How in the world could there have been a time when it was legal for man to rape his wife?

The Bible is full of instances of rape.
http://www.evilbible.com/evil-bible-home-page/rape-in-the-bible/

I think most people assumed that if you were married, there was no need for consent.

Sick @Rarebear

@SergeantQueen Depending on where you live, it’s still the case.

^^Yup..Very true. It’s the case in many parts of the world. @Dutches_III – That’s not history yet. It happens in 21st century too and it’s not considered as rape.

What’s logical to us, here, now, is not always logical to others (other places/other times), and vice versa.

Women used to not be able to have their own bank account…. We were chattel. and there are plenty of men who would love for it to return that way.

They didn’t/don’t call it “rape”, they call it “submitting” to your husbands will. Gah!

Rape victims can be put in prison in Afghanistan.
In Somalia, woman have been put in jail for merely reporting a rape, even if they are not the victim.
And don’t even talk to me about fucking Saudi Arabia.

Not saying that conventions about rape within marriage have always been good in the West. But at least in our little corner of the world, movement is going in an acceptable direction.
Other places are, in my opinion, beyond hopeless.

I agree with @Coloma . Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

It seems that many choose to ignore number 28. If they truly loved their wives they would wish for her to want to submit of her own accord. No man would want to be forced to have sex, unless they are kinky and lustful all the time. (Lust is a big no, no. In marriage or otherwise.) Point is if the woman is forced she is having sex, not making love. The joining of man and woman is suppose to be a communion of love. If a partner is being forced than love has nothing to do with it. Number 28 of Ephesians makes it clearer.
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. (As I take to mean- respect your wife’s body)
People take from the bible what they wish to use for themselves. Often ignoring the meaning in whole passages.

The further I get away from Christianity the more appalled by the religion I become.

@Dutchess_III I do not believe faith itself is the problem. The problem lies with the many interpretations and cherry picking of verses. It’s like the Constitution. It seems the more clear they try to be the more confusing it becomes.
Lets take the sins of the father shall fall upon the son. Or something like that. Well, growing up I always imagined that it meant the child will be punished for his fathers sins. Now I believe that it means if you live your life in hate, jealousy, and or anger, that this will be passed along to your child. They will grow in the same hate and anger. You see it among KKK followers. A child can’t grow in that kind of darkness and come out better than their parent. It wasn’t a condemnation, it was a warning about what we manifest in others, especially in our children. A parent can pass along their sins. Doesn’t meant that the parent won’t be judged for his own sins.

I believe if every person of every religion just followed these few simple rules that most faiths have or should have, then the world would be a much better place.

Love yourself.
Treat others with the respect and kindness you would want. That means everyone.
Don’t hate people because they are different.

In a nut shell the new testament is about loving each other and remembering we are all Gods children. Meaning, no one person is above another in God eyes. We are all his children. So whatever we do to each other hurts the God. The same way, it would hurt me if one of my children hurt the other.

But why do you have to have a religion to follow those same three simple rules? And why is it that so many religious people are the most intolerant and hateful? And they attribute that to their self righteous religion.
But you’re right. It’s not the faith. It’s the damn hypocrites. After you walk away from those, the rest becomes crystal clear.

@Dutchess_III The problem lies in that people who believe in God believe God created religion. Man made religion for man. So flawed twice. But I believe the original intent of religion was to pass along faith in God and believe that we have a father who loves us and to aid in combating the evil that exist in mankind. But as man always does. We corrupt every good intention. At least that is my belief. My father once said that Church isn’t meant for Saint but rather for the sinners, because all the Saints are in Heaven. Meaning, the hypocrites will continue to go to Church because they need religion the most. Problem is they often don’t really listen to what is being said or chose not to obey because being an actual kind loving person in a world of hate is way harder than it looks.

Mr. No More’s Neighborhood – can you say, “Attila”?

@Pandora that brings up an interesting side discussion. If the mods want to take this to Social, that’s fine with me. I didn’t mean to post it in General anyway.

So why was religion invented? I believe it was an invention in response to that gene mutation that tipped us into that crazy animal called “human.” That brain of ours started asking, “How could this happen?” “Why do we react the way we do?” And so “magic” was created.
What started as a musing idea turned into a weapon of control, as we’ve seen over and over again. Assuming Jesus existed, he came with a pure message. “Forget all the laws and rules and just love one another. The rest will follow naturally if you just do this one thing.”
Then the Romans corrupted that into “Do as your government tells you or risk hell fire.” Then they made up a whole bunch of new rules that benefited the government in general, and the males specifically.
Rape is “fun” for some men, so they made it acceptable, via the Bible, in direct conflict with the knowledge that it is a hideous, violent crime that would never be acceptable to inflict upon a male.

Man invented religion.

Yes. The question was “Why?”

As a Christian, I can only answer from my perspective. God always planned to have a relationship with us, the ones he made in his image. Religion is man’s answer to that plan. It’s a convenient way to sidestep dealing with a personal God one on one.

I am not interested in religion. I am interested in having a personal relationship with the one who made me.

But if there was no religion no one would ever even hear about God, or a god, or gods or Allah or whatever. So which came first?

It seems to me that you have one definition for religion and I have another. As long as that continues we will not get anywhere.

@Dutchess_III Isn’t it like asking which came first? The chicken or the egg? Or what actually in a Black hole, or if the world evolved and life came form some meteor carrying single celled living matter, how did it cross space and survive? Did it come from another planet with living organisms? Does that mean there should be possible humans or something like us on another planet? Is the universe infinite? How did the Universe ever come to be? If we are to believe the Universe has just always existed, then why would it be hard to believe in a God? Whether we crawled out from sludge or were whipped up in a day, it doesn’t matter. Because the biggest question, is when did life start and the Universe start? Where did matter originate from?

It’s exactly like that.

Life did not evolve from some random organism from space. It began when certain elements, many of which were from meteors in Earths early beginnings, were in certain conditions under which they combined into molecules, and eventually life. Those would be things like nucleic acids and ribonucleic acids and other lipids and proteins.

And I don’t believe the universe always existed. And matter is atoms and molecules,which is everything in the universe.

@Dutchess_III Then where did it all start? Nothing can’t make nothing. Molecules on the lowest level had to come from somewhere. I mean, if we are going to believe that all of these things just happened. Of course we would also ask, if God created it, or Gods, then where did they come from? But science and or religion will never be able to answer that.

I told you, nucleic acids and ribonuclear acids are the building blocks of DNA and RNA which is life. Look here. ”Each nucleotide is composed of one of four nitrogen-containing nucleobases — cytosine©, guanine (G), adenine (A), or thymine (T) — a sugar called deoxyribose, and a phosphate group. The nucleotides are joined to one another in a chain by covalent bonds between the sugar of one nucleotide and the phosphate of the next, resulting in an alternating sugar-phosphate backbone.”
Sugar, phosphate, nitrogen. Carbon. Naturally occurring chemicals and compounds.
It isn’t magic. It’s awesome, it’s wonderful, and it took billions of years to happen, but it isn’t magic.

Please understand, I’m not trying to “convert” you. I’m just answering your questions of how it could have happened naturally.

I’m going to holler at Rarebear. He has much bigger grasp of chemistry and physics than I do.

Nope. Not magic. The answer is actually much cooler and interesting than magic. The answer is physics.

On Facebook today some one mentioned that their uncle is a Deacon, and he believes that there is no reason to believe God didn’t take his time making the world, just because the Bible says 6 days and 7 nights.
Someone else posted, “Yeah, like God’s days are anything like ours!”
At that point I thought of something I hadn’t thought of before…why would God even use a measure like “day” and “night?” We only have days and nights because we live on a planet that rotates.

@Dutchess_III: My thoughts when I just read your comment about the Facebook post is that not every person that posts things is going to be logical. Whether they’re religious, not religious, whatever they are, doesn’t mean the person is going to make any sense. Maybe they’re crazy. Maybe they’re stupid. Maybe they have some other issues which make their thoughts very illogical. When I read crazy debates on FB or elsewhere,

Maybe their thoughts are taken from the BIble. If they’re going to take the Bible in a literal sense, they sure can try but it would be very hard in this day and age. Even people who do try, like the Amish, have exceptions and seem to find it hard to eke out a living without things like the internet and power tools.

I don’t try to think about why the person feels this way, I just move on. Life is too short.

This is how I see it. Rape inside the context of marriage was nonexistent a few hundred years ago (and in certain parts of the world still today). Sex was simply part of the equation in married life, and it happened, whether she liked it or not. In those days, rape happened outside of marriage.

I have met women from the Middle East who are still in that mindset today. “I have to do it.”

I just want to go home.

Poor @cazzie. Will they not let you out. :( Jail sucks.