And now let’s drop in on the people in Biblical Christianity Land to see what they have to say about the vexed question of whether or not a husband owns his wife the way a boy-farmer owns his livestock. (What to do with the analogy when the farmer is a woman is a question we will leave for another day. This is a visit to Biblical Christianity Land, after all. I’m not sure the laws of Biblical Christianity Land permit women to own farms and livestock.)

Let’s consult Mr Biblical Gender Roles for his take on this question. The answer is probably in the title of his post: You don’t pay for the milk when you own the cow!

How to be a godly husband when you own the cow.

But once you have bought the cow, you ARE supposed to get the milk for free One of the problems we face today in the Christian community (but it certainly is not limited to Christians) is that often times, even after we have waited, and “bought the cow” (married our wives), our wives expect us to “buy the milk” as well. I recently wrote a post responding to a Christian teacher’s false belief, that in marriage men do in fact have to “buy the milk” (earn sex), even after “buying the cow” (marrying a woman).

Marriage=a man owning a woman, so that he never again has to “earn” sex but can just grab it whenever he wants to, because she is his cow. That’s what he bought her for.

Now in pesky quarrelsome people like me that raises the question, but then what did she get married for? What’s in it for her? But that of course is looking at it quite the wrong way, as you can see if you read his words again. The only agent involved is the man; the woman is the thing bought, the thing owned, the thing used for sex at the man’s will. The man marries the woman, but the woman doesn’t marry the man – the woman is married by the man, not the other way around. We foolish unbelievers think of marriage as mutual, like friendship, but that’s all wrong. It’s unilateral, like slavery. “We” are men, who do the marrying, and “they” are cows.

A quick word on the “cow analogy” before we continue – in no way am I meaning disrespect toward women, or saying that cows are somehow equal to women, or that women are less human than men. But Biblically speaking, a wife does belong to her husband (men paid a “bride price” and one the terms for husband in the original languages of the Bible is “baal” which means “owner or master” (e.g. Proverbs 31). I Peter 3 says “Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord [master]“.

It’s hugely impressive that he is in no way meaning disrespect toward women, and that all he’s doing is pointing out the The Bible says men get to own women and be the bosses of them.

Any deviation from this In The Bible arrangement is sinful.

Husbands listen to me, engaged men please hear me. There is a pattern that takes place in a lot of Christian marriages (and non-Christian marriages). At the beginning of the sexual relationship between a man and woman (which should begin after marriage, but sometimes it sinfully starts before marriage), women will give their husbands all the “free milk” they want. She lets him “taste the goods” so to speak. But not long into the marriage, the milk is no longer free of charge, it now comes at a cost. That cost looks very different from woman to woman, but there is a cost of some sort. For some Christian men, it might simply be household chores, for others it is buying jewelry or other gifts. For other husbands, it is making a decision the way their wife wants it, but they do not think is best. What all these different prerequisites have in common is, they require a man to transfer his God given authority over his home, his children, and his wife and yes even his wife’s body to his wife. Only if they do the bidding of their wife, will she give them “the goods”.

Terrible. So what should a man do? Sit her down and remind her what The Bible says.

When your wife tells you “If you do ___________ for me, then I will do that for you”, you need to sit down and take out the Word of God. You must see this as God sees it, as an act of rebellion against your authority over her (and her body), and by extension as an act of rebellion against God himself, because he has given her to you. You need to rebuke your wife’s sinful behavior.

This is all straight from God, you see. God is Super-Big-Man, and men are smaller versions of that, and women are not-God and not-men, thus inferior and subordinate, by eternal sacred law. God and men are on one team, and women are on the opposite team. God gave authority to men, because they’re men like God and God is a (super-big) man like men. They are men-buddies. They both do being a man. Women are on the wrong team, that’s all.

Take her to I Corinthians and read the Word of God to her: “Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.

Bolding his. The part in bold is the part that counts. The other part is safe to ignore.

As the head of your home, and the authority of not only your children, but also your wife, you will be called from time to time to confront a sinful attitude or behavior in your wife, just as Job confronted his wife’s sinful behavior.

“You” of course are a man. Women can’t read. Or, if they can, in Godly Homes they’re not allowed access to the internet. Cows can’t internet – their hooves are too big for the keyboard.

But should you still have relations with your wife after such a confrontation? I believe the answer is yes, if she yields to you (even with the wrong attitude). When I first had to confront my wife with these types of issues, I would confront her, and then just leave the sex to happen another night, because after all, I like most men don’t prefer to have sex with my wife when she acts grumpy about it. But I realized that the sex still needs to occur, that sex is not about being in the mood, and it is not about feelings, it is about doing what is right. I agree whole heartedly that the best sex a Christian couple can have is when they are spiritually, emotionally and physically connected all at once. But the truth is there will be many times when we don’t have all that in place, but we must still have sex. God wants us to do the right thing, even when we don’t feel like it.

Dang, I didn’t know God was such a perv.