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Under no circumstances is sexual assault of any sort acceptable in marriage. The Bible teaches husbands, “Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church,”b and “dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel.”c This biblical understanding explains, why in colonial Massachusetts from 1640 to 1680, the Puritans enacted the first laws anywhere in the world against wife beating. Family violence was considered sinful, and neighbors were expected to be watchful for abuse and intervene as needed to protect wives and children.67 If there has been sexual assault in your marriage, you need professional and possibly even legal help for healing and protection.

Question 2: Is it helpful?

There is nothing beneficial from anyone, usually the wife, enduring assault or abuse of any kind, especially sexually. If you are a woman believing the lies that it is your fault because you make him angry, that you don’t deserve to be treated any better, or that suffering a life of terror is better than the consequences of divorce, you are in danger. And unless he gets professional help and truly changes—which is rare—things will get worse. The studies on this issue confirm that such men can also become jealous of their own children and escalate violence against their pregnant wives, assault their own children, including molesting them, and even kill their wives.

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Question 3: Is it enslaving?

When someone is attacked, we call it assault. As horrible as that is, what is even worse is torment. Torment is when you’re assaulted and you cannot escape, like prisoners of war and those who are held captive in slavery. For some women, their version of slavery and captivity in torment is called marriage.

Tragically, some women settle for this kind of life. Or perhaps even worse, they tell their church leadership, only to be told that when Paul said our bodies belongs to our spouses, it means the wife is basically a piece of property. Some tragic studies report that an assaulted wife who goes to her church instead of the police or a licensed counselor will be less likely to get ongoing emotional help and legal protection, but rather will return to the abuse in the name of submission—as if the abuse is what God had in mind for her.

Anytime a husband or church leader demands the wife obey the Bible without doing the same for the husband, he is sanctioning abuse. Any professing Christian man who assaults his wife is a heretic preaching a false gospel with his life. A man is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. Jesus’ relationship with the church is not one of rape, violence, abuse, and degradation. There is no place for any assault—including sexual assault—in any marriage.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many sexual acts that are technically acceptable according to God and our government. We are not saying that they are mandatory. Our aim is to open up the topic to married couples so they can lovingly, graciously, and prayerfully discuss what they would like to do and not do. We want to emphatically state that our intent is to inform heterosexual married couples of the full range of their sexual freedoms. But we do not want this information to be used in any way to force someone to act against his or her conscience.

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a 1 Cor. 6:15–16.

b See 1 Cor. 6:12, 13; 8:1, 5; 10:23.

a Gen. 2:24.

b Gen. 4:1.

c 2 Sam. 12:24.

a Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Rom. 1:26–27; 1 Cor. 6:9–11; 1 Tim. 1:9–10; Jude 17.

a Lev. 15:19–33; 18:19; 20:18; 22:10.

b E.g., 2 Cor. 3:6–14.

a Lev. 11:1–44; Deut. 14:3–21; Acts 10:14; 11:8; Rom. 14:2.

b Rom. 4:9–12; Gal. 2:3–5; 5:2–4; Phil. 3:2–3; Col. 2:11–12.

c Rom. 14:5–6; Gal. 4:10; Col. 2:16–17.

d Rom. 3:25–26; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13.

e Ex. 2:8–11.

f Rom. 14:5; Col. 2:16–17.

g Lev. 15:16, 18, 32; 22:4; Deut. 23:10.

h Lev. 11:10–12.

i Lev. 19:19.

j Exodus 20.

k 1 Cor. 5:10–11, 6:9, 10:7; 2 Cor. 6:16; Gal. 5:20; Eph. 5:5.

l Rom. 1:30; Eph. 6:1–3; Col. 3:20.

m Rom. 1:29; 13:9; 1 Tim. 1:9.

n Rom. 2:22; 7:3; 13:9; 1 Cor. 6:9.

o Rom.