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RELIGIOUS TRADITION
Our ethical heritage is often described as "Judeo-Christian". That is to say, our moral values are explained as typical of the Jewish and Christian religions and, to a certain extent, this explanation makes sense. However, the two religions themselves have been subject to various other ancient and modern influences of which we are not always aware. Indeed, directly or indirectly, our attitudes have also been shaped by Near-Eastern mythologies, Creek philosophies, Roman laws, and Germanic customs. Furthermore, even if we concentrate only on the "Christian" tradition, we find that it had different meanings at different times. Historical studies show, for example, that the Christian approach to sex has varied widely over the centuries, and that the meaning of these variations is by no means as obvious as we might think. To give only one illustration: Today we tend to equate piety with sexual modesty, yet Chaucer's England, with all its bawdry, was a much more religious country than the prudish England of Queen Victoria. Nevertheless, on the whole, one can say that Judeo-Christian sexual doctrines have, for a very long time, dominated our lives, and that many of these doctrines have been rather arbitrary and narrow. Most of the time, most Jews and Christians believed that the only justification of sex was the procreation of children.
In ancient Israel, all possible pressure was brought to bear on everyone to "be fruitful and multiply". Coitus between husband and wife was encouraged, but any other form of sexual expression was taboo. Even marital intercourse was considered sinful at the time of the wife's menstruation, i.e. when she was unlikely to conceive. Indeed, the "worst" non-reproductive sins, homosexual intercourse and sexual contact with animals, were declared to be abominations or signs of idolatry. Thus, they became religious offenses. They violated God's natural order, and anyone who engaged in them was a sexual heretic. He could not be tolerated among the faithful and therefore was put to death.
The early Christians rejected many Jewish beliefs and traditions, but with regard to sex they more or less followed the law of Moses. Indeed, suon they developed even stricter laws of their own and, for a while, disparaged all sexual pleasure in favor of chastity. The procreation of children within marriage was recognized as legitimate, but complete abstinence was considered superior. This new ascetiscism softened somewhat in the course of time, but the negative basic attitude remained. The medieval church still saw the only "natural" function of sex in reproduction.
The Protestant Reformation did not bring greater sexual tolerance. On the contrary, while they attacked the Catholic cult of celibacy, many Protestants (especially the Puritans) retained the traditional reproductive bias and punished all sexual activity outside of marriage. Indeed, they even revived the laws of the Old Testament against the non-reproductive sexual heresies, and their philosophy then provided the basis of modern sex legislation in England and America. (See "Conformity and Deviance—Legal-Illegal".)
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