Premarital Sex

Premarital Sex

 

I have been meaning to get around to writing on this topic for a while now. In contemporary times, there has been so few defenses of traditional understandings of sexual ethics that it is no surprise many teenagers think there is no reason for people to wait until marriage to have sex, and that the primary reason teenagers do remain abstinent is wholly for religious, not philosophical, reasons. My intent then with this essay is to restore a veritable defense of traditional understandings of sexual ethics by demonstrating the premises from which my conclusions follow. I will be defending the assertion that premarital sex, in the sense that it is sex outside the bounds of marriage, is wrong. I will develop the notion of marriage as it is understood based on social premises, and clarify illegitimate objections to marriage or its traditional understandings.

 

Sexual intercourse, biologically speaking, has one purpose; reproduction. It is no wonder then that sex is hugely pleasurable; those creatures which didn’t find its reproductive methods pleasurable didn’t participate in reproduction as much, while those that did reproduced more often, and evolution happened. Hence we as humans have a huge drive to have sex and find it intensely, almost spiritually, pleasing.

 

There are, however, problems to humans having sex as often as and with whomever they wished. Evolution in humans is not limited to acting out biologically like it does with the rest of the animal kingdom, but it plays out in society as well. Where in biological terms evolution predicts that creatures that are stronger, faster, better at hiding, more poisonous, etc, will survive while those that are weaker and slower will die out and their genes not get passed on, in societal terms, evolution predicts that those societies that have norms which are beneficial to reproduction will win out.

 

Let me give two illustrations.

 

First, in biology. If we have two dozen penguins in Antarctica, with one dozen having warmer feathers than the other, we would expect to see the penguins with warmer feathers to dominate, and their genes to be found in later generations of penguins. Those penguins with less warm feathers are more likely to die, and in dying, not reproducing, meaning they don’t pass on their genes. This is how evolution works.

 

Second, in society. This is more complex, but the same principle goes to work. Where with the penguins it was a matter of which penguins lived, with humans it is often which have stronger beliefs in the goodness of children. For instance, the entire history of religions that demanded celibacy of their adherents could be covered with nothing more than a footnote, while religions that highly valued fertility, reproduction, and children (such as Islam) dominate history. If a society makes a norm of infanticide, it is no wonder that these societies die out, if not in entirety of themselves, then at least these norms in the societies they were found. It should be no wonder that Christianity came to “conquer” the Roman Empire when one considers the decadent moral practices of the pagan Romans, especially as regards sexuality and reproduction.

 

Considering this sort of societal evolution helps to explain why, when one studies cultures, that there is an institution we would recognize as marriage is found universally. It has not so much to do with human nature itself, but simply because those cultures that didn’t believe in marriage didn’t make any mark on history because they were too brief, too weak, and too fragile, as they were likely incorporated into other societies. On the other hand, this also explains why one typically sees a resurgence of conservative attitudes towards sexuality time and again in cultures that at one time were rather liberal; the Greeks, the Japanese, and Chinese were all at some time in their histories liberal about sex, but then the conservative norms won out.

 

As history repeats itself, I would consider myself well within speculation to estimate that a hundred years from now, if the USA still exists, it will have “reverted” to the same views of sexual ethics (not necessarily of sex itself) as it did fifty years ago. Why? Just because those people with strong conservative beliefs regarding sex tend to reproduce more; this is why there are so many Catholics and Muslims in the world. The same predictions could be made regarding abortion, but that isn’t the purpose of this essay.

 

Rather, analyzing the historical data, the question becomes “Why do we find marriage in every culture that we know existed?” I think the reasoning is actually quite simple and requires a very elementary knowledge of sexual intercourse.

 

As anyone with a high school education can tell you, sex is the cause of children. Where there is a child, there has been sex. There has never been a child without two parents (one male, one female) participating in sexual intercourse, save Mary, of course (IVF doesn’t count). Undoubtedly this was as well known to the ancients as it is to us.

 

In this sense, the fact of sex becomes a problem to be solved. Considering evolution again, those parents who were strongly attached to their children in the primate/hominid lines (considering the lengthy maturation of children in these species) were more likely to have children who grew and reproduced themselves. This instinct was found in our human ancestors as well, undoubtedly. On the other hand, civilizations who had developed culture to the point of specialized occupations (farmer, scribe, soldier, etc) tempered the instinct humans had towards monogamy, since the family unit had expanded into the community. Thus arose the institution of laws and, later, philosophy.

 

Let us start with examining the tribe, however. In a tribe, there may be only as many as several hundred people. One injustice in the tribe has deeper repercussions than one injustice in a society of thousands. Probably the first problem to be solved then was of sex and children; since sex lead to children, and the tribe was dependent upon their children, sex was a good thing, but since children were also a good thing, they needed to be raised. The responsibility of raising the children was then of the parents who brought those children into the world. The way to make sure that the parents stuck together through a rite recognized by us as marriage, where two people, male and female (nothing came of male/male or female/female relationships, so what was the point of “gay marriage?), made vows of lifelong fidelity to each other in front of the community. This has perennially what we’ve understood as marriage, then and now.

 

Now that the parents would be together, then the two could have sex freely without worrying about the children, since the children had thus been reasonably secured an ideal relationship to be born into, with a mother and father who could both take care of them. Other tribes that perhaps left it up to the mother alone inevitably died out, while those tribes with the solution of marriage lived on (and still do today, in Africa and South America).

 

Since there is now recognized an institution of marriage, there could then be such a thing as “premarital sex.” What was the matter of this?

 

It was as much a problem as not having marriage at all. The children that resulted of sex were just as likewise not reasonably secured an ideal relationship to be born into, and so the tribe was weak, and so the tribe died.

 

Hence we find marriage universally in all cultures.

 

What then of the modern day? In fact, we now have even more reasons to value the institution of marriage than the tribes did. We need not value it only for its ability to be a foundation of society, but because it is solves a human rights abuse. The tribe may have had a fuzzy notion of human rights, but in the last 2500 years it has been expounded upon, beginning with Greek philosophy and inculcated in Christian Europe and flowering richly for the last several centuries. It needn’t be stated that we now recognize the innate dignity of all humans, no matter age, location, ethnicity, or any other accidental feature for all to know that this is precisely what needs to be believed for people to make it in society.

 

So what then does the modern problem of sex look like? The biology hasn’t changed; sex still leads to children. Even contraception hasn’t been able to override this natural function of the body perfectly. As this is so, we have a responsibility towards the children we would have through sex. What responsibility? Quite simply, the same as in the tribe; to raise, educate, and provide for our children all that is required until they come of age. To do this we are obligated to provide a reasonably secured relationship for these things to be provided; and even yet, this still is the same. Children are most benefited by having both parents of male and female sex than not. As such is the case, then premarital sex, because it has not provided for the children of which sex by its nature leads to, can be described as a gross effrontery to the infinite dignity of human beings. Its a gravely immoral wrong, not merely for religious reasons, but due to the dignity of humanity.

 

Hence, marriage is necessary for sex to be responsible. Its a very simple dictum; nobody should have sex until they are ready for children, and no one is ready for children until they have provided for those children a marriage to be born into.

 

The reply “I’ll just make sure to use contraception then” is inadequate. First, there is no such thing as a perfect contraception. Even if I were to place a bullet in one chamber in one gun of a hundred, it would still be wrong for me to pick up one of those guns and pull the trigger at another just in case I so happen to pick up the gun with the bullet in the right chamber. There is nothing essentially different with premarital sex.

 

Second, contraception is itself a grave immoral wrong, as it reduces the dignity of humans to nothing more than objects of sexual lust. The notion that a girl can take some pills or that a guy can just put a condom on and be perfectly suited to have sex is what leads to the objectification of the body. Its why we find that there are an estimated 10 million single mothers living in the US right now; because the men who had sex with them didn’t care enough to stick around for the children, only for the sex. Its why there are so many abortions; because the body becomes viewed as nothing more than a tool for one’s pleasure and no more.

 

While it is rightly immediately repulsive to many people that such objectification should happen, the use of contraceptives offers no defense against it happening. If I am with a girl who uses contraceptives, then I could just as well have sex with her and leave the next day, because there are no consequences that are intended in having sex, except pleasure. Using contraceptives causes this, for sex to be viewed as nothing more than a means to pleasure, requiring the use of another person’s body who I don’t need to have a care for. I wish to quote, because the statement is succinct and expressive in a way I can’t match; “a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.” This of course works vice versa, perpetrated by the woman against the man.

 

The argument against the use of contraception has empirical evidence in addition to its rational evidence. As was predicted by opponents of contraception when it became widely available, there would become a generally lowered moral standard and increased marital infidelity, both of which have been found to be true. As contraceptive use went up, divorce rates went up, probably for the exact reason as the quote in the above paragraph said. A husband whose wife is on the pill who then becomes dissatisfied with her is more prone to abandon her (and the children) altogether to find another woman who can better satisfy his desires, rather than finding a problem with his own desires and seeking to better reverence his wife and his children.

 

The consequences of using contraception even between married couples are dubious. While the argument might be made that its used to help establish a relationship between the parents in the first place in benefit of future children, what then of the child that may result? Considering there has been effort put forth by the parents to strive against a child’s existing, then this would limit the ability of the parents to have unconditional love and respect for their child, unless they repent of their use of contraceptives.

The last resort, abortion, is obviously disqualified by anyone who has followed these logical progressions. As it is a debate in and of itself, I will not cover it here, but as I have done elsewhere, I will assume that abortion is wrong for the purposes of continuity in this essay.

 

Finally, there are those who wonder precisely what great evils premarital sex causes, if any at all. As I have shown, there are great reductions of human dignity presumed in premarital sex, and as I can point out, its not for any other reason that there are now 10 million single mothers in the US (where in 1970 there were only 3 million) and that there are daily ~4,000 abortions. No one can pretend that premarital sex is not a grave problem in this culture looking at these statistics.

 

To summarize, my argument that premarital sex is always wrong is dependent upon these premises;

 

1) It is wrong to have sex without being ready for children

 

2) One is only ready for children in a marriage

 

3) Contraception is an evil

 

4) Abortion is an evil

 

Thus, the conclusion

 

5) Therefore, premarital sex is an act of utmost selfishness and disregard for human dignity

 

is veritably founded.