Alison

Gengwall–

My first response to that is unprintable. (At least in polite society, anyway).

I will give you this: your proposition is very interesting. By appealing to physiological reality, you’re setting up an incredibly difficult question to answer. There’s a part of me that’s thinking, Holy biology, Batman, I can’t believe he went there! Honestly, that’s an argument that would never have occurred to me in a million years.

As for my thoughts on it, I happen to believe that it’s not true. Even though it is physiologically true that a man’s sex drive is stronger than a woman’s, I don’t believe that that can be used to reinforce a hierarchical structure in the marriage. Otherwise, what does one do with Paul’s argument in Ephesians 5 that the husband is to serve the wife sacrificially, as Christ served the Church? In other words, show me the evidence. You’ve bit on an intriguing morsel; I’d love to know if there’s more to it than a simple (arguably facile) appeal to biology as a reinforcement of male dominance.