by Lady Lee 29 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
what I am specifically looking for is if the wife failed to provide the "marital due" and her husband commited adultery then the wife would be bloodguilty
Lee, I can remember hearing that as well.
....and you didn't think that was quite a stretch to include such a patriarchal dictate as "bloodguilty"?
If it was used in an implication like that....it seems like a perverted male dominance issue to me.
This isn't the one you're thinking of, but it's similar:
w56 Marriage Obligations and Divorce
A man who divorces his wife on unadulterous grounds exposes her to adultery by a remarriage and also exposes himself in a like way. A man who marries a woman not divorced for adultery by herself or by her husband commits adultery with her, uniting himself with flesh that still belongs to another man.
And this quote from the same article is very interesting:
By the laws of states and nations today divorce is granted on a number of grounds. Persons who have lost or killed their love for their marriage mate try to grab hold of whatever legal grounds they can to break the marriage tie, such as mental cruelty, laziness, refusal of conjugal rights, drunkenness, insanity, incurable disease, desertion or abandonment, barrenness, sodomy, bestiality, criminality, incompatibility, change of one’s religion, and so on, besides adultery. But are all these legal grounds Scripturally right, valid for the Christian? Jesus Christ is Jehovah’s Counselor for us. The Jewish Pharisees once tested him with this question: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on every kind of grounds?" Jesus did not answer those questioners by referring to the Roman Caesar’s laws concerning divorce. He referred to the superior law of the Most High God and showed there is but one ground for divorce—adultery or moral unfaithfulness.
It's noteworthy that this article is also infamous for the following:
Sodomy (or the unnatural intercourse of one male with another male as with a female),Lesbianism (or the homosexual relations between women), and bestiality(or the unnatural sexual relations by man or woman with an animal)are not Scriptural grounds for divorce. They are filthy, they are unclean, and God’s law to Israel condemned to death those committing such misdeeds, thus drastically putting these out of God’s congregation. But such acts are not adultery with the opposite sex, making the unclean person one flesh with another of the opposite sex.
Such filthy things by a mate may make life unbearable for the clean married person and are grounds for separation only, though some courts grant a divorce on such grounds. Such separation does not free one to remarry and enter thus into adultery.
Further in the article it discusses the concept of why a spouses change in religious beliefs is not grounds for divorce:
Some law courts take as a ground for divorce the change in religion on the part of one’s mate. According to God and Christ this is not right. This law case assumes that, at marriage, both the husband and the wife were members of the same religious system, so that now the one’s change of religion creates a home difficulty on a most vital point. By adopting the new religion the one changing becomes an unbeliever toward the religion of the other mate. Though this may be a bitter experience for the mate that retains the former religion it is no real reason for him to separate from the other either by legal action or by mutual consent.
I'm speculating that this ruling was due to the growth in the JW religion at the time, and applied to non-JW spouses threatening to divorce their newly-converted-to-JW spouse. When the tables are turned, for example now when a JW couple has the dilemma of one of the partners leaving the JWs, apparently it is grounds for divorce, citing "absolute spiritual endangerment", although it does not free the couple to remarry per JW dogma.
Here's another article:
w69 3/15 p.177 Living Up to Your DecisionsAn unselfish and loving wife will always be very anxious to give the proper due to her husband, and to do the things that will make him happy and draw him closer to her. Paul said that the husband has charge over his wife; so even though she may not get the satisfaction, or need the satisfaction to the extent of her husband, yet her foremost thoughts should be the satisfaction of his passionate desires. Her delight and satisfaction will come in satisfying her husband.
Oh, I found something else:
w73 6/1 p.352 Questions from ReadersThe innocent mate may even have contributed toward the unfaithfulness of his or her marriage partner. If, for example, the wife has deliberately deprived her husband of the marital due, she bears a certain responsibility for what has happened. She is not altogether without blame from God’s standpoint, for the Bible admonishes: "Let the husband render to his wife her due; but let the wife also do likewise to her husband. . . . Do not be depriving each other of it, except by mutual consent for an appointed time, that you may devote time to prayer and may come together again, that Satan may not keep tempting you for your lack of self-regulation."—1 Cor. 7:3-5.
I don't know what happened to the text size there. Stoopid WT Library CD ROM.
those last two quotes Scully posted! what the hell?! the first one too but especially the 69 &73!
im glad that was in 1969 and not now..lol i dont mind satisfying hubbys desires because i love him, but yes i feel to be told to do so isnt quite nice, although Paul was rather harsh in the manner he spoke and i think it was because back then thats how things were, woman were use to being submissive, nowadays its not seen the same in this system,society.
And as for 1973 so that applys to both then? The wife too? It's only fair that its both, im sure some man must deprive women too, not just the woman.
Food for thought:
So according to the WT quotes, married couples should not withhold the "marriage due" from each other. Even if one is tired, has a headache, has her period, doesn't feel like it, or just plain can't stand the other person anymore, if the partner wants to have sex, the other must perform to render the "due".
Birth control is optional, left to the couple's decision (although I've heard that having a vasectomy or tubal ligation is now, once again, strongly discouraged since it leaves the sterilized mate at risk for committing adultery without the possibility of producing an out-of-wedlock pregnancy as a result of sterility). A lot of JWs are extremely ignorant as to the mechanics of oral contraceptives - I had people criticize me (after they snooped in my medicine cabinet ) for being on The Pill, saying that it basically "killed fertilized eggs" and was "like having an abortion every month". The husband, though, since he is the HEAD of the wife, would have the ultimate decision-making right. So if he doesn't like condoms, he doesn't have to use them. If he wants to have sex when she's ovulating and has decreed that she not take The Pill due to ignorance of how the female body works, then she has to "render the due" regardless of the risk of pregnancy.
Having children within the JWs has always been regarded as "selfish" and not a very spiritual course of action. Armageddon™ being around the corner, etc.
So they set you up to believe that if you don't have sex with your spouse whenever and where ever they want it, you are responsible if they commit adultery. They don't allow women a lot of control over their birth control options, and abortion is forbidden. If you get pregnant, you are asking for "woe" (woe to the pregnant woman... in the last days) and you get criticized for putting fleshly desires ahead of spiritual ones. Yet, you are in a conundrum where pregnancy-upon-pregnancy is a practically inevitable outcome.
I cannot believe I put up with this misogynistic bull$h!t for over a quarter of a century.
Thanks for the quotes Scully
and thanks for those who said they remember bloodguilt being used this way.
angel eyes
What WTS do you belong to? "back then women were use to being submissive, nowadays it is not seen the same in this system, society" The WTS demands that women are in submission to their husbands exactly like it was "back then". The only difference now is that they don't stone them to death for not being submissive
Scully
I cannot believe I put up with this misogynistic bull$h!t for over a quarter of a century.
You and me both.
I still can't believe that I believed it so much I committed adultery, something that truly was abhorrent to me then and still is today, so he could be free to remarry and I would not have his blood on my head
angel eyes, it's obvious that you are much younger than those articles. Good for you for your enlightened and oh-so-modern attitude!
Those articles are certainly a reflection of the times and I daresay that the prevailing attitude (even among non JWs) was that sex was disgusting and dirty, and that nice girls didn't do things like that. I remember laughing when an elderly Sister™ gave me premarital advice at my bridal shower: Just close your eyes and it'll be over soon enough. LOL Thankfully, I was more enlightened than that.
The point is, that this prudish attitude still exists for a lot of people. So much depends on one's upbringing, cultural background, and family-of-origin values. Parents or grandparents who subscribed to WTS dictates back in the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's tend not not "modernize" their values for the sake of their children's well-being. Often they regard such modernizing or liberations as Worldly™ standards encroaching on their solid bible-based morality.
The other thing is, imo, that the WTS really has no business poking its nose into the bedrooms of married couples. What they choose to do by mutual consent in private should remain private.
I have seen this card played in so many ways.
You could be bloodguilty if you stumble anyone. Suppose I did something that was not expressly forbidden (such as picking up a package of candy canes, some eggnog, Easter candy, or other items for personal consumption that is not available all year long). Someone sees me with a package of candy canes in the checkout line, perhaps a new cashier or the customer in back of me that is newly studying with the witlesses. They see my package of candy canes, and assume that it is acceptable to eat candy canes. The result: The new study does other things associated with Christmas, and I have bloodguilt on me for that person celebrating the holiday.
Suppose I do not do "enough" in field circus. One day, I have the flu and need to go in early because I simply cannot go on. Or, I have something stupid to do (like making a living, a necessary home repair, etc.) and have to cut my field circus short that day. Or, I am a bit too slow--or take too long in the car warming up--or fail to get the whole group in the territory on time (or keep them going aggressively enough). Just beyond me, someone would have been interested at that time, except for my wickedly needing to quit early or being a bit too slow. Now, I share bloodguilt for whatever sins that person commits beyond that point.
You can also be held bloodguilty if you accept blood, you are "recklessly endangering" others' or your own life, or even if you have nominal membership of any organization the leaders of which are destroying lives.
