ONAH Ok, I am going to go into a much longer explanation and I will probably get ragged on by a lot of people out there but here goes. Sex is a woman's RIGHT and a man's DUTY. This is pure Torah. The Talmud says that the sexual passion of the woman is far greater than that of a man. Additionally, the Torah actually obligates a man to pleasure his wife to the point of climax before the husband. Anything else is considered abuse. This is all under the mitzvah of onah, which I think, is translated as conjugal relations or sexual rights. It is a need and a pleasure for the woman moreso than for the man.
In fact the marriage ketubah states three rights for the woman. They are: -Onah, sexual rights -clothing/shelter -food NIDDAH (means time of her time.) This has to do with a woman's cycle. There must be seven bloodless days then the woman goes to the mikveh and that night they may resume sleeping together and enjoying intimacy and sex. In fact, it is imperative that they do. For more information look up Iggeret Hakodesh. This is a letter written by a sage to his son on the occassion of his marriage. For futher info you might go to the Saltzstein (sic) Talmud and look under family purity or Niddah. The bottom line is that conjugal relations are determined by the woman and her pleasure is priority. To deny one's spouse conjugal relations means that the denying spouse is being rebellious. It really has nothing to do with the husband's occupation. However, just because he is away from his spouse does not give him leave to channel his drive in any other way, INCLUDING MASTURBATION OR VISITING PROSTITUTES. If the man's occupation takes him away from his wife's side then he must wait to return to his wife and make sure she is fulfilled and happy before he attends to his own satisfaction. This may seem sexist to many out there but I am not the one who wrote the rules and I wake up everyday and thank G-d that I am not a man! Get the book I mentioned earlier. It explains it much better than I do. Rivka ========================================================================== HaSafran - The Electronic Forum of the Association of Jewish Libraries Submissions for HaSafran, send to: Hasafran at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listserver at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 at osu.edu AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org/
