*His wallet, you dirty fool.
Sigma Frame has an interesting article out: “How Much is Virginity Worth“. Jack has assembled a good bit of info on how much a woman goes for around the world. It therefore goes without saying that this is also a heart-wrenching read.
That said, it reminded me of something I’ve meant to post here.
Over the past year I’ve seen an uptick in the publication of “premarital sex isn’t outlawed in the New Testament” arguments. No, I will not link any here, because they are trash.
Most of these arguments center on the definition of the Greek “porneia” — which is commonly translated as “fornication” or “sexual immorality”. This line of argument isn’t new, and excellent answers have of course been issued.
I encountered yet another proponent recently on Facebook. The abridged argument ran thus:
Where is sex before marriage defined as “sexual immorality”? In looking through the verses, I see several examples of what sexual immorality is, but I don’t see premarital sex on that list.
…
[Premarital sex] isn’t specifically mentioned.
Adultery is defined as intercourse between a married person and someone who is not their spouse, so it doesn’t apply to sex before marriage.…
The Greek work pornos refers to a male prostitute. It comes from the Greek word perneni (to sell). So we can agree the selling sex falls under “sexual immorality”
Again, answers to this line of reasoning are plentiful. That said, allow me to add a few of my own to the literature — as originally posted in my response on Facebook.
A quick note on the quite natural conflation of “prostitution” (as defined as “one who receives money for sex”) with premarital sex, most notably in the case of women.
In the ancient world, and notably in the Judaic culture under consideration, you were pretty well sunk for having a husband to provide for you if you didn’t have a hymen at marriage. (See Deuteronomy 22 and Joseph’s reaction when he reasonably thought that pregnancy meant that Mary wasn’t a virgin.)
Therefore, since that first pre-marital sexual encounter ran a huge risk of the woman losing out on marriage (and the implied meal ticket) forever, she’d ostensibly see the need to be compensated handsomely for taking that risk. Once virginity is gone, it’s gone, and a girl has to eat (and now has no likely prospect of a husband to provide), so ongoing compensation for subsequent sexual encounters would be expected.
Thus, the woman who had premarital sex at that time would have necessarily been a de facto prostitute (exchanging sex for money) because of the prevailing conditions of the era. Hence, there would have been very little need for distinction, linguistically speaking, between someone who had pre-marital sex and someone who had sex for money.
As far as a woman’s survival was concerned, there BETTER BE compensation. If not in the guarantee of marriage, then in the guarantee of shekels.
So, nit-picking to say that using a word which most commonly refers to prostitution cannot have pre-marital sex in view is so completely anachronistic as to be laughable.
Back to Jack’s article at Sigma Frame, where we see that this phenomenon is still in effect today.
Modern loose women who throw away sexual favors with abandon bristle at being called “whores” because, dontchaknow, they do it for PLEASURE not MONEY. They fail to reflect on the fact that it is only their first-world material abundance that enables this sort of “casual sex” without consideration for compensation.
But, either way, premarital sex is still porneia.
The post Premarital Sex: not a sin if he keeps it in his pants? appeared first on The Chi Files.