Thursday, October 19, 2023

Another Man's Wife

Fools who choose not to look past language to pure logical necessity and the concepts behind language hinder themselves, though they might think they are intelligent.  If men and women are equal as Genesis 1:26-27 teaches, and if a married woman having sex with a man outside her marriage is sinful when men can do the same thing in the inverse, it could only follow that if the gender equality of Genesis 1 really is true, then the obligations for adultery and general sexual ethics are the exact same for men and women.  The phrase "Do not have sex with another man's wife" or the variations of this phrasing in Biblical verses like Leviticus 18:20 are nonetheless taken by some to mean that the Bible really does mean this in a sexist way.

If this is intended to say what some claim in their idiocy, then men are able to have multiple wives, as is plain from Mosaic Law (Exodus 21:9-11, Deuteronomy 21:15-17) but women are not (the later part is the error).  A second husband who has sex with his wife would be having sex with another man's wife, and according to such an idea, this makes sex within polyandrous marriage adultery, as if it logically follows from this phrasing that it would not be speaking of a man having sex with a woman whom he is not married to and whom is also married to another man, and as if the same would not be true by necessity for women going the other direction.  Some even think that this phrasing entails that married men can have sex with women outside their marriage as long as they are not another man's wife!

However, the purely logical ramifications of the language here actually refute this sexist interpretation, which someone who holds to it might think is either morally good or bad.  If the phrase "another man's wife" or "your neighbor's wife" did mean that polyamorous marriage is permissible for men but not for women, which Genesis 1:26-27 and Deuteronomy 4:2 already contradict, then married women would of course not be allowed to have sex under any circumstances with any man besides their sole husband.  They would be supposedly to have only one husband at a time.  It would be true, if this was the case, that a woman should not have sex with another woman's husband, since any other woman's husband would by necessity be within the category of men besides her sole husband.

Linguistically, thus, the phrase "Do not have sex with another woman's husband" would be equally true of women's moral obligations when married.  According to the aforementioned heretical and irrationalistic interpretation of verses like Deuteronomy 22:22, then the phrases "A man should not have sex with another man's wife" and "A woman should not have sex with another woman's husband" would be true simultaneously.  Then the stupidity of looking to language rather than reason and concepts should become obvious: the phrases are identical except for the inversion of the gendered words, and yet someone would have to hold that the first means one thing and the second means something that is not logically equivalent in order to adhere to the sexist interpretation of the former phrase!  According to their own misconception, it would then have to be the case that men should not have multiple wives simultaneously, for the wives would be having sex with another man's wife!  Since polygamy is Biblically nonsinful on its own, the same would have to be true of polyandry if men and women bear God's image.

Identical wording in an identical context would mean that if someone is rational, they would mean the same things by the same wording.  Yet, to be consistent with the sexist misconception about adultery being just men having sex with separately married women, someone would have to believe that the concept articulated by the phrase when it is altered for women and other women's husbands is also correct while meaning different things by the same syntax.  Though they think the wording regarding one has a different meaning, the concepts would be articulated the same way, so not only could one not tell from the language itself that the sexist interpretation is what is meant even if this was the case, but the blatant equivalence of the inverted phrase shows that this is invalid anyway.  The concept they assume the first phrase to mean would mandate that the second phrase is also true, but the interchangeability of the language in each case shows that the language cannot actually support their notion of a gender-specific obligation.

Separate from the logical falsity of sexist moral obligations independent of whether the Bible is true--something good or evil that can be done by both men and women is good or evil for both of them--and separate from the other reasons the Bible teaches 1) that women can of course have multiple husbands and 2) that men can of course commit adultery against their wives [1], this issue with the wording when the genders are switched shows that there is nothing about the words themselves that would require the sexist meaning.  Anyone who believes otherwise fails to grasp reason and Biblical morality because they are too goddamn stupid to acknowledge what does and does not follow logically in itself apart from the construct of language, how the Bible plainly  permits polyandry and condemns extramarital sex of married men according to the real teachings of the Torah, and how language does not mean or have to mean what they have simply assumed.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.


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