Married Love and the Petting of Husband and Wife

The Bible gives us a beautiful exposition of chaste and holy married love. The Song of Solomon tells the story of a bridegroom and a bride. I believe the book pictures the love of Christ for His church and the church for Christ. But it certainly also pictures the love, the ecstasy and the mutual joy of a young couple whose love has now led to matrimony. In the Song of Solomon every bride­groom can find some of his own holy exultation over the beauty of his bride's body and the sweetness of her surrender. Solomon, we think, is pictured as the bridegroom. And this is the way he spoke:

"Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hart doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are Uke a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them. Thy lips are like a thread nf scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks. Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.... Thou art att fair, my love; there is no spot in thee." - Song of Solomon 4:1-4, 7.

And again the bridegroom says:

"How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! the joints of thy thighs are Uke jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshlion, by the gate of Bath-rabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple; the king is held in the galleries. How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I  will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples; And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak." - Song of Solomon 7:1-9.

This is holy ground. These Scriptures ought to be read rever­ently; and such love-making, of course, is for husband and wife. It is proper and is evidently God's plan that a husband should be proud of the beauties of his wife's body, that she should be "all fair" to him. But the picture here given would be defiled and unholy if it represented mere lustful fondling and petting between two people who are not given to each other for a lifetime, two people whose bodies have not become one flesh, two people who have not promised themselves wholly to each other.

I think it proper here to mention also how the Scripture pic­tures the bride as feeling toward her husband. "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine." - Song of Solomon 1:2.

"A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts. My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of En-gedi. Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes. Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green. The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir." - Song of Solomon 1:13-17.

"He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me" - Song of Solomon 2:4-6.

Of the right kind of pure, married love. Song of Solomon 8:6, 7 says:

"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement fame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned."

This love is as strong as death. This love cannot be quenched by water nor drowned by floods nor bought by all the substance of one's house. But it must be pure, married love with each of the mates given wholly to the other and with their love undefiled by sin, for "jealousy is cruel as the grave."

The Scriptures given above are the inspired Word of God. They are holy; they are good   They should be read reverently.   Dr. Scofield says:

"Nowhere in Scripture does the unspiritual mind tread upon ground so mysterious and incomprehensible as in this book, while the saintliest men and women of the ages have found it a source of pure and exquisite delight. That the love of the divine Bridegroom should follow all the analogies of the marriage relation seems evil only to minds so ascetic that marital desire itself seems to them unholy."

Absolute freedom of caresses and love-making and fondling is proper within marriage. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1: 17) . In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve, who were as pure and sinless as the angels of God, were naked and were not ashamed (Gen. 2:25).

But all this is clearly intended for married people, and it is clearly wicked and vile when the petting, caressing and fondling are a matter of unholy lust, uncurbed, characterless animalism, instead of proper, sanctified, married love.

It is obviously intended that intimate love-making and petting are to lead to sex relations. That means, that such intimate petting and fondling are for married people.

It is also quite clear from the Scriptures that kisses and caresses, when outside of marriage, often lead to adultery.

For example, Proverbs 7 tells how a simple youth, void of under­standing, is led into sin by an harlot "So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him . . . Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves" (Prov. 7:13, 18).

So kisses and flattery and the enjoyment of a woman's body may be expected to lead to adultery.

In Proverbs 5:15-23 the Scripture gives these plain words:

"Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray."

Here we are plainly told that certain privileges of petting are for the married couple only and nobody else. "Rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love," says the Lord. Such intimacies are reserved for the husband and wife. Otherwise they are likely to lead to adultery and bring the curse of God.

Several times God speaks of fondling of the breasts as a part of the sin of whoredom or adultery.  For example, Ezekiel 23:8, 21, In Deuteronomy 22:28, 29 God's Word gives the punishment that shall be meted out in this particular case of adultery.

"If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsels father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath hum­bled her, he may not put her away all his days."

But hardly noticeable in this King James translation of the Bible is an indication that petting, or for a man to handle the body of a woman, precedes and often leads to adultery. The Hebrew word taphas, which is here translated "lay hold on," is translated once "to hold," three times is translated "catch," and eight times it is translated "handle"! The word used here about a man's laying hold on a girl is primarily "to handle." And the "handling" would naturally lead to adultery, as this verse indicates.

Another striking provision of the Mosaic law is given in Deuter­onomy 25:11,12 which says,

"When men strive together one with another, and the wife of one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her."