Posted: Oct 12, 2013 7:09 am
I agree we can't really blame Aquinas personally, because as suggested he was a product of his time and culture. Bad as masturbation was seen to be, I wouldn't be surprised if it was even worse to people like him to use the word 'God' as a swear word. These guys were, ostensibly, putting 'don't offend god' at the apex of the naughty pyramid, because they reeely reeely believed this was the most worst thing one could do.
Underneath all this superstitious claptrap, of course, as has been said, may have been the imperative to procreate (one can imagine how vital this was to cults in those days, especially fledgling ones), in which case rape could be viewed comparitively more sympathetically, since it is still procreative. I doubt a man could rape his wife in those days in any case. It wasn't even legally possible in some states of the USA until about 15 years ago, as I understand it.
So, for Aquinas, 'rape' may have had more to do with breaking that other pragmatic imperative 'don't spread nasty, group-endangering diseases' by having sex with more than one person, than with what we might now see as an issue to do with forcing sex.
I have always found the Samaritans interesting, because they seem to have developed a dud 'procreate imperative' whereby marriage has to be with another Samaritan, and also, as I understand it, you can't convert to Samaritanism, and the upshot is that they are gradually extinguishing themselves.
Underneath all this superstitious claptrap, of course, as has been said, may have been the imperative to procreate (one can imagine how vital this was to cults in those days, especially fledgling ones), in which case rape could be viewed comparitively more sympathetically, since it is still procreative. I doubt a man could rape his wife in those days in any case. It wasn't even legally possible in some states of the USA until about 15 years ago, as I understand it.
So, for Aquinas, 'rape' may have had more to do with breaking that other pragmatic imperative 'don't spread nasty, group-endangering diseases' by having sex with more than one person, than with what we might now see as an issue to do with forcing sex.
I have always found the Samaritans interesting, because they seem to have developed a dud 'procreate imperative' whereby marriage has to be with another Samaritan, and also, as I understand it, you can't convert to Samaritanism, and the upshot is that they are gradually extinguishing themselves.