Why is it so wrong on Friday Night but it is all right on Saturday Night?

Why is it so wrong on Friday Night but it is all right on Saturday Night?

If you're in love, why wait?

Is it not just a spoil-sport church made rule?...

Is marriage just a permit to make love?

Is getting married like passing your driver's licence?

Does that not over-value sex and its place in marriage?

I've been asked those questions, among others, umpteen times in my interaction with young people, and though I have many answers to them, I've often not been able to articulate them on the spot to the satisfaction of each particular questioner. I also know many a religious educator, parent and youth minister who feel at a loss before such interrogations.

I might try a neat, short and sweet answer, like:

"Before marriage, saying 'Yes' to love means saying 'No' to sex!", but young people are not satisfied with that, and promptly probe further: "Why?" 

I might attempt a parallel from nature and say:"...because even the birds don't mate until they have their nest ready!" But they know too much, and are able to quote several exceptions to this, which discredits my answer completely.

So I try another analogy and say:"...for the same reason as you don't attach the caravan to the front of the car.

Sadly, attempting to argue from scriptural texts or the teaching of Christianity down through the ages is a definite switch-off: I've lost them!

Then one of my interrogators brings the topic back into focus and arouses everybody's interest again: "But why are we not allowed even one test drive just in case... I mean, it's better to find out before the deal, or you could get fooled. Even second-hand car dealers allow you that! I never buy a pair of shoes without trying them on!"

Obviously he's well read about incompatibility and all that, and it's got him worried, or is he only pretending? Sadly he also believes that sexual compatibility is what makes or breaks a marriage, and has not understood all I've already tried to explain in the previous half-hour, about what sex means! - that in body language two people say to each other: "I love you totally, faithfully, exclusively and for ever. From now on in my life I'm gonna put you first..."

Sex means the same as what wedding vows proclaim! So if you are simply having "a test drive", then you are telling a big lie; really deceiving each other, and treating each other as consumer items rather than persons. And does such an attitude not lead us to search for a new partner within a few years, if not a few months, as with a new car or pair of shoes!

Then I snap out of my exasperation at trying to make myself understood, and try a bit of humour, reassuring my cross-examiners with the cliché that incompatibility can add spice to a relationship, especially if he has the income and she is ‘pattable’. But I need to get serious again and I say:

"You know, the fact is that for those who are truly in love, compatibility comes easy. It's only when people are not able to love, because they are too immature or selfish, that incompatibility arises and becomes a problem!"

"How do you know? You're not married!" she retorts. "From speaking with my many married friends!" I answer. I still have not succeeded in convincing them.

We get back to the basic question and I try a bit of reasoning: "...because sex is about commitment. It's like making a very serious promise. And so, unless you've made that promise before witnesses, so that you can't easily break that promise, then you shouldn't make it privately through sex, because private promises are too easily broken.

"O.K. that makes some sense. But still, why is it that if you are officially engaged, and going to be married, and therefore committed, so that other people do know about that commitment, why is it still wrong then? Another smart participant enthusiastically simplifies the question for the benefit of those who are beginning to lose interest.

"Yeah, why is it so wrong on the Friday night but it's all right on the Saturday night?"

With that he brings us to the ultimate question about premarital sex. Other questions about sleeping around, casual encounters, gang rapes, incest,... are much more easily dispatched than this one!

And it is a question asked not only by teenagers, but by engaged couples too. Even mature engaged couples who consider themselves serious Christians, often cannot answer this one and are troubled by it. As a result, they easily capitulate in the face of their doubts, and the pressure and example of their peers. With modern independence providing so many opportunities, those not indulging in premature sex are outstanding exceptions, fired by a remarkable conviction! It is not easy to cross the desert before reaching the promised land when the world is telling you, “skip it”, you don't really need to suffer the desert at all!

Still, from experience in my ministry with engaged couples, even that majority who have by-passed certain stages of their courtship and precociously entered into sexual intimacy, are still perturbed by a certain uneasiness which creeps into their unmarried relationship, as they grapple with the premature accountability and possessiveness that sex has introduced into their friendship. They suffer regrets and qualms of conscience, the cause of which they can't explain, because after all, they do not agree with the teachings of the scriptures or the church regarding this matter. Nevertheless, they cannot help experiencing a sort of involuntary alienation from the Christian community as a result of it. Many try to deny those feelings of guilt and attempt to justify themselves, but I've yet to meet a Christian couple that really feel totally at ease with their unmarried sexual relationship. What is the reason for that? I think the answer to that question brings me to the essence of my reply to the title-question.

Sex before marriage is not wrong because it's so bad, but because it is so good, so important. Sex means so much. Before the marriage vows, that meaning cannot be unambiguously communicated. You see, sex in body language terms means: "I am giving you all that I am, all that I have to give, and through this act, we declare that we belong to each other forever. Through this exchange, we are making an irrevocable covenant of exclusive commitment to each other for life. From now onwards, our love for each other is unconditional." And this is particularly true of the moment of the first act of sexual intercourse between two people in love. Through it, their pledge of fidelity and everlasting love is consumed and made definitive. That is not a nice Judeo-Christian interpretation super-imposed onto sex. That is what it intrinsically means, like other bodily actions also have in-built significance, from the smile to the frown and from the handshake to the menacing fist.

And so, to promise everything with my body, when I have not confirmed this through marriage, a public commitment endorsed by family and friends, is not being true to myself or to my beloved. It is a lie spoken in physical terms. What it does is devalue sex to a pleasure gadget, or the mere mating of bodies, and not the communion of spirits in love, which human sex must be, in the same way that the misuse of the gift of speech devalues the communicating of truth... And if a couple does mutually decide that for them sex is going to mean just: "Let's have a bit of fun together and nothing more", then that is probably all they'll be saying when they exchange their vows. They thereby devalue both sex and marriage.

Furthermore, at that sacred moment when a couple pronounce their vows, they need to do so in perfect freedom. So freely that they should still feel free to call it off. But if they have engaged in premarital sex, then they are not really free. In a way they are already married, albeit in a very private manner.

Again, from my own experience of weddings at which I have officiated, there is something extra special present at the marriage of those couples who have not slept or lived together previously. That specialness stems precisely from that sense of freedom the couple still possess. Other nuptial ceremonies feel like little more than convalidations, the rubber stamping of already existing marriages which have lost their original romantic sparkle.

Thus I really believe that the level of intimacy and the level of commitment must match each other in courtship, and that until ones commitment is absolute, (and it is only made so by the public vows of matrimony), then neither should ones intimacy be total. In other words, and to summarise, until you are ready for all that marriage entails, then you are not ready for all that sex means, and you certainly cannot adequately express it in sexual intercourse.

To conclude: The essence of preparation for marriage is premarital love! There is hardly a poorer preparation for marriage than premarital sex; not because of what it is in itself, so much as what it says about the relationship. Those who cannot wait for sex are unable to wait for anything else they momentarily feel the need of. In a loving relationship patience is an essential component. Communication is impossible with an impatient person, and marriage we know is impossible without communication. ‘Premature’ sex will usually indicate an attempt to compensate for inadequate usage of other means of communication leading to an immature commitment which will definitely not be a good foundation for a lifelong covenant of love.

Fr Francois Dufour sdb