Can one spouse deprive the other of sexual intercourse?

The apostle Paul says, “Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her and likewise also the wife to her husband … Do not deprive one another except with consent for

1747 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to Polycarp 5 (ANF 1:95).

1748 St. Ambrose of Milan, Letters 35(19) To Vigilius 23.7 (FOTC 26:XX).

1749 Carl A. Volz, Faith and Practice in the Early Church: Foundations for Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1983): p. 187.

1750 Tertullian, To My Wife (Ad Uxorem) 2.8 (ANF 4:48) amended.

1751

St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 19.4 (NPNF I/12:107).

a time, so that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again so that Satan does not tempt because of your lack of self-control” (1 Cor. 7:3–5).

St. Augustine says, “It is not arduous and difficult for faithful married persons to do for a few days what holy widows have undertaken from a certain period to the end of their lives and what holy virgins do through- out their entire lives. And so, in all these classes, let devotion be enkindled, let self-elation be checked.”¹⁷⁵²

Origen says, “What this means is that [prayer] ‘as we ought’ is thwarted unless the mysteries of marriage, which are to be honored with silence, are performed with holiness, deliberately, and without passion.”¹⁷⁵³ He also says “God allows us to marry, for not every person is capable of keeping the exalted state fitting of absolute chastity.”¹⁷⁵⁴ “You are abstaining from your wife whom you are associated with. You think that you are not offending her, and you can live in greater chastity and purity. Look how your miserable wife has broken up as a result of your behavior. She is incapable of standing your chastity! You have to intimately know her, not for your sake but for hers!”¹⁷⁵⁵

St. John Chrysostom says, “But I am not ashamed to speak thus, since not even Paul was ashamed to say, ‘Do not deprive one another’ (1 Cor. 7:5), which seems more shameful than what I have said; yet he was not ashamed. For he did not pay heed to words, but to the acts that were set right by words.”¹⁷⁵⁶ “Why so? Because great evils spring from this sort of continence. For adulteries and fornications and the ruin of families have often arisen from hence. For if when men have their own wives they commit fornication, much more if you deprive them of this consolation … It is possible then to live with a wife and yet give heed unto prayer. But by continence prayer is made more perfect. For he did not say merely, ‘To pray,’ but said: ‘So that you may be able to pray,’ as though what he speaks of might cause not uncleanness but much occupation … Do you see the strong sense of Paul how he both signifies that chastity is better, and yet puts no force on the person who cannot attain to it; fearing lest some offense arise?”¹⁷⁵⁷