sprint,
Quote:Abu - you'll probably also be amazed when you are not banned for disagreeing
Does this mean I said something that warranted being banned? But out of your infinite graciousness, I am to be spared? Thank you oh so much
Quote:"But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. (1 corinthians 7: 2-4)
Ok, since you're so intent on quoting these verses, I'm going to assume you've read them quite thoroughly, and perhaps even checked their actual meanings in the original Greek? As we know only too well that the English translation is often very biased towards the time period in which it was done.
Now in this verse, the word translated as "his own" and "her own" is actually two different words in Greek, and neither of them carry the meaning of "exclusive ownership". They are simply possessive pronouns "his" her" theirs" etc. So the possessive pronoun in English should be quite sufficient to represent them. As when you couple the English possessive pronoun with the word "own" it's an attempt to strengthen that possession, which just isn't in the original Greek text.
Just to give you a few examples:
"For ye have the poor always with
you; but me ye have not always." (Matthew 26:11)
The world "you" here is the same as the word "his own" in the verse you quoted (Greek: ἑαυτοῦ). Do you think this really means "For ye have the poor always with you and only you"? I've cross referenced quite a lot of verses with the exact same Greek word in them, and I couldn't find a single case of it carrying a meaning of exclusive ownership.
"And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into
his own city." (Matthew 9:1)
Now in this case, the other word is used (Greek: ἴδιος). Do you think the city is possessed by just one man (in this case Jesus I think)?? Does this word indicate exclusive ownership? I don't think so.
So I don't think those verses are as clear cut as you might like to think. They do not specifically mention exclusive ownership of one spouse over the other. They simply mention that each man should possess a wife (without specifying quantity) in order to prevent lewd sexual behaviour, and this was in response to someone asking whether men should remain celibate.