Strengthening Families and Communities Forum:
#111-Jamal Johnson; Having Sex Outside of Marriage Is Bad for Society
Cheon Seong Gyeong 2202
Filial sons and daughters should have more worries than their parents. To become children of filial piety, they must display greater concern than their parents, and they must do so in every regard. (155-253, 1965.10.31)
Cheon Seong Gyeong 1188
As viewed from God’s original ideal of creation, the eldest son should come from God’s side and, of course, the second son should also come from God’s side. Due to the Fall, the position of the first son was taken by Satan, and the position of the second son went to God. This has to be made right. Thus, when we consider the story of Esau and Jacob in the Bible, Jacob united with his mother and received her help. He gave Esau the pottage of lentils and bread in exchange for the birthright of the firstborn son. Until today, we could not understand why Bible history is the way it is. With the appearance of the Unification Church, its meaning was clarified for the first time. (134-304, 1985.8.16)
FAMILY
THE BASIC FORM OF LIFE
Ethics of Married Life
LOVE IN MARRIAGE is not unfettered emotion; it survives and thrives through the discipline of married life. The path of marriage holds special challenges to a couple committed to a lifetime together. It serves as a crucible for refining character and a school for perfecting love.
Scriptures spell out some of the traditional ethical rules that have informed marriages through the ages. They spell out different but complementary roles in the household. Husbands should honor their wives and wives should obey their husbands. Both spouses should be faithful, sharing everything together and never contemplating divorce. While occasionally these traditional roles have been made to justify a double standard, when rightly understood they describe reciprocal and mutual responsibilities. (See Chapter 20: Women’s Rights for a discussion of equality between the sexes in the larger society.) Father Moon teaches that the ideal of marriage is when the spouses live for the sake of each other, the husband respecting his wife as God’s daughter and the wife respecting her husband as God’s son. Love is the ultimate basis of the equality of husband and wife.
1. The Core Ethic of Conjugal Love: Spouses Are Subject to Each Other
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, the he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5.21-33
You wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the Word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, when they see your reverent and chaste behavior…
Likewise you husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life.
1 Peter 3.1-2, 7
The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does.
1 Corinthians 7.3-4
Your wife has rights over you.
Hadith of Bukhari (Islam)
A man is forbidden to compel his wife to her marital duty.
Talmud, Erubin 100b (Judaism)
Your wives are as a tilth to you: so approach your tilth when or how you will; but do some good act for your souls beforehand, and fear God.
Qur’an 2.223