premarital

• Human love does not tolerate 'trial marriages'. It demands a total and definitive gift of persons to one another

  Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Husband and wife become in a way one heart and soil and together they attain their human fulfillment

  Pope Paul VI
• That is why when a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, they become one flesh

  Genesis 2:24
• The wisest and most practical way forward therefore may be for Christians both to hold fast to the centrality of marriage and at the same time to accept that cohabitation is (for many people) a step along the way towards that fuller and more complete commitment.

  General Synod Board for Social Responsibility
• If they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry that to burn with passion

  1 Corinthians 7:8
• In the 1960s, how many couples cohabited?

  1 in 20
• What is the percentage now that coninhabit?

  over 70%
• In the Victorian period, how many brides were already pregnant?

  up to 50%
• Christianity and Pre-Marital sex:

  • sex was only allowed within heterosexual marriage as it was seen as blessed by God.
  • Christians believed that both pre/extra martial sex was wrong as it was a 'free union' and or a rejection of sexual intimacy/commitment
  • an offence against marriage in the Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Thou shall not commit adultery

  often interpreted as both pre and marital sex
• Sex and the Early Church:

  • Jesus is expected to return to Earth at any time
  • spiritual matters with a strong emphasis on celibacy - focus on faith an a belief in God
  • St. Augustine believed that sex was sin for anything other than reproduction
  • Aquinas however saw it more positively as something to be enjoyed by also still saw its purpose (TELOS) as reproduction
• Go fourth and multiply

  Genesis 1:28
• Augustine as a basis of Christian Sexual Ethics:

  • body is temporary in the evil world, soul is what counted
  • intense dislike of the body and saw humas as being especially vulnerable to the temptations of sex
  • he himself had many sexual relations - sex should be in marriage
  • Devil uses women to lure men away from good - pleasure leads men away from reason
  • THE FALL - emphasis on desire and seeking pleasure as going against God
• Chastity is ideal but sex is okay within marriage

  ST. Paul
•  Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

  1 Corinthians 7:8 - New International Version
• Roman Catholic: 3 purposes for marriage

  1. Fides (Faithfulness)
  2. Proles (reproduction)
  3. Sacramentum (two becoming one flesh)
• Christianity and Marriage:

  • all Christians prefer sexual relationships to take place within a marriage as it provides a stable environment to bring up children
  • BUT - Church of England (1995) proposed to accept that cohabitation was a step towards marriage - rejected by the Synod
• Cohabitation is believed as wrong by many Christians as it can lead to pre marital sex