Q&A: A Rebellious Wife
A Rebellious Wife
Question
Have a good week.
A woman has been refusing for a long period to have marital relations (to immerse in the mikveh). She says that she wants another child, and she is willing to immerse only if her husband has relations with her without contraception. The husband does not want another child, and therefore wants to have relations while using contraception (the pill).
The woman has no problem with the pill itself; she simply wants more children.
The couple has several daughters, so they have not yet fulfilled the commandment of procreation.
Is the woman considered a “rebellious wife”?
Answer
It is obvious that he is obligated to have relations in a way that allows for having children, but that is not an obligation toward her, rather toward Heaven (the commandment of procreation). She is certainly not considered a rebellious wife if she does not want to use contraception. That is absurd. Why should she be considered rebellious when he is the one refusing to have relations with her?
Discussion on Answer
I explained. She does not want to use contraception, and that is her right. If he does not want to have relations with her because of that, then he is the cause, not she. Immersion enables the relations themselves, and therefore there it seems there is an obligation to immerse for the sake of the marital relations themselves.
He is not providing her with the conjugal duty he undertook. I do not know what the category of “rebellious” is for a man. Of course, she also cannot demand relations from him whenever she wants. There are set intervals established by the Sages.
She is obligated to cooperate in having children, as assistance for the commandment of procreation.
I thought she was a rebellious wife, because she is obligated to allow her husband to have sexual relations in any way, even in a way that will not produce children.
If the husband asks her to go to the mikveh so that he can have relations with her only unnaturally, so that she will not become pregnant, would she have to comply? If so, then why, when he asks her to use contraception (when it does not itself bother her), is she exempt?
Another question: if we say that she is exempt, would we say that he is “rebellious,” because he is unwilling to have relations with her without contraception?
And what would be in the opposite case, when he wants children and she does not, and he refuses to have relations with her while she is using contraception, and she refuses to have relations without contraception—would either of them be considered “rebellious”?