Sorry Paul, My Body Belongs to No One

Content note: marital r*pe, coercion, assault

By Amber Schultz

“Ladies! Remember, when you get married — your body is now your husband’s to do with and honor as he will.”

“I am so thankful that the pastor sheltered and protected his daughter’s mind and purity. When we married, she didn’t know anything. I was able to then lead her and teach her as I needed to.” — A pastor’s son-in-law I know. 

How many of us who grew up enmeshed in purity culture heard something similar to this?

Men were told their bodies belonged to their wives and wives to their husbands, but this standard was strictly enforced on the women.

Following the teachings of Paul in the New Testament, we were taught that our purity (a.k.a virginity) was the most important thing for us to value. Examples like the crumpled flower, crumpled paper, and other object lessons were used to show us how quickly our value could be diminished if we “lost” our virginity.

We were completely sheltered — many of us not knowing what would happen once we were married. 

Innocent and pure is how they wanted us.

“So the husband can teach her what she needs to know,” is what they said. But we knew that once we said our vows, we belonged to our husband. 

Women would whisper in dark corners, sharing secrets of unhappy sex lives. Some would whisper about coercion and rape, of course not naming what that was because they were doing their “marital duty.”

We were taught that if we did not give our husbands sex when they wanted or demanded it, then we were the ones hindering their spiritual lives and sinning. So once the vows were repeated and the rings exchanged, our worlds as wives suddenly transformed.  

We became the property of another man. Our headship passed from our father to the waiting hands of the man who would take our bodies as they pleased. 

Some of us were treated with kindness, others were not. 

As I started deconstructing my faith, I began questioning the religious teachings of the Pauline books of the Bible. So many things were misinterpreted, or translated to support a political agenda of the time. When I realized that I was created as a human and equal to my husband, everything changed. 

I began questioning everything about purity culture. I came to the conclusion that purity culture and Christian patriarchy was based in control and politics.

Since the beginning of time, cultures placed a high value on virgins, and some cultures still do even now. One man needed sons to carry on the family line, another man needed sheep. Let’s trade the daughter for the sheep, but make sure no one else has laid claim to her, because she belongs to whomever makes the trade for her. Or else she was considered tainted goods.

This political idea made its way into early Christianity, where there was a spiritual aspect added to it. Not only was a girl a good commodity for trade, but if she is tainted, she also loses her soul unless she repents. Even then, she would have been cast aside. 

Realizing that our body’s value was rooted in political gain and control, I stepped away from purity culture completely. 

My body belongs to no one but me. 

When you say one person belongs to another, you immediately put in a power imbalance. This power imbalance in the wrong hands can and usually does become abusive to some degree. The one holding the power can use coercion, force, spiritual guilt and manipulation, to get what they want with little to no resistance and still believe they are not doing anything wrong. 

So when I think back to all the “doctrine” spewed out from all the pastors and youth pastors I sat under, I get angry.

I am angry for what they robbed of us — like our self worth, our ability to trust our intuition, and our autonomy. I am angry for what women are trapped in now — marriages where many are abused by their husbands. 

Our bodies belong to no one but ourselves.  We have every right to say who can and cannot touch us. 

For women who are struggling with deconstructing from purity culture, you are not alone.

It is a long road reclaiming our sexuality and autonomy. For me, it has been ridden with guilt and shame. It is worth it though, coming to the other side and into your own.