Let’s talk about sex with a condom in marriage
The markets, radios and newspapers are all full of condom advertisements. Additionally, many shops now have moved the condom packets to the front shelves where customers can quickly see them and probably buy. This week the Prophet from Galilee and all of us through our comments wish to answer the million dollar question; is it right to use a condom during sex in marriage?
In order to state whether it is right to use a condom during sex in marriage, we must first answer three basic questions. Firstly, why did God create human beings who can do sex? Secondly what is the use of sex according to the plan of God? Thirdly which person qualifies to do sex?
I will answer the last question first. The one who qualifies to do sex is only a person who is married. That is why any sex done by someone not married is a sin. If it is sinful to do sex outside marriage, then the question of whether it is right to use a condom for those who are not married does not arise. It would be like standing up in Church and asking the Pastor, Sheikh or Priest, is it right to use a condom in order to use it in sinning in sex outside marriage? I am sure a wise Pastor, Sheikh or Priest will not tell such a person what to use in order to sin. This is so because the Church is a place that tells people not to sin. The Church is not a place where you learn what to use in sinning.
However with regard to marriage, it is good to ask if it is right to use a condom because, sex in marriage is not a sin. According to the plan of God, He wanted human beings to have sex for two reasons. Firstly, so that husband and wife can become one body and one flesh (uniting function). God made sex to be more than just the joining of two bodies for procreation. He made it so that when we join another person in sexual union, a spiritual union of sorts takes place at the same time.
Secondly the use of sex according to the plan of God is to give birth to children hence continuance of the human race.(Genesis 1:28) If the aim of marriage and sex in marriage is for the uniting of husband and wife, and also to give birth to children, then we may ask the question, does the use of condoms in marriage prevent or block the original plan of God for sex in marriage, namely do condoms prevent husband and wife to become one flesh and one body? Or does the use of condoms block families to give birth to children? We will now answer these two questions which will lead us to determine if it is right to use condoms in marriage.
Firstly, as already stated, God expected sex to take place only in the boundaries of marriage. Sex in marriage is a process in which a husband gives himself totally to his wife and the wife as well gives herself totally to her husband. Through sex a husband becomes totally one with his wife. The wife through sex with her husband becomes also totally one body and one flesh with her husband. This is what God wanted to see happening in marriage. ‘A man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two will become one body and one flesh.’ Genesis 2:24.
Seen in this way, a condom works against the natural purpose of marriage by artificially blocking the union of husband and wife as one body and one flesh. Condom as contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as “natural law.” The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children.
But sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately excludes the basic purpose of sex, which is procreation. God’s gift of the sex act, along with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating its natural end—procreation.
Secondly, all human actions like sex have a particular purpose as given by God. Any sexual act therefore must respect the purpose of sex as willed by God. The aim of sex in the plan of God is not just for pleasure. If done just for pleasure, sex can lead to abuses like prostitution, homosexuality, bestiality, sodomy and all such abuses of sex which reduce human beings to objects of sexual pleasure. It is wrong to do sex while not respecting its God given natural purpose of giving birth. Use of a condom therefore prevents and artificially blocks the reproduction of human beings and the continuation of the human race according to the original plan of God the creator. Have you ever thought about the simple fact that without giving birth to children the human race would by now be finished? God in his plan wanted husband and wife whom He had created to continue giving birth to new human beings so that the human race should continue to exist. That is why God told Adam and Eve to reproduce and fill the earth.
There are also those who say that they use a condom in order to practice family planning (kulela). While doing family planning may not be wrong but the use of condoms may not be morally right as it interferes with the natural process of sexual union between a man and his wife. In order to practice family planning, husband and wife must practice the natural method of family planning whereby the husband and wife abstain from sex during fertile periods when the wife can conceive and become pregnant.
Finally, the prophet wishes to state that the only point where a family can consider using condoms is when a husband is HIV positive and the wife is HIV negative or when a wife is HIV positive and the husband is HIV negative. How such situations happen is for medical doctors to explain but in this case, husband and wife, if they fail to completely abstain from sex because one of them is positive then they may use a condom during sex in marriage if they decide to do so.
Is it right then to use condoms in marriage? No condom! if you wish to use for family planning. No sex! If you are not married. Yes condom! If you are married and one marriage partner is HIV positive and the other one is HIV negative. Hard teaching! Is it?
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