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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7783 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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To be fair, for most of the history of marriage, consent covert at most the act of marriage itself, and even there it was often coerced. Once a woman was married, her husband most certainly was free to rape her.

For most of the history of marriage, consent to individual episodes of sex was not a concept. You would consent to marriage, and marriage came with certain obligations, one of which was sexual. The wife could accuse the husband of sodomy instead if he tried to get her to perform something out of Gaiman's bucket list.

Yeah, its a bit hard to compare Apples to Apples with regard to marriage when the concept used to be a set of mutually reinforcing obligations/responsibilities to the other party that were considered ironclad expectations of each party under penalty of literal hellfire in some cases.

And since connubials included an expectation of regular sexual relations (although with the intent of conceiving children, I suppose), one of the parties denying that to the other was a clear breach or default of their obligations, and enforcing 'specific performance' on the party in default... rather makes sense as a solution?

I get that it's a squishy question, how much sex is it 'fair' to expect from a partner, but it is weird to think that we still have the general ceremonial trappings of marriage as an ironclad 'contract' ('til death do us part!) and yet have tossed away almost any 'enforcement' mechanisms and let people breach and exit them at will.

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