…but is taking you down in sin…then as Matthew 5:30 says..”And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”
Personally, I agonized for months, and then spent 5 days in prayer and study at a religious hermitage before my decision was final to divorce my sinning, unrepentant wife. I did it Marriage 1.0 style… and I still have some moral uncertainty about it all. However, to tell you the truth, when I meet other divorced people who had Marriage 2.0 divorces, I seem to always make them a bit ashamed of how they divorced.
I’ll admit it..I am in sin. I’ll also admit I’m no biblical scholar……Tho, I can say I absolutely know how Adam felt when his wife brought him to the tree..
@ospurt
Think back to the teaching of Jesus:
Matthew 19:8-9
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Mark:10:9
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
Malachi 2:16
“I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.
The only legitimate grounds for divorce is adultery and physical violence.
I have to apologize to all of you. I didn’t read the blog until really very late on Tuesday, actually Wednesday morning.
The reason I feel so bad is that I can see all of you are having issues with these ideas of morality, divorce, sex, and when does “immorality” actually begin, whether since the woman would be divorcing anyway, then is it really immoral for her to have sex prior to the actual date since “til death do us part” means “the death of the love”, or does she actually have to wait until the court hearing when the divorce is given, or right up until the day that the divorce becomes final, maybe 90 days after the hearing? And does she need to wait until the actual court might have been open , like 8 AM on the 90th day or is 12:01 AM OK?
If I would have read the blog earlier I could have saved all of you this discomfort.
You see, I saw my sister, the Evangelical Baptist. Now despite what any of you might feel about your level of knowledge and interpretation of the scripture and God’s Holy Word, she has READ THE BIBLE and she knows what it says. And as a woman, she not only has a superior verbal sense to guide her, but she also has intuition, which many of you lack.
And ultimately all of you should rest assured that you are deficient and lacking in your interpretation and her superior Biblical awareness and intuition of what God intended would, of course, be the final word. And then we call all just say “Amen” and go with it.
But since I hadn’t read the blog yet, then I didn’t have the opportunity to get “the word” to pass on to all of you. And for that, I am truly truly sorry.
And since I won’t see her again before the next blog, then I regret to inform you that I will not be able to provide you divine guidance on this subject.
But I can assure you that given her superior knowledge, intuition, and interpretation, a positive determination would have been forthcoming that would be completely satisfactory to all that would allow all to remain God’s children.
@infowarrior1: and here we go around the grounds for “moral divorce again.” Adultery is a “Top Ten” sin. Malachi doesn’t exactly go against my premise…I stated plainly that God hates divorce…It doesn’t mean the act is sin. In looking at the chain reference in my Bible the Malachi references Isiah 50, which speaks of the “Certificate of Divorce” given to Israel for their sin.
Israel was put away by God for sins.
It tells me God didn’t exactly like doing what He had to do to maintain his Holiness. Makes me think that initiating a divorce because it is the hardest damn thing you have ever had to do, but after much prayer you know it had to be done….you might be on the right track for a “moral and scriptural” divorce.
It seems from the statistics and the evidence, frivorcing women, who often are committing the sin and driving their spouse into sin, is the one who is leading the divorce. The rally point for women is for everyone to be empathetic of her plight and gloss over her sins. In most cases the State gives her cash, prizes and children. With the deck stacked against most men in divorce proceedings imagine the level of Righteousness needed to divorce their wife to maintain their integrity. Most men won’t go there.
So I read the comments in Zippy’s webpage.
First, even though I always find the discourse on the Dalrock page to be quite civil, I was amazed at how polite and civil the comments were on Zippy’s page. Amazingly, polite, and well spoken. They make the Dalrock people look like English Soccer Hooligan’s in comparison.
And I copied this fragment
————–
Church doctrine is that consent is what makes the marriage, period:
According to the laws, let the consent alone suffice for those whose union is in question; and if, by chance, this consent alone is lacking in the marriage, everything else is in vain, even if solemnized by intercourse itself, as attested to by the great Doctor John Chrysostom, who said: “What makes a marriage is not intercourse, but the will.” — Pope Nicholas I, Ad consulta vestra, November 13, 866 AD (quoted in Denzinger)
—————-
Now keep in mind that I have been raised as a Protestant mainly on military bases where there is no clear distinct between any of the Protestant sects so my ability to interpret Catholic doctrine would be severely lacking but let me take a stab at it. So what I think it is saying is
“If the woman can show her perception of her sexual market value is greater than 2 points higher than that of her husband, then the annulment is granted.”
No?
@JustAsking
The fact that you need a translation of the Old English into modern English that is less accurate and weaker in its potency in order to understand the scriptures speaks volumes about your ability to reason through its messages.
Let me lay another bible verse or two on ya:”1 Corinthians 14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.
35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
36 What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?
37 If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.”
In other words, or more modern words, the bible forbids you from giving spiritual instruction to men in church,or “fellowship”,which is basically what a group of Christians talking about scripture is.It’s ok for you to instruct other women in spiritual matters,but if you are directing your biblical edification at any man here,you are behaving in a shameful manner.
Moreover, the words you quoted are pretty clear in illustrating that the reason you are being exhorted not to judge is because others will apply the same standards to you. If you are not a hypocrite, why should any Christian be forbidden from judging? If you can stand before God and declare honestly that you have never initiated a divorce and abhor the practice as immoral,on what grounds could God himself condemn you for judging a woman or a man who has done so unless he has forgiven the sinner (which he does not do when the person is unrepentant) and you refuse to?
The entire premise of your argument is basically that everyone wrecks their homes, when we know that statistically it is women who do so. If the people you are talking to never intend to divorce,then your argument is a bunch of feel-good blather meant to spread the dirt around so it doesn’t only appear on the one who wallows in it,namely you or someone you know if you’re making this argument. Women generally make no attempt to excuse or support activities that they themselves have no interest or personal stake in,unlike men.I see this pattern crop up all the time. Ask a pointed question on a message board about why fat women never get themselves into shape. The only women who will respond with water-muddying tripe about “What is a normal body image?” or “Everybody’s fat” or something along those lines are all obese themselves.Using this method I can tell you with 90% certainty which women are fat,which women cheat on their husbands,which women beat their children,and so on and so forth,and it’s always the same lazy intellectual argument, the same naked hedonism,the same attempt to blame it on somebody else (usually men, a man, or a proxy for men such as “society”) the same disregard for everyone around them.
Bottom line: You’re a woman. You have no innate understanding of morality or religious matters and are not qualified to teach men about them,and even if you did, you are commanded by the Lord your God not to do so. Source:God via the Bible.
Lets not omit the other somewhat common claim, “we were already divorced a long time ago, this legal stuff is just paperwork”
Oddly, when that couple happens to reconcile, they don’t remarry , so…..which is it?
Answer: Whichever she needs at the moment
I don’t know Dalrock…..after wading around that area of yahoo answers a bit, I was finally able to stop beating myself up for the years wasted at Christian forums. What the heck are you doing man?
On a serious note, I suspect your activity at yahoo has more potential than a hundred of us flooding Christian forums, in terms of someone catching a snap and averting divorce. Most of the readers at yahoo have not yet adopted a personal jesus
Much like the “hypergamy doesn’t care about (blank)”
God doesn’t care about your feelings on morality. If something is a sin…it’s a sin whether you like it or not. People also need to realize feeling love is not the same as actual love. Actual love involves rebuking against wrongs.
One of the largest “traditional Catholic” message boards on the internet, fisheaters, had a situation where the forum owners civilly married (claiming to live chastely together) despite each of them having been already married. They claimed to have a priest’s permission to do this until an annulment was granted. Under the old Canon Law civilly marrying while being already married constituted an “impediment of crime” – so that the couple could never marry in the Church.
“NO! Divorce in and of itself is not a sin, is not a reason to stay away from the Eucharist.”
Lying, conniving, home-wrecking twat. There’s a spit sharpening in Hell for you, right now.
Sadly true. It speaks volumes about the feminine imperative that the female preferred form of promiscuity (serial polygamy) is considered moral while the male preferred form of promiscuity (simultaneous polygamy) is considered the worst of evil. Do you imagine churches sanctioning simultaneous polygamy using rationalizations the way they do with serial polygamy?
Matthew 7:1 — “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”
This is the most misinterpreted verse in the Bible. This book explains why this is misinterpreted:
http://www.amazon.com/Dumb-Things-Smart-Christians-Believe/dp/1601421508/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362580567&sr=8-1&keywords=stupid+things+smart+christians+believe
This misinterpretation is using by liberals to demolish Christian morality. Every time a liberal guy wants to absolve himself of bad behavior quotes the verse. He is often an non-Christian and this can be the only Biblical verse he knows, but, boy, he really uses it once and again.
Of course, they judge all the time: they judge conservatives, religious people, they judge men all the time, they judge the ones that judge. It is only that nobody can judge the behaviors they don’t want to be judged. It is only that they want the monopoly of judgement.
More importantly, this misinterpretation is finishing with Western civilization. Since everybody is afraid to judge, bad behaviors are not shamed and are more and more prevalent.
In fact, stigma is needed for every society to survive. Read more in:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_4_bring_back_stigma.html
Does anyone else see the irony in “Clue’s” desire to avoid sin in her desire to play by an imagined rule set? She is already sinning by looking at another man with lust in her heart – ironically the same raison d’etre Fireproof women use to justifiably divorce on the grounds of sexual infidelity.
My guess is Clue would be delighted to catch her husband masturbating to online porn (not unlikely since she’s probably withholding sex from him, so as not to ‘cheat’ on her beau) and serve papers the same day.
Ospurt, I figured somebody would probably go there. I encourage you to read somewhat further, and then ponder this question. If God has “divorced” Israel, then why does he subsequently call himself her “husband” while calling for Israel to return to him? Perhaps, because God dropped a tent on Job’s family, killing them all, we can do the same?
Or perhaps there’s more going on here. When God divorced Israel, he removed his provision and protection from her, but never turned his back. We are attempting to fit God’s behavior into OUR mold, rather than the other way around.
Marriage is the original institution. It is the ONLY institution that predates The Fall. Christ’s relationship to the Church (aka His bride) is the model.
Under what conditions will Christ divorce His bride? Abuse? I think Calvary holds the answer to that one. Adultery? Uh, no, you can find the answer to that in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Divorce is a sin. Legal divorce between Christians is doubly so, trotting internal divisions before the world. Some folks rightly ask “what about a woman who is being beaten and fears for her life?” Divorce is not the answer, because there is only ONE thing divorce accomplishes that separation does not. It gives the seeker the belief that they are free to remarry, that their prospective adultery (aka remarriage) is not adultery.
Grace and peace.
Earl,
You’re either support marriage, all marriages, or you undermine it. If you decide not to recognize other marriages as legitimate, don’t expect them to recognize yours as legitimate which leads to women switching religions and kicking the man out.
The Catholics play this game to an extent, they say the other marriages are legit just not as much as theirs.
The way I figure it is woman behave so badly in marriage because there is no credible threat of divorce from their Christian husband. No credible threat of financial hardship, no credible threat of physical harm because we live in such an easy time/ society and all rest
Which is not to say various folks take on God hating divorce is wrong, but from a practical stand point, women will not do better or become better wives without that credible threat of harm, financial hardship etc
@Just Asking
You seem to be forgetting Matthew 18 vv15 – 17. The person who is sinned against should take the matter privately to the one sinning against him/her, and if not listened to, again do so in the presence of a few witnesses, and finally if necessary, before the whole church, and if the sinner refuses to listen to the church, they should treat him/her as if s/he were a sinner or tax collector. Christians do have a scriptural responsibility to act as judge over their fellow Christians. This enables the person in the wrong to be corrected privately if possible, but publicly if need be and shows the strength of the need to keep sin away from the people of God by keeping the unrepentant sinner away from all of the members of the congregation.
May I suggest that you read 12 ‘Christian’ Beliefs That Will Drive You Crazy by Cloud and Townsend. If you are up to it, because it a little heavier going, I would also suggest Concise Theology by J I Packer which outlines a number of Christian beliefs and how they are derived from Scripture.
I was rediscovering some great Groucho puns today, he had a lot of before-his-time things to say.
“I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.”
“A man’s only as old as the woman he feels.”
“Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.”
“I’ve been around so long, I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.”
“Marriage is the chief cause of divorce.”
“Marriage is a wonderful institution…but who wants to live in an institution?”
“Paying alimony is like feeding hay to a dead horse.”
“Politics doesn’t make strange bedfellows, marriage does.”
“Remember you’re fighting for this woman’s honor – which is probably more than she ever did. (Duck Soup)”
“She got her good looks from her father. He’s a plastic surgeon.”
“Send two dozen roses to Room 424 and put ‘Emily, I love you’ on the back of the bill.”
“The husband who wants a happy marriage should learn to keep his mouth shut and his checkbook open.”
“We took pictures of the native girls, but they weren’t developed. . . But we’re going back next year.”
“Women should be obscene and not heard.”
To be completely honest, I have to ask all of you why you obsess so much over this “religion” shit?
All forms of religion, ANY religion, is pure BS. Who cares about what the Old Testament or the New Testament says, really? Why is it that I cannot even find one comment thread on this blog where all sorts of useful idiots aren’t citing the Bible all the time? Look, it’s nothing but a tool to achieve two things:
1. Keep women in line.
2. Keep lesser men in line.
That’s it. Just recognize its usefulness and USE it accordingly. Just be honest and recognize your real motivations when you talk about “religion”. It’s just a tool and nothing more.
@BikerDad: Now you are equating the infinite with the finite. This is the reason there is no marriage in heaven, but for our worldly minds the the institution of “Holy Matrimony” is symbolic for the relationship between God and His People, and Jesus and His Church….which are one in the same.
However, we are finite creatures. We have needs, sexual relationships being one of those, but the call is to have these relationships and treat these relationships as Holy and not causing us to Sin.
You say that Jesus will not “Divorce his Bride” but this is not true. Look at the Parable of the Wedding Feast. The Banquet Hall will be closed at some point. What of these “Brides of Christ” that heard the invitation and did not come to the Hall? They are “put away” from Christ for eternity. They are divorced for Eternity, because of Sin.
If you do not repent of the Sin, there can be no reconciliation. I am not infinite, but the even the One who is won’t offer reconciliation to his Bride forever. God moves on…
Till death do you part. It isn’t that hard. And the word abuse isn’t in the bible, it is better for your spouse to kill you then to burn in hell.
God doesn’t care about your feelings on morality.
I try to not fail to point out that a sentence that begins with ‘I believe”, from a woman regarding relational moral issues is instantly nullified (at best) or the exact opposite is true. SSM mentions this above, I think she was in the thread at Sis’ blog where the woman Vonnie said she believes that God wants her to have happiness, and she was ready to toss the towel and I popped in to ask simply, why, after several woman responded, had no one rebuked the poor dear.
Maybe SSM went back and did so. I never checked. Point is, ostensible Christian marriage minded female written blog, and the” I believe” thing skates right through the moral filters of the ladies for the most part because “I believe” is source text equivalent
Just be honest and recognize your real motivations
I can take the time this saves me and plow it into chasing utopia; searching with Sherpas for Shangri La.
Half my life, maybe more…..wasted.
@Rollo Tomassi
This is it exactly. The problem is the imagined rule set is the new normal. See for example this response to a woman who doesn’t know what to do about her ongoing affair:
A claim of “tough love” mixed with an appeal to morality (adultery is wrong), conflating love and morality, all while telling the woman to follow her heart and blow up her family. You can’t make this stuff up.
“Höllenhund says:
March 6, 2013 at 12:20 pm
To be completely honest, I have to ask all of you why you obsess so much over this “religion” shit?
All forms of religion, ANY religion, is pure BS. Who cares about what the Old Testament or the New Testament says, really? Why is it that I cannot even find one comment thread on this blog where all sorts of useful idiots aren’t citing the Bible all the time? Look, it’s nothing but a tool to achieve two things:
1. Keep women in line.
2. Keep lesser men in line.
That’s it. Just recognize its usefulness and USE it accordingly. Just be honest and recognize your real motivations when you talk about “religion”. It’s just a tool and nothing more.”
I was wonderingz Höllenhund, would you say those words to Jesus’s face and Moses’s face?
As a lesser manz, do you usez da Biblesz to keep your womenz in line so you can butehxt her as a leseer manz zlzozlzlzozoz?
Eh, no thanks. People have suggested that I (a childless, single man) adopt because I’m good with kids, but kids need a father and mother. Single fatherhood may be less bad than single motherhood, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. If it ever became common enough to study, I suspect we’d find that it sets up its own set of problems for kids.
Over on SSMs blog, this same discussion (about biblical/Christian divorce) started and I engaged. I have to say, the entire conversation is what makes guys like me (new red-pill types) get shy and step back a bit. I am the guy dragging my wife, OUR 2 kids and her 1 son to church every Sunday. I am trying to lead my family (that “family” others upthread have sarcastically put in quotes) spiritually. I have stumbled accross these sites thinking “wow! I’m not alone in my anguish over the destruction feminism has caused! But what do I hear–your church should kick you out because your family is not validly organized. This “movement” if it is ever to become one will have to accept that guys like me are going to push forward, try to comply with scripture but will not abandon the wife and children I already have for this unreasonable amount purity that is required.There is a cruelty there. Do you see it? I do not mean any of this to get me flammed, but if it does, I can take it. Just want an honest answer to that.
Not sure the spelling for past participle of “flame,” by the way.
@anon: if you are looking at my post and wondering about needing to divorce your unbelieving wife, then do not fear. It took me 5 years to reach that point. So, as much as I could be like Christ I worked to lead and purify my wife, but she kept sinning. Even as I shed Beta habits and became the Alpha I was before the destruction, she sinned even more. Ohh the conversations where she said I was becoming more attractive to her, but she was still going to sin and not repent.
The problem with divorce 2.0 is the one who seems to start the proceedings does it to gloss over their sins in the marriage and get absolution to keep on sinning, with a clear conscience.
It is, and always has been about sin.
Ospurt–Too abstract and eloquent for me. I guess I need it broken down a little.
1. I have no desire to divorece my wife. She is obnoxious, but she is my wife. The truth I get from coming to these sites (and there is ALOT OF TRUTH HERE) is working as I daily regain my “frame.” I am enouraged by this, not convinced that I need to end it.
2. I have 3 children I am taking care of.
3. She was never married before, but was essentially what most around here would call a “carousel rider” and one of those rides in her 20s resulted in my step son.
4. I am divorced from a cheating whore who I tried to get back for 10 years before the elders at my church finally told me “you are free to remarry.”
5. There is no evidence that she has cheated on me, nor have I on her.
6. This is a real-life situation–not God and Israel–the imagery of some of these posts is just too much for my small brain to wrap around.
7. The proposed solution is for me to divroce my wife? That strikes me as a cure that is worse (for 3 innocent children) than the sin itself. It seems like I would be the one “blowing up” the marriage over a past that neither she nor I can do anything about now.
All of that is what I mean when i write of an actual movement that these sites have SO MUCH potential to spark. It will be margnalized before it ever hits the ground.
@anon Personally, as long as your wife’s actions are not leading you or your children into sin, I would not divorce her. We did not have children of our own and her actions had our foster children taken away, so I have no kids souls to deal with, just my own.
If you can avoid sin yourself, protect your children and lead your wife…then don’t divorce. The command to “cut of your limb is if it is causing you to sin.” Be careful though, examine yourself and make sure it is not your sin that is causing her to sin
Ospert-
I am pretty sure you and I are engaged in a discussion at Cails place. I’m the one writing on personality disorders. This is important because her actions are “high functioning borderline”–
Bithcy, shit tests, etc–all at home. In public, she dotes on me, tells everybody what a wonderful husband I am, never disrepects me, etc.
Like I said, MAP is working–but as I have discussed here and elsewhere, it reminds me of the silly tactics I used on chicks to get laid when I was in high school college. Lame. (And it seems sinful). SO I try little pieces of it, here and there.
Anyway, I think we may not be as far apart as I thought. Here is one conversation I WILL NEVER have with my toddlers though–
“Hey little ones, daddy has to leave mommy because it appears were never properly married in the first place. I’m sure your 4 and 2 year old brains will understand. Good luck. Later!”
I will boldly stand before the throne and explain to God why I chose to protect my children from that cruelty. If he sends me to hell for it, sobeit.
Dear Höllenhund:
To be completely honest, I have to ask all of you why you obsess so much over this “religion” shit?
What you seem to be objecting to is not religion, per se; but rather an ethical framework. It’s safe to assume that we all have an ethical framework, even if we don’t necessarily couch our ethics in terms of the supernatural. You have one too (If you didn’t, you’d most likely be dead, or incarcerated in a prison or mental hospital).
Protestants, Catholics, Jews and etc. debate about “sin” for the same reasons you and I think and talk about positive duties and “rights and wrongs”.
Like you, I’m an unbeliever. I don’t find any evidence that any such people as Jesus or Moses actually existing in the historical record, but I think it’s a useful narrative regardless. I like stories about Ernest Everhard and Adam Trask, and their stories are useful (not just as fun literary excursions, but morally also) even though there’s no evidence that they’re historical characters either.
Best, Boxer
Anon, as one of the people being kind of hard on you over there, I agree: there’s a cruelty in what’s happened. The Church hasn’t changed its rules on marriage — and shouldn’t — but stopped teaching people what they were getting into and making sure they were properly prepared for it. The result is millions of people like you who find themselves in a spot where following the literal rules at this point would probably do more damage than not. That’s why I said that I think the annulment tribunals are trying to balance the justice of the law with mercy — not just mercy for you, who might be said to have some responsibility for marrying a bad woman (or me when I was in the same situation), but mercy for the three kids who probably wouldn’t be taken to church if you split.
It’s an ugly situation. It’s easy to say what’s supposed to happen, and what shouldn’t have happened in the first place to cause it, but it’s a lot harder to say what individuals caught in the middle should do.
TZ…
You could not possibly be more insightful in recognizing that current domestic relations law in this country, most notably, no-fault divorce, is an order of magnitude more dangerous to sacramental marriage than same-sex marriage. Now, if they’d only recognize that annulments on demand are an order of magnitude more damaging than domestic relations law.
I’m glad to hear it’s working, but I know what you mean. When you’ve been brought up to think women are just as mentally and emotionally capable as men, it’s a disappointment to find out how truly silly they are. I think men used to be able to see that as a positive, to some extent, because they weren’t expecting something else. If we were brought up to expect women to be soft, cuddly, nurturing, and not too bright about things outside their narrow range of interests, the glass would look more than half-full.
It’s taken me several years and a couple of faltered relationships to go from discovering the red pill and finding out women weren’t the angels on pedestals that I’d thought, to get to the point where I think I can see them honestly for what they are AND appreciate them for it. It took a while to stop resenting them for what they aren’t.
John…
As to Catholic Forums, I have stopped trying to argue with people who have no conception of liefe before Vatican II. Approximately 90% of the commenters there are non-Catholics and/or so steeped in VII themes they can not be reached. Of the self-reported Catholics, about 90% of them seem to be divorced and/or at some stage of the annulment process. Probably exaggerating here, but not much.
Cail…
To expound on what you posted above, the RCC explicitly condemns illicit divorce. In other words, it is entirely possible that a divorcing Catholic could be committing among the most grave of sins. Only to the extent that a civil divorce is the only means whatsoever to protect an innocent spouse is it even permitted. Indeed, Catholic spouses are required to lead a conjugal life, such that absent dispensation from the bishop, they are to live in the same domecile and engage in all of the things ‘conjugal’ entails.
What a great many Catholics hear is the message is that the sin is only in the remarriage (or in dating/fornication). This is patently heresy.
God help us.
SSM, I am not sure we can take that Scripture as meaning only men can file for divorce. It was answering the question that was posed, which was if a man could divorce his wife for any reason. The original question had the same focus.
Anyone know what OT information the allowance for divorce in the case of sexual immorality was based on?
Another question: What we be the equivalent of “go and sin no more” for the one who was divorced and got remarried? Must the divorce their current spouse? Is the act of remaining remarried a sin?
This does seem like a case where the narrow way is something few be that find it, but the edge cases can be challenging.
“SSM, I am not sure we can take that Scripture as meaning only men can file for divorce.”
That was the case under the Old Law.
Under Marriage 1.0, the husband was the one that initiated marriage (as his first act of headship) by his choice and his choice alone. It was logical, therefore, that he would be the only one that could break it.
Again this is only Marriage 1.0, we need to remember we are in a 2.0 environment in evaluating things. Given this feminist environment, it requires a look at the concept behind what Christ was saying, which still comes down on the lack of divorce (if you make a pretense to follow Scripture on *that point alone*). This is easily answered, however, since we can look at history and realize that Christ (Matt 19:3-10) was answering people who were teaching and allowing frivorce on the part of men then as much as women are frivorcing now with the blessings of all the men in the various denominations.
@Anon: Yes, I remember out discussions. And no, we are not far off…
Though I have not gone deep into the MAP because my marriage was done at the point I discovered Athol and Red Pill thinking, many of the concepts about controlling your emotions are similar to training provided to foster parents who may have to deal with emotionally unstable children. I went through weeks of hands on training on this subject. I used a lot of it on my wife in the end.
I made the observation to some other trained foster parents that my wife and I had been through the same training, yet she could not tell when I was using those techniques on her when she went into an emotional storm. It was a bit intriguing and I often though this was like the “silly tactics” you describe above. However, it worked. I reached the point I was frustrated more at the loss of time than whatever was said. I would often try and consciously log the tactics used so I could converse with other foster parents about how it works on emotionally unstable adults.
As one of my therapists said…”you have to be solid in yourself,” which is similar to advice from the “16 Commandments of Poon” in regards to your emotions during a woman’s storm…you have to let that stuff wash over you. It is not easy.
Hang in there.
@ospurt
If a man divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. As the 1st marriage still stands. And having sex with another woman is the same as marrying her and committing adultery. See my previous comment above.
This passage in malachi I have provided earlier makes it clear god hates divorce. But god has a legitimate reason for divorcing israel:
Malachi3:10
Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?
11Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. 12As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord cut him off from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings offerings to the Lord Almighty.
Jeremiah 3:8
I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery.
I repeat divorce is a sin unless it is physical violence or adultery.
@info: I’m not disagreeing with you. However as Daltock and others have noted in this Marriage 2.0 environment the definitions of adultery and/or physical violence is like shifting sand. I’m not arguing semantics, I’m getting at why God divorced Israel. Sin, period. Grace and patience sustains the relationship to allow for confession and repentence, but it is not an infinite wait.
The divorces we are seeing today are capricious and damaging to one party for often nothing more than te divorcing party not being happy. In past times it was the women who suffered from frivorce, now in Western Society it is the men.
The problem with most 2.0 divorces is the party divorces to commit sins if theft and pursue sins of the flesh. They do not divorce to escape sin, they divorce to embrace it. That is the problem. Church and society is turning a blind eye to an increase in sin.
Look, it’s nothing but a tool to achieve two things:
1. Keep women in line.
2. Keep lesser men in line.
God is so that man is kept in check. God and men are so that women are kept in check.
You remove all the checks and you see all the consquences.
Women don’t have men keep them in check anymore because of a myraid of things (religion swallowing feminism as one reason)…now men don’t really have God in check anymore either so they can pass all sorts of unjust and corrupt laws.
That’s my point, tatetearl. No theory, religious or otherwise, has any useful purpose other then to be implemented in practice. The hypothetical has no usefulness if it doesn’t aid the practical. Nobody studies just to learn more; we study so that we can work and act more effectively. The only reason religion should exist is to keep women and lesser men in line. If it fails to do that, it’s redundant and should be done away with. If it actually prevents women and lesser men from being kept in line, it’s nothing but a plague.
Dear Höllenhund:
These are really interesting comments. Thanks for posting them.
No theory, religious or otherwise, has any useful purpose other then to be implemented in practice.
I would suggest that religion has the same intrinsic value that literature and philosophy have. Aside from being a social force, religion has the ability to guide individuals. I also believe you’re entirely seeing religion through the lens of instrumentality.
The fact that the majority use religion to excuse their looney excesses (Jesus loves me even if I rip people off, whore around, and live as a useless parasite on the coattails of the productive!) doesn’t mean it needs to be done away with entirely. Many of the men and women who participate here study it and apply it to good ends. Guys like me (jaded, admittedly) see it as a collection of interesting stories and applied wisdom. Some of it is hard to take seriously, but there’s useful material in the text (and subtext) that people can apply to live a happier life. I’ve been studying Islam recently. I’m not about to suspend disbelief and start preaching about how Allah should be your imaginary friend, but it’s not totally useless to get lessons in charity, restraint and the value of contemplation.
Anyway, cool discussion. Thanks again.
Boxer
Do we really need a debate about religion here? There are blogs that deal with this issue. But I visit Dalrock’s for other things.
I am religious and I used to be an atheist. Dalrock is Christian and this is a Christian men’s blog so recurring to Scripture is appropriate. People don’t do it to deffend the Christian message but to deffend men’s issues, after all ancient generations dealt with many of the problems we are now dealing with: hypergamy, patriarchy, etc. And if you take the Bible seriously, you can’t be a feminist.
If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it but I don’t see the point in criticizing it and starting a debate about religion. It’s not the place to do that.
I think men’s issues are shared by men with any worldview, whether it is religious or secular. Let’s focus on what unites us instead of on what divides us.
This “movement” if it is ever to become one will have to accept that guys like me are going to push forward, try to comply with scripture but will not abandon the wife and children I already have for this unreasonable amount purity that is required.There is a cruelty there. Do you see it?
Yes. I see it. It can be maddening. Some simply cannot fathom any nuance; a position that would allow a man to be a Christian, devoted as you say to a family, and yet NOT be a dumb ass tradcon.
Only those “dumb ass tradcons” who are too clever by half, and toss in a bit of overt sexual proclivity are allowed a ticket to the mosh pit. Rest of us are ok on the mezzanine.
From Cail –
{I’m glad to hear it’s working, but I know what you mean. When you’ve been brought up to think women are just as mentally and emotionally capable as men, it’s a disappointment to find out how truly silly they are. I think men used to be able to see that as a positive, to some extent, because they weren’t expecting something else. If we were brought up to expect women to be soft, cuddly, nurturing, and not too bright about things outside their narrow range of interests, the glass would look more than half-full.
It’s taken me several years and a couple of faltered relationships to go from discovering the red pill and finding out women weren’t the angels on pedestals that I’d thought, to get to the point where I think I can see them honestly for what they are AND appreciate them for it. It took a while to stop resenting them for what they aren’t.}
Absolutely brilliant!
infowarrior- you made the case above that divorce is a sin
but simultaneously pointed out that God ‘divorced’ Israel.
How does that reconcile?
Empath-
Yes the tradcon thing is interesting to me. I go back and forth on that. For example the ones I think are actually saying the same things being said around here–Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schafley,Doug Giles, etc. They are tradcons, no? But read their stuff–they are way out here on the “fringe” with “us” alternative right types.
Re: “God divorcing Israel”: this is turning into one of those “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin” discussions. Look, it’s not that hard – does anybody think that God actually filled out a physical piece of paper and filed it with the High Priest at the temple?
The passage is obviously not meant to be taken literally – it’s a metaphor.</em
As for the old "No evidence that Jesus ever lived" canard. There is better evidence that a Jewish prophet/rabbi named Jesus lived about 2000 years ago than there is that Julius Caesar conquered Gaul – yet nobody doubts that Julius Caesar conquered Gaul. From a historiographical perspective, if the independent evidence for the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is too sparse to accept, then we have to reject every single thing we think we know about the ancient world. Yeah: the evidence is that strong.
Dalrock,
You can’t do this. It seems to me you are using irony, showing the flaws of modern shallow religious movements when it comes to marriage. But the thing is, many people who read your blog are ignorant of God’s law and ignorant of the grace of God. My guess is 50% of people who read this will take this as support for divorce, and it might even assuage the consciences of some people seeking to sin by divorcing their spouses and marrying another. You should at least edit this to let people know you are being ironic, and then tell them the truth in a direct way.
Emotional affairs cannot be considered cheating. If sex occurs after divorce it’s legally not adultery. However the only reason for divorce should be physical abuse, verbal abuse, adultery, or other extreme case by case situation.
Verbal abuse is not a legitimate reason for divorce. Not even close. I’m not convinced physical abuse is either, although serious one-sided physical assault is arguably grounds for physical separation until the underlying reasons are resolved.
“Verbal abuse” is a catch-all phrase that means whatever someone (usually an unhaaaaaaaapy woman) doesn’t want to hear at any given moment. It has no meaningful definition and, thus, means nothing.
In the branch of social psychology known as transactional analysis (TA), people are modelled as operating from one of three ego states: Child, Adult, or Parent. The latter is where “shoulds” come from. The Parent ego state is further broken down into the Critical Parent and the Nurturing Parent.
VAWA simply outlaws any Critical Parent on the part of the man, while Marriage 2.0 leaves the woman free to act from her Child ego state to whatever extent she wants. This is what everyone means when they say women now have adult rights but the obligations of children (i.e., none).
This is clearly a recipe for disaster: the man is expected to lead to at least some extent, but has one hand tied behind his back, preventing him from doing so.
The relationship in which the Parent ego state is (ideally) almost entirely absent is Friendship. Friends may offer (Adult) advice, but they don’t criticize each other. The problem is marriage is a sexual relationship, and, as the inventor of TA (Eric Berne) put it, “nothing interferes with friendship like sex, and nothing interferes with sex like friendship”.
Feminists keep building no-win boxes to put men in.
This is my first post here so I hope I am doing this correctly.
First I want to express my gratitude to Dalrock for this wonderful blog. Much of what I have read the past couple of months since I discovered this blog I have thought about over the past few years of my life.
I was a traditionalist with strong chivalristic tendencies, but am gradually shedding the chivalry for pragmatics. Women just have gone too far with their eradication of family values for the purpose of self-fulfillment. (which doesn’t really occur for them anyway).
I am curious what my fellow Christian brothers who frequent this blog think about the sociology of church attendance. I rarely see any single men at the non-denominational churches I have attended. The large church I recently gave up on has men at the top of the administrative hierarchy, but mostly women run the volunteer ministries. I attended a men’s group, but the men were so conformist and seemed so against any comment about women’s issues that I learned to keep my mouth shut. Hence, since the only element in common was my faith in Christ, I stopped attending.
Why do not more single men attend church? I believe there are many more single male Christians out there, but for some reason we are turned off by the church experience.
I am curious what my fellow Christian brothers who frequent this blog think about the sociology of church attendance. I rarely see any single men at the non-denominational churches I have attended. The large church I recently gave up on has men at the top of the administrative hierarchy, but mostly women run the volunteer ministries….. Why do not more single men attend church? I believe there are many more single male Christians out there
My experience was completely opposite. Here in Southern California, the various churches I’ve attended or visited down through the years, have ranged from about even, to having a significant EXCESS of single men. Marriageable Christian women are in desperately short supply.
However, divorced women, who’ve already had kids and don’t want any more — and are generally not biblically free to remarry anyway — ABOUND in churches, and this may be what skews the statistics towards more “single” women.
I once organized a party for the over-30 singles set at my former church. Every man who showed up, was never married, had no kids yet, was gainfully employed, in good physical shape, and not bad looking. However ALL of the women were either (a) divorced/separated mothers (the majority), or (b) hopeless fatties.
My take on it is that, when millions of older divorced men, remarry younger never married women and start second familes, they are creating a shortage. For each man who “double dips” in this way, a younger man is deprived of a wife.
It could be a lot worse If this ever gets popular, the only way the average guy will be able to get a wife, will be by violence.
http://lovetimesthree.com/how-to-avoid-messing-up-valentines-day-from-a-polygamous-mans-persective/
@Solomon
You are mistaken
I made the case that divorce is sinful except in the cases of physical violence and adultery. In the passage I have provided from scripture God divorced israel for her adulteries with other gods.
Now with the case that god that hates divorce, he condemns frivolous divorce . In the context of Malachi:
2:13-16
13Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. 14You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
15Has not [the Lord] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring.e So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
16“I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himselff with violence as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty.
Please,refer to my earlier comments.
PS re my above post:
I rarely see any single men at the non-denominational churches I have attended.
versus
My experience was completely opposite. Here in Southern California, the various churches I’ve attended or visited down through the years, have ranged from about even, to having a significant EXCESS of single men
I offer a hypothesis for consideration. In Bible-belt areas, where church is a “normal” part of society, women (who may not be believers personally) may remain in it for the social connections. In Southern California, where being a Christian is an act of anti-social rebellion, we attract more men.
What happened to SSM’s blog? It says it was deleted? I was just on her blog a few hours ago…
Very pragmatic here, Scripturally. The problem, as I see it, is that the self-fulfillment and consideration of women over all else is the very definition of “family values” in churches today. This is what feminism has done within the churches and has effected it in every way, and form. If it’s not in total subservience to women (that includes God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit), then it’s not “godly” and is effectively useless. This goes for all men, too.
Much of what I think about this is on the blog that you’ll find linked in through my nick. There’s much to say about it though, but specifically:
Because men as a group are vilified and hated, and all the more the ones that are single. I even encounter it on blogs such as these. Hatred and bigotry against men is very alive and well in church environments. The only useful function for a man in church (according to most all in any form of leadership) is to be in complete subjection to a woman and worship her as a god. It’s been noted well, even in environments where men are outward leaders that women are the real power behind things and really run the show.
It’s not always overt, but the environments, situations, things that are done, and the like are there and tell the story well if you know where to look. While I have many disagreements with the book (mainly with his “answers”, along with a couple of major theological errors), “Why Men Hate Going to Church” is probably the best analysis of the social dynamics within churches that put men off on “attending church”. Add in “single” and you get some very overt hate from your supposed “Christian” brothers and sisters.
But then again when you realize it’s about following after Jesus and not following after the church leadership, things start taking care of themselves.
Polygamy will probably be the next direction that the marriage change advocates will go after they’re done with homosexuality. All the “fine chaste upstanding women, of whom any man should be counting his blessings each day to be married to” (give me a minute to stop laughing at that) will start crying about not being married when they get enough time after earning their feminist merit badges, and the churches will eventually give it to them.
Sadly enough that includes “Christians” as well. Especially in this matter (unfortunately), too many are using grace as a license to willfully sin much in these matters. Marriage today is much like sacrifices were in Malachi 1 because of this. It even goes to taking the creation of men (Marriage 2.0) and calling it “Biblical” and “God-given”, as I’m sure many called those diseased and sick sacrifices in Malachi’s time.
@Dan:
Her blog went down less than an hour ago, and since that puts it past Midnight her time, I’m guessing either she hit the wrong button while going to bed or something got hacked. (Or some other weird bug)
@ballista:
It’ll be both polygamy (already started, see stuff about “Sister Wives” and all that reality tv dreck) and age-of-consent. I’d like to say I gathered this from an insight to their motives, but the truth is that they’ve given conferences and speeches on that being exactly their goals. They want to removal all sexual morality from Western culture.
@Dan:
Actually, this might have something to do with SSM’s blog being down:
http://reason.com/blog/2012/03/09/the-southern-poverty-law-center-is-now-w
Manboobz has a thing for Sunshine Mary, which probably means things in the manosphere are going to escalate quickly into legal fights. Because a lot of people just got libeled by the SPLC.
Manboobz’s involvement doesn’t seem to be likely. SSM isn’t the kind of troll like Obsidian who purposefully irritates certain groups of people just for the hell of it until one of the victims flip out and contact WordPress to have the whole blog deleted. She never came across as someone who likes getting on people’s nerves. This isn’t all that surprising – women generally tend to avoid open conflict, even online.
The more likely explanation is that she got into an online catfight with some rabid feminist who threatened her, so she flipped out and deleted the blog. Women often behave like that.
Possible, but ManBoobz (I loathe even typing that) really has harassed SSM in the past, so there might be more than we think going on. (Also possible stuff filtered back)
Though a cat-fight response probably makes the most sense, though that cat-fight ended, I though, a few days ago. Plus it was weird to have a blog disappear between pull-up sets. That’s a first for me.
…http://thewomanandthedragon.wordpress.com seems to be offline, and this seemed like the best place to mention that. Have we lost SSM?
@Looking Glass, @Dan
I had a look at the SLPC site and it defines hate groups thus: “All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics”. While there are some in the manosphere who are like that, I think most are trying to improve the lot of their fellows.
One must assume then that feminists being unable to see the implications of their actions as causing problems for society is an immutable characteristic, and those who say that feminists are incapable of benefitting from education are in fact correct.
The fact is that most women simply aren’t capable of running a blog. They aren’t cut out for it. They get emotional, they flip out over some insignificant issue, the resort to feminist shaming language, they start banning people left and right because they cannot suffer the sight of lowly beta men daring to openly oppose and criticize them, even if it’s only happening online etc.
I’m not surprised that the manosphere has come to the attention of the SPLC. It is clear that much of the manosphere hates women. Soon many of these hateful manosphere bloggers will be outed, publicly shamed and fired from their jobs. Should be entertaining.
That SPLC report has been out for a year. It drove a couple of sites offline, drove a few people underground, caused a ripple or two, but other than that, nothing.
I don’t think the manosphere hates women. I think the manosphere is calling attention to the problems in the sexual marketplace and in frivorce. What some see as hate, I see as frustration and apprehension for the future.
Perhaps the SPLC should focus their attention on feminists, the true haters.
No idea what happened to SSM, but it could also be the workload/pressure of a popular blog. People expect a new blog entry almost daily and for you to engage with the 200 or so comments on each entry. I know that would overwhelm me
People delete their blogs for various reasons, usually good ones. The SPLC stuff was a year or so ago, so not proximate to this and an unlikely reason for it. I’m sure she had good reason to do so. There are certainly forces that exist to silence dissent from the prevailing orthodoxies any way they can, and it may be that one of these impacted her, but it very well could be another good reason. I’m sure she had one.
it could also be the workload/pressure of a popular blog. People expect a new blog entry almost daily and for you to engage with the 200 or so comments on each entry. I know that would overwhelm me
That’s very true, although usually when that happens the entries trickle off first and then there is a goodbye post of some sort. This strikes me as not planned, but I’m sure there’s a good reason for it, like there was when Solomon II took down his blog.
Maybe her husband told her to stop spending so much time on the Internet and “hey, c’mon over here…”
SSSM also had a Facebook page that i can’t find either, but that is with my phone and results may be suspect .
Being controversial is not without consequence. I am fairly certain if my relatives found my blog they would disown me.
Maybe her husband told her to stop spending so much time on the Internet and “hey, c’mon over here…”
That wouldn’t surprise me, actually.
On the SPLC, Morris Dees is a fraud and a fiend. Their specialty is guilt-by-association. Are you pro-gun, pro-life, a homeschooler, a non-feminist or do you question the mass media/government school version of American history? Then you’re simply a Klansman without a robe or a neo-nazi without the swastika tatoos and jack boots.
http://www.americanpatrol.com/SPLC/ChurchofMorrisDees001100.html
Oops. entered email wrong. had comment that I can’t find the SSM’s Facebook page either, but results from my phone may be suspect.
Welcome Vascularity777:
Why do not more single men attend church? I believe there are many more single male Christians out there, but for some reason we are turned off by the church experience.
The last time I went to a Christian church, I was on a date with a woman’s family. The girl I was with, age 21, is a good Christian chickie with fairly strict moral values, so I thought it’d be interesting to attend and see a Christmas program. I liked (and still like) her parents. Her church was extremely large, a “megachurch” type operation, though not on the large end of the megachurch scale (the meeting hall could fit about 2500 people into it).
All the worst stories spoken about on this blog are true. The preacher sat about castigating men. I actually got on this blog and posted about it in the comments here. I was embarrassed to be sitting there, as this third rate huckster and scumbag insulted my date’s father, who is a hardworking engineer, who busted his ass for years to raise his kids, and whose donations build and maintain the monstrosity he attends every sunday. Most surprisingly, I looked over, and saw this whole family in rapt attention just accepting what this asshole said.
In spite of it being Christmas, the manly qualities of the Jesus character were barely mentioned. A story was told, which was not the Jesus story, but a story about a poor woman who was abused by a man, and who is subsequently saved from poverty by another woman who orders her substandard husband around.
The most bizarre part of this sermon was the tone and aura around the preacher. It was like he was flirting with all the women in the audience. The words he used and the way he spoke inaugurated a sickeningly sweet, depraved, and “creepy” atmosphere.
With this sort of message being spoken, even on Christmas, who needs Christianity?
Christians here should study and form their own small groups, and forget about the preachers and the churches. They are not your friends. In the text it says “where two or three are gathered together” and all that. Take that good advice, and don’t give these hucksters any of your money either.
Regards, Boxer
I got an email this morning addressed to my wordpress address linking back to this site:
http://chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID130
It wasn’t from wordpress, and I figure it’s spam, but the infringing item they linked me to was the video from this post:
http://rationalmale.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/the-meaning-of-sacrifice/
This is a YouTube video embed so I figure it’s just scare-spam, but I thought it mighty coincidental that SSM would go down on the same morning I get this “notice”. Roosh is always saying to back up your blogs religiously because WordPress wouldn’t hesitate to dump controversial blogs for any number of reasons if they were pressured by the right people.
I am sure SSM had a good reason for taking her blog down, whatever it was. I doubt the SPLC report had anything to do with it.
@Vascularity777 – @8oxer anecdotally describes, in a nutshell, what is wrong with the church in general. Empower the women, shame the men.
It may not have started as a campaign, but it certainly morphed that way as culture started to align with feminist philosophy. Lack of male strength is maligned, but male supplication is taught, i.e. servant leadership. The campaign is smeared across the board too, as Sunshine Mary was exploring, looking for non-blue pill christian leadership and organizations.
I observed this before I understood blue pill/red pill. Good lord, I was chastised for even bringing it up. It was good to see that not only was I not the only one, but the stories were eerily similar.
@ vascularity:
“The large church I recently gave up on has men at the top of the administrative hierarchy, but mostly women run the volunteer ministries. I attended a men’s group, but the men were so conformist and seemed so against any comment about women’s issues that I learned to keep my mouth shut. Hence, since the only element in common was my faith in Christ, I stopped attending.
“Why do not more single men attend church? I believe there are many more single male Christians out there, but for some reason we are turned off by the church experience.”
You answered your own question in the paragraph preceding it. Single men don’t attend church because female volunteers run nearly everything; and because the men are nearly all blue pill.
Another reason is because most young single men are men who were brought up in the faith and are there to meet a potential wife. Those young men quickly learn that most of the young single women at church are unfit for marriage and clearly disinterested in him, a normal average beta/ delta/gamma. So he loses interest after striking out, and crashing and burning, with some of the young single women.
Maybe SSM took down her blog for International Women’s Day. 😀
Young single men aren’t in churches because the churches are currently all about women, for the most part. The only “proper” men are the ones who are married to women — this legitimizes them, and further reinforces the female-centrism of the churches today. Single men are generally viewed very skeptically by the churches — generally either as predators, or as creeps, if they are not married or engaged to a woman. So most younger guys don’t show up … until they are married or engaged. The ones who are the exceptions are (1) the players, who are welcome because it is a feminized atmosphere, and women love players despite what they say to the contrary and (2) the eunuchs (i.e., churchy, religious lower betas and lower who are basically sexually invisible to women but are passive enough so as not to be creepy, and really aren’t even mostly considered as “men”, but are conceded to be “male”).
That’s what it looks like today in churches for men. It’s slightly better in some places that have a greater respect for celibacy in general (some traditionalist Catholic parishes, some Orthodox parishes), but in general this rot is spread deep and wide by this point. The churches are simply reflecting up the rot in the culture, and so for the most part they hold nothing in them for a man unless he fits the conforming role of being ensconced in a feminist Marriage 2.0 marriage, bridled by a woman and marching to her step every step of the way for the rest of his life.
Sunshine Mary also took down her Tumblr, so I imagine it was intentional.
“Lack of male strength is maligned, but male supplication is taught, i.e. servant leadership.”
Unfortunately, these things are way overemphasized. Humility, meekness, servant leadership, etc. are Biblical concepts and have their place. However, that’s all men seem to hear these days…except for a few contradictary calls to “man up” and “lead.”
If you look at church history, however, the movers and shakers weren’t ultra nice guy, “gentle spirit” types. The early church fathers along with Reformers like Calvin, Luther and Knox would hardly recognize modern day male “leadership.”
On Novaseeker’s point, even Churches that still somewhat “get” it, still end up marrying off the single guys pretty young. So, there exists not a large supply of them anyway.
And since they’ve been drained of marriageable young women, what in days past would be nominally attached males have completely disappeared. So, it’s a combined downward spiral due to praising the goddess at the cost of God.
@Infowarrior1,
Your claim that physical violence and adultery are grounds for divorce founders on the LORD’s words a mere 6 verses later. Jeremiah 3:14. It founders on the differences between the answer that Christ gave to the Pharisees in Matthew, and the answer He gave to His disciples in Mark and Luke.
Anybody who is interested in God’s design and definition of marriage has to dump the concepts of Marriage 2.0, and Marriage 1.0, and take a look at Marriage Alpha. Marriage is a covenant, not a contract.
Just keeping the temperature down: that year-old Reason.com report on the SPLC does not show what happened after: the SPLC got quite a black eye from it, and retracted the “hate group” talk. My recall is even the ACLU told them they were going overboard, condemning rudeness, not true hate speech or advocacy of violence, e.g., white supremacist/anti-Semitic groups. So whatever is going on, that SPLC story is not a factor. While some blogs have vanished in the night, none that I know of were ordered to do so by a court or in relation to a court case.
@Anon,
Could you send me an email when you get the chance? Thanks!
Sorry for the off-topic Dalrock.
Deleting your blog is a dick move no matter how you slice it, unless its continuation would somehow harm your career or social status by getting you outed or something like that – then it’s understandable. But people devote time and effort to contribute comments there, not all of which are trash. And when you delete it, it all disappears without a trace.
Couldn’t SSM make her blog private or something? Oh well, maybe she doesn’t even know how to do that.
However the only reason for divorce should be physical abuse, verbal abuse, adultery, or other extreme case by case situation.
You are limiting things too much aren’t you? How can anyone use only these few narrowly defined criteria for allowable divorce? This is going to trap women in unhappy marriages.
Roosh is always saying to back up your blogs
But, what does game say about backing up your blogs?
As far as the SPLC is concerned, I doubt the Establishment will go specifically after the Manosphere in legal ways. I think they’ll implement a two-pronged approach:
1. Push legislation to end Internet anonymity. Tradcons will support it, because it’ll be done in the name of “protecting women and children” from “cyberbullying” and “online harassment”. What heartless dickhead would dare to oppose that idea? The day will come when you won’t be able to start a blog or comment anywhere without applying for some ID number with your real name, address etc.
2. Divide and conquer. Quietly neutralize some bloggers by simply outing them. This happens from time to time. Co-opt other bloggers by offfering them goodies (book deal, mainstream media attention etc.) in exchange for pushing a more watered-down, inoffensive, packaged message.
Hollenhund: We get it. You don’t like SSM.
If SSM’s husband told her to delete it, ti doesn’t matter what anyone thinks or if their comments were lost. It’s her blog.
If she felt divinely directed to delete,it, same thing goes.
If her family’s well being was being threatened in any way, ditto.
I privatized mine so that I could have the content later should I want to revisit it or re=post something on TC. I didn’t give my commenters much thought because I figure people understood that the comments they left were at my disposal.
I pray that all is well with her.
Keyser Söze took it down
> Young single men aren’t in churches because the
> churches are currently all about women, for the most part.
The one I drive by frequently had a big sign up not long ago saying “We Have Your Mr. Right!”.
Maybe if I was gay…
Or perhaps they’re thinking it’ll work like Ladies Night at the bars. Maybe if they had more or the teenagers out there all the time putting on bikini car washes.
Hating “hate” speech just makes the mind boggle.
SD– is your email on your blog?
I see nothing wrong with SSM deleting her blog, for whatever reason. It’s not like anyone paid her for it. But if Höllenhund is that concerned, I have good news. For some time, I’ve been copying all the comments from all manosphere-related blogs. I’ll be selling my “Wise Words from Höllenhund” ebook soon for only $9.95.
On a more serious note, I was a little disappointed that Joseph of Jackson shut his blog down. I was interested to see how he was going to take real PUA training and refine/filter it for Christians. I’m not sure how well it would turn out, but it’s an interesting idea. Again, though, it’s his blog and he doesn’t owe me or anyone else an explanation.
Yes, Anon, bottom of the page.
Indeed. Alfred Mohler frequently takes care to excoriate single, unattached men as disgraceful failures and abominations.
However, this standard of “proper” men extends far beyond the churches and traditional conservatives. It is the predominant judgment of heterosexual men even in the secular realm and especially in the feminist realm. Though feminists have taken every possible step to poison and sabotage male-female relationships, they most certainly judge male persons by this standard as well. A male person must still prove his worthiness and acceptability by demonstrating that a woman approves of him and will suffer his private company.
Secular people don’t usually demand that a man be married or engaged, but he has to prove that some woman has previously granted him sexual access in order for him to earn admittance to respectable company. Any male person who fails to provide evidence of female coupling approval is suspect. He is either a “predator” or a “creep” or a “Nice Guy(TM)” as the feminists like to say. Such suspect male persons are relegated to the marginal, untouchable caste.
Albert Mohler, I mean.
I agree with Anon and Sarah’s Daughter. It’s just a blog, and in the grand scheme, it’s not that big of a deal. The issue for some people is that they build community in online spaces in the absence of a real community with like minded people IRL. It’s not their fault, as it’s not very easy to run across anyone, even among Christians, who believes in make headship, wifely submission, etc.
One of the things I believe in doing is connecting outside of the blogosphere with those you build online relationships with whenever possible. Then if something major happens (they lose a spouse or a child, or have a major crisis that causes them to disappear from the online community), they may be inclined to clue you in and you’re not left wondering whether they’re alive or dead.
The main thing however, is to remember that this medium has some serous limitations and a person may be here today and gone tomorrow. That’s the nature of the Internet beast.
Oh, and as for single men in the church. The reality is that the church can be an isolating place for a single male. It’s sad, but true.
@Rollo
Thought you’d want to know that link you mentioned has been removed.
http://rationalmale.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/the-meaning-of-sacrifice/
Best Answer – Chosen by Asker
You are such a good person fro not cheating on your husband, that is not having intercourse but if you think about it it seems you have made your mind up 5 months ago so that to me is cheating, for your sake I hope it all works out for your husband because he apparently deserves better.
* 3 days ago
* Report Abuse
* 1 person rated this as good
Asker’s Rating:
5 out of 5
Asker’s Comment:
— My husband knows about my feelings for the other men for those who asked about that. I do respect him so I told him everything from the beginning. But he still wants me. —
If I had a wife that wanted to sleep with other dudes, there is really only one response. ‘Go ahead, just let me know which storage locker to send things to and where to forward your mail.’ Pandering to her by begging her to come back only cheapens your value more, and makes her want to screw you even harder in divorce.
P.S. I see the fembots have attacked Sunshine Mary to the point where she took down her blog. TRULY SAD.
“I’m not surprised that the manosphere has come to the attention of the SPLC. It is clear that much of the manosphere hates women. Soon many of these hateful manosphere bloggers will be outed, publicly shamed and fired from their jobs. Should be entertaining.”
The enemy you willingly invite to live in your house, exhibit A.
While I certainly enjoyed Sunshine Mary’s input, I disagree with those who are calling her absence “a dick move” and etc. Nobody owes a bunch of strangers on the internet anything, obviously. People can and should come and go as they please, taking the content (which they created and which they own by default) with them whenever they want.
I rarely participated on The Woman & The Dragon, but often read it. The author wrote well and displayed a good humor. I’ll miss it, and wish SSM well in whatever her endeavors consist of in the future.
While I certainly enjoyed Sunshine Mary’s input, I disagree with those who are calling her absence “a dick move”
Agreed. When people de-blog, there’s usually a STRONG reason. Alte was being cyberstalked, cmd-org was being outed by political enemies, etc. We have to assume that SSM faced something simlar…. or that perhaps HHG pulled the plug, which is his right.
My input on this blog generated quite a few responses. As I kinda feel isolated regarding my feels of church acceptance isolation, I would like to thank:
ballista74
8oxer
CoffeCrazed
deti
Novaseeker
John
LookingGlass
Martin Bachelor
Durasim
and especially Elspeth
for their thought provoking, red pill, and empathetic responses.
Peace and God bless to all…….
While I certainly enjoyed Sunshine Mary’s input, I disagree with those who are calling her absence “a dick move”
Seconded (Thirded?). I loved SSM’s blog and will miss it, and I hope to find out what happened (and that everything is okay for her and her family!), but while it’s a shame it’s completely gone rather than just defunct, I must assume she had a good reason for doing so. I just can’t imagine she took it down on a whim – while much is made of how flighty women are here in the manosphere, I just don’t think that’s how she operates.
Exhibit – T
Could what you’re looking for basically be “Saudi Arabia” but with Christianity instead of Islam as the enforced religion. If not, explain the differences that would exist in your utopia.
Such as could women work?
Could single women work but not once they got married? Or no working women at all?
Could women drive?
Would women committing adultery be stoned?
Could women live on their own or would they be forced to never be autonomous?
Would women be locked in a room for the rest of their life for family honor if found to be sexually promiscuous?
What about women that don’t want children — would we be forced to? Stoned?
I’m sure I could think of more.
I know this is off topic
Since I liked SSM, I won’t comment about her, about why she deleted her blog instead of just suspending it, or why she hasn’t addressed her contributors, supporters and readers. I hope that she is well, and I suspect that she just panicked for some reason.
But a comment above reminded me of this passage from Bloggians 3:16, which again shows us that there is nothing new under the sun:
In a public place, a servant of the Lord erected a modest structure in which he placed a few writings. Upon that structure he placed a sign proclaiming: “This is also a house of the Lord and a place of rest for the weary, where they may find solace and wisdom, to help them continue their journey”.
Over time, many stopped and visited, as they had been invited. Some merely marveled that such a place could exist, and later told many, so they also could benefit from this blessing. Others helped to transform this modest structure into a grand cathedral. For every writing added by the original servant of the Lord, visitors added many hundreds, and the Lord was pleased.
Suddenly and without warning, the original servant of the Lord burned the structure to the ground.
“Why have you done this? You were my caretaker! Were you scared or overwhelmed?”, asked the Lord.
In that moment, an onlooker, a vain, arrogant and self-righteous woman, shrieked: “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. It was his house, his, his, his, and all those who helped build it were stupid, naive fools. Why would they have thought that a chance would be given to safeguard their contributions elsewhere? And a wanderer who would have used this to find his way is obviously unworthy, and deserves nothing more than these charred remains.”
And then the Lord said: “You do not give others much thought, and consider them to be at your disposal, and yet you expect to enter My Kingdom.”
But the wicked woman did not hear, because she was busy making a halo for herself, from straw and dung.
Amen.
Actually, what you’re missing here is that a true Catholic marriage is a Sacrament. A sacrament is for life, and cannot be reversed. You cannot be “unmarried” any more than you can be “unbaptised”. If you understand the concept of a sacrament, you will understand the distinction the Church makes concerning marriages.
The Catholic Church does not create legal marriages- the state does that. The Church simply witnesses the couple administering the sacrament to each other (marriage is the only Sacrament that is not administered by a priest) to assure that correct form is followed. The witnessing priest cannot know what is in the heart of the couple as they say their vows. He cannot know if their intent is sufficient to meet the Church’s requirements for a sacramental marriage.
When the Church grants an annulment, they are merely saying that the sacrament was not validly administered. They are NOT saying that the marriage didn’t exist- or that the children are now illegitimate- or that what the couple did in their bedroom was a sin. Because the couple were indeed married. They are only saying that the marriage did not rise to the level of a Sacrament, due to some impediment or incorrect form.
There are probably lots of Catholic couples walking around whose marriages did not meet the requirements of a Sacrament- but that doesn’t make them any less married. And if they succeed at their marriage without it being a sacrament, good for them. The Church does not make judgements on the relationships of happily married people.
A Declaration of Nullity is granted when the sacramental component of marriage is not achieved. The only reason the Church demands it for remarriages is because a person cannot receive this sacrament a second time. You can’t be baptised twice. You can’t be ordained a second time. And you can’t be married a second time.
Most people judge the logic of Catholic annulments from a secular or non-Catholic Christian perspective- which is to declare that a marriage existed, and now it doesn’t. Catholics believe that you cannot declare a valid sacramental marriage to be over- you can only declare it to have never been valid in the first place.
That’s gonna leave a mark…
For some reason a large donation to “Holy” Mother Church can have a great do to with whether the marriage “rose to the level of a Sacrament” or not. For instance, how many Catholic churches were funded by some Kennedy or other who needed some cash-strapped bishop to find an “impediment or incorrect form” to a present marriage so that a subsequent marriage could take place in the church?
Annulments petitions are heard by a Diocesan tribunal which is wholly separate from any Bishops. They are independent and the cost is nominal, usually a couple hundred dollars to pay for the administrative staff. Canon lawyers argue the case for and against the annulment before a tribunal, just like a civil trial. Once a Diocesan-level decision is made, the case is reviewed by whatever Archdiocese has jurisdiction. Both must agree on the decision before it is finalized. Has it happened that there have been some shady decisions? Probably. But that doesn’t invalidate the purpose or the spirit of the process.
MonicaMarie,
A distinction without a difference. Bishop… tribunal that answers to the bishop… or not… or only sometimes… whatever. I realize there are people who want to do the right things, but the process is heretical and corrupt at its roots. Annulments CAN be purchased. It’s like the old joke where the rich old guy asks an attractive younger woman to have sex with him for $1,000,000. She agrees. Then he asks if she’ll do it for $10. She replies, “What kind of women do you think I am?” He responds, “We’ve already determined what kind of woman you are. Now we’re just negotiating the price.”
The fact is that you can be married in a courtroom, in a church, or while skydiving. You can be married in front of a priest, a judge, or a Yorkshire Terrier (although the state will obviously not recognize the marriage in the last case). If you say the vows and have sex – you are married. Full stop. No amount of, “Well… the priest didn’t realize she had her fingers crossed, and he wrote a REALLY big check for the Knights of Columbus charity drive…” changes that. There are no “impediments” or “incorrect forms”: either you said the vows and knocked the boots or you didn’t. If you did not, then you are not married. If you did then you can get divorced and bear the consequences of that: but no Tribunal, no Bishop, not even a choir of Cardinals singing In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida while the Pope dances the Macarena, can make it so that You-were-never-really-married-for-twenty-years-but-your-nine-kids-are-legitimate.
The only common exception I can think of is if one party (usually the bride) falsely claims to be a virgin in order to get the other person to marry. Not to get too graphic, but blood on the sheets is usually proof-positive that the bride was a virgin, although lack of blood is not conclusive proof that she was not. In the case of actual virginity fraud (pre-cuckolding, if you will) the vows were deliberately fraudulent and – I would think – not binding on the offended party as soon as the truth becomes known. Although I think the defrauded spouse could marry someone else without sinning at all, the guilty one could not remarry without committing adultery. The Bible is not specific about those cases, so barring Divine Revelation the best we can do is try to glean the proper concept from the entire context of scriptures regarding divorce and remarriage, so if someone can quote scripture that suggest otherwise I’ll be happy to modify my view.
I have before me my copy of The KJV and it is opened at Chapter XIX of Matthew, and Verse 9 reads: ‘And I say unto you, Whoseoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication and shall marry another, commiteth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery’.
I also have before me Count Tolstoy’s What I Believe, which is opened at Chapter VI and which is entitled The Five Commandments. The second of the Commandments which Tolstoy deduces from the NT is on the subject of Marriage. I won’t attempt to elucidate Tolstoy’s reasoning save to say that he is sure that the words ‘save for the cause of adultery’ are meaningless and a later addition to Matthew.
It appears therefore on a strict reading that there is no bar on women divorcing (for any reason) yet there is (according to Tolstoy) an absolute bar on men Divorcing their wives. This seems a bit one-sided and rather Misandrist, yet rather ties in with modern practice, and is rather supportive of MGTOW.
Where might I be going wrong?
Where might you be going…..period? That’s not to be read as snark. I’m asking what your take on the comparison is, what do you conclude, why is it so, etc? Genuinely curious and interested, as I didn’t know about that.
T really is getting a vicarious mental cyber-woody about this whole debacle. Enthusiastic expectation of a bunch of outed manosphere writers, job losses, etc. ?
I feel like I missed the Heinz Doofenshmirtz Evil aspect to her personality, choosing to see harmless and annoying only.
T really is getting a vicarious mental cyber-woody about this whole debacle
T is for “tingle”
Tingle Über Alles
I’ll miss SSM, too. I’ve only been following her blog for a few months, but I’ve learned so much. It was so well written and well researched. Maybe she just didn’t have enough time to keep up with it given she has several kids and a demanding husband. I hope that she’ll post somewhere in the blogosphere so I can continue to glean from her pearls of wisdom.
@Elspeth — Thanks. Being a single male, in church, over a certain age (in my case, WAY over it) is a certain kind of hell. When you add the shaming that still happens if you are male and divorced, you can double it.
@All. I don’t know why SSM is down. Her business. However, she has left the site up on the wayback machine. There is stuff there to be rescued, like her career advice for girls.
I wish I had your email @Dalrock
Here are some wedding ‘vows’ that are Marriage 1.0, taken out of the Bible. What do you think of using this in a marriage ceremony, so at least wives, and husbands, will know what they are supposed to be signing up for?
We are gathered here today to witness the joining of ________ and _________ in holy matrimony.
[Word(s) of exhortation[/b]
Minister: “Who gives the bride ________ to this man _______ to be his wife?
[Father of the bride]: “I do.”
Minister: “Do you take this woman to be your wife, taking upon yourself the obligation to love her as Christ loved the church Who gave Himself for her, that He might cleanse her for the washing of water with the word, that she might be holy and without blemish? Do you agree to accept the role of head of your wife? Do you take this woman as your wife, willing to give her honor as the weaker vessel?
Groom: “I do.”
Minister: “Do you take this woman to love as your own body, to be one flesh with her? Do agree that the husband does not have authority alone over his body, but the wife does, and that you must not deprive your wife of the affection due her, except it be for consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again so that Satan not tempt you because of your lack of self-control? Do accept the scriptural admonition to rejoice with the wife of your youth, and to always be enraptured by her love?”
Groom: “I do.”
Minister: “Do you accept this responsibility, understanding the commandment of Christ that whoever puts away his wife, except it be for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery? Do accept this obligation understanding the commandment of the Lord that a husband is not to divorce his wife? Do accept this responsibility understanding that
Minister: [Name of wife] Do you take this man to be your husband? Do you agree to submit to your own husband in everything as to the, as to the Lord, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham, calling him lord?
Bride: “I do”
Minister: “Do you agree that you no longer have authority over your body, but your husband does. Do you agree not to deprive your husband of the affection due him except it be with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and that you come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control?”
Bride: “I do.”
Minister: “Do you accept this responsibility realizing the commandment of the Lord that the wife not depart from her husband, but if she does depart, for her to remain unmarried or to be reconciled to her husband?”
Bride: “I do.”
Minister: “Parents of the bride, do you bless this union?”
Parents of the bride: “We do.”
Minister: “Parents of the groom, do you bless this union?”
Parents of the groom: “We do.”
Minister: “Elders and congregation of the church, do you bless this union?”
Elders and congregation: “We do?”
Minister: “Before God and those standing here today, I witness that ______ and ______ have been united as husband and wife. Let us remember the words of Christ, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” I also witness that that under the laws of the state of _____ you are now man and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”
Your quote from Sheila Gregoire must come from a fairly old post. I’m a reader of hers, and she wrote a post last year sometime saying that pornography wasn’t adultery-adultery. Just wrong. I remember being dissatisfied with her reasoning for some reason, but she does appear to have evolved on this topic somewhat. I wonder if she still thinks abuse and addictions are biblical grounds for divorce. I can’t find those in there…
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Here is an example of the morality of marriage today.
I saw a white women at the bank today with a black man. She was obviously “dating” him. In a sexual way. She had a wedding ring on. With a huge wedding band around her wedding ring finger and the black man did not have any ring on.
@ LH
There is no way anyone would use that script at a wedding ceremony.
Opus pointed out the swing of feminism in the Christian church by allowing the double standard for divorce to exist. Pauls writing in 1 Cor 7:10-15 has been overlooked. It doesnt allow for frivdivorce. A woman who frivdivorces her husband is truly a Jezebel (name means without cohabitation).
Christian Marriage has morphed quite a bit. The origin is from pre Levitical lawJudaism into Christianity into a form of Catholic tradition. Regardless, it is a sacrament as depicted in Mark 10:9.
I have a report on the morality of marriage.
The leasing agent who works in my building is committing adultery with one of the residents. She is in her 30’s. She drives a newish luxury car. It’s hard to believe she could afford that car. Her loser job pays $13.00/hr part time.
I don’t find her attractive but can see why others would find her attractive for her age (keyword: for her age). She has an experienced “banged” look to her. A “ravishing” look. The I’ve had allot of partners and may have even tried escorting once or twice. The “I had a threesome kind of look”.
So imagine my surprise when she tells me she met her husband 2 years ago on MATCH.COM.
I looked at her Facebook page and surprise-surprise her husband is a runner/jogger and appears to be (if I had to bet) a beta male.
This is really none of my business. But for some irritating reason I keep running into these two adulterous people. The last thing I need is a rent increase so I STFU. I’m quiet and respectful. But this is irritating because I want to get married. And when I keep running into these two fucks its a reminder of the risks of marriage circa early 21st century America.
My building has a fitness center. It’s really nice. Brand new equipment so this women tells her husband she is “exercising” and will be home late etc. Here’s the thing: sometimes she is actually exercising. I would not be surprised if – in her mind – she is being honest with her husband simply by telling him she is exercising. Get it? Exercising? That would seem to fit right in with what I’ve learned about the female hamster wheel.
Man I wish I was making this shit up. I didn’t get to experience running into this, that, and the other things I’ve shared on this blog by living in a small town. Seeing this kind of thing started (and never stopped) after I moved to Los Angeles.
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I am sure God is bemused by the idea of some people breaking His rules.
In reality, no one can break God’s rules. The rules always break them. It’s like a guy who jumps from a ten storey building in a feeble attempt to defy gravity. Well, he may not live long enough to know the consequences of disrespecting the good old Gravity. So are all of God’s rules, whether we understand them or not. Keeping them is actually our wisdom.
Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD. Leviticus 18:5
Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. Deuteronomy 4:6
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