A Brief History of Sexual Norms: How Christianity Changed Sexual Morals
Rather than oppressing people, Christianity created boundaries to keep the powerful from using sex to oppress others.
In the ancient world, sex was commonly used for two things: procreation for the production of heirs and the pleasure of powerful men. These two things were strictly divorced from each other. Yes, a man might have pleasure with his wife while trying to procreate, but he was far from restricted in this manner. The men would more commonly seek out their pleasure with other women and adolescent boys, with some using grown men under their power and some even using animals. While the occasional powerful woman managed to procure sexual partners for her pleasure, that was rare.
We do find, according to the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament, that while this approach was condemned by God and the Israelites didn’t indulge in as wild of sexual pleasures, polygamy was practiced by the powerful. Examples include Jacob (Gen 29) and King David who married Michal (1 Sam 18), Abigail, and Ahinoam (1 Sam 25), and Bathsheba (2 Sam 11) as well as other wives and concubines (2 Sam 5). Of course, the greatest offender was Solomon who had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3)! Rather than praise this practice, the Old Testament warned that kings should not acquire many wives (Deut 17:17). Likewise, while the Old Testament does report that there were powerful Israelite men who took multiple wives, every example of this is shown to cause problems.
Into this world where women were treated as chattel by the pagans, and all too often by the Israelites as well, entered the person of Jesus of Nazareth. His treatment of women was different as highlighted by his willingness to talk to even a Samaritan woman as an intelligent person whom He cared about (John 4). However, He did more than just that; He clarified and even sharpened the sexual ethics called for in the Old Testament.
In Matt 19:3-9 Jesus was asked to weigh in on a running debate in Jewish circles regarding divorce. The great rabbi, Hillel, and those that followed him, held that a man could divorce his wife for any indecency, even that of spoiling his dinner. The even more liberal Akiba held that a man could even divorce his wife if he found someone prettier. On the other side of the debate rabbi Shammai and his followers held that a man could only divorce his wife if she committed adultery.[1] Jesus then agrees with the strict interpretation of Shammai: “I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” (Matt 19:9). Jesus even takes it a step further, teaching in the Sermon on the mount that “everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matt 5:32). Not only that, but Jesus also explained that the 6th Commandment’s forbidding of adultery includes not only the physical act but even lust in the heart (Matt 5:27-28).
Following Jesus and the New Testament writings of Paul, the early Christian church lived by a different set of moral ethics from the rest of the ancient world. The biggest single change was the dignifying of marriage.[2] For Christians, marriage was upheld as not only a means of producing heirs, but also as a beautiful thing that is to be a representation of Christ’s love for the Church (Eph 5:22-32). While many today criticize Eph 5:22-24, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands”[3] (which is essentially repeated in Col 3:18), it is often missed that this is actually a call to not be resentful as was common of the women in the ancient world who were treated as chattel. But the more significant demand by Paul was made on the husbands:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so 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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Eph 5:25-28, with idea repeated in Col 3:19)
Here Paul grounds the Christian idea of marriage in mutual love and service. Applying this, Christian marriages were focused more on loving and caring for each other as opposed to how ancient husbands merely used their wives.
Likewise, Christianity brought in a renewed understanding of the importance of finding one’s sexual fulfillment with one’s spouse alone. This was negatively enforced with numerous condemnations of sexual immorality (Rom 13:13, 1 Cor 5-6, 2 Cor 12:21, etc.), as well as the Old Testament condemnations of adultery. However, it was also positively reinforced with Paul urging in 1 Cor 7 that husbands and wives should not withhold conjugal rights from each other but enjoy each other. In fact, the Bible talks about sex more often in terms of forming the relationship between the spouses than procreation.[4]
Some, however, went a step further and held that marriage and sexuality are inherently tainted with sin; therefore, if one wants to be a truly good Christian, one should abstain completely from sexual intercourse. Various types of asceticism, including celibacy, has been practiced throughout history by different religious leaders. Within the larger Jewish tradition, it was not unusual for individuals to take temporary vows of celibacy. In fact, the Old Testament ceremonial laws declared that sexual activity made the couple ceremonially unclean for the rest of the day (Lev 15:16-18), and so temporary abstention was at times required for times of particular holiness like making sacrifices in the temple. Josephus reports that some of the Essenes practiced celibacy as well.[5] Out of this history, the practice of monasticism and its concurrent celibacy arose in the early church, particularly after the legalization and subsequent popularization of Christianity in 313. The practice of monastic celibacy slowly grew in popularity after the great St. Athanasius wrote The Life of Anthony around 360.
As Christianity grew in popularity, the practice of monasticism and therefore celibacy grew as a means of showing greater devotion by some Christians. This even included some who were already married but then devoted themselves to celibacy while married.
It is well known that by the High Middle Ages the Roman Catholic church was requiring all clergy to take vows of celibacy, and taking Holy Orders was considered a holier life. Likewise, during this time, sexual relations within marriage were seen more and more as something that should only be done for procreation and that the parties should repent of any enjoyment of the act. This extreme stance led to a couple of odd corollaries. First, the sexual exploits of some of the clergy, including most infamously the Borgia popes, are well documented. Second, the Medieval world allowed prostitution to continue as a curious nod to the power of sexual desire and how individuals will seek pleasure in some way.
In response to both the extreme anti-sexual theological stance of some Medieval theologians and the tacit acceptance of the flouting of this, Martin Luther and the other Reformers worked to restore the proper dignity to marriage, including an appreciation that sexual relations between spouses is a good gift from God to be enjoyed. It was understood that the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 7 points out that enjoying sex within marriage is a God given protection from sexual temptation.
Throughout this, however, the Christian church worked to return sexual relations to the God ordained “one flesh” union. This meant that the various ancient practices that violated this, including homosexuality, pederasty, bestiality, and polygamy, were outlawed.
Today, thanks to the #MeToo movement amongst other voices, there has been a growing concern about how the powerful use sex to dominate others. What is too often missed is that this is exactly what Christianity fought against with its elevation of the Biblical view of marriage.
[1] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 479–80.
[2] Alvin J. Schmidt, Under the Influence: How Christianity Transformed Civilization (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 2001), 91.
[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).
[4] Gene Edward Veith, Post Christian : A Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 98.
[5] Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book 2, ch. 8.