To what extent do couples have control over their lives?

“Do not deprive each other, except by mutual consent and for a time, so you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you through your lack of self-control,” 1 Corinthians 7:5.

Matters of the heart lead us to various physical, emotional and physiological destinations. They have led many into the arms of different men and women, some of them psychopaths, angels or a mixture of personalities. Love is a gamble because we do not always get what we bargain for. But I digress a little.

The issue here is that in as much as the Bible says couples should not deprive each other of sex, does it entail a loss of one’s individuality?

I refer to the recent incident in Nkhotakota about a man who hit his wife with a brick for her refusal to have sex at the time he wanted to. The couple returned from church and the wife opted to cook first, but the man’s interest was elsewhere. And because they failed to compromise, he took offence and harmed her. Nkhotakota First Grade Magistrate’s Court fined the husband K100 000.

Some have been advancing biblical verses to blame the woman for her lack of submission. Many, especially men, condone the husband’s actions, quoting more verses such as Genesis 2:24: “For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”

1 Corinthians 7 :2-4 seems to pump up men further: “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.”

It is the last part which many believe gives men unconditional rights to women, including chopping off her arm when ‘disrespected’.

Becoming one does not mean a replica of each other. It simply means partnerships such as planning and doing things together as a family. Remember, the man or woman were raised differently and under different circumstances and conditions. These cannot be infused to make one entity. That is why differences in opinion arise during decision making because we are all unique, united by mutual respect. He belongs to her and her to him by dedicating lives to each other outside third parties. People cannot be owned because we are not objects. We simply acknowledge and agree to commitment. If one party cannot have sex at a particular time and place, respect that and compromise. Osati mpakana zikwanje chifukwa cha chikondi chomwechi.