‘Natural Law is the most reliable approach when making decisions about premarital sex’ Discuss
Premarital sex, seen as sexual interactions between two unmarried people, can include a wide
variety of sexual relations, such as casual sex or sex as a unitive element of a loving, committed
relationship. It has historically be seen as a moral problem due to taboos and social structures which
saw sex as a purely reproductive act between a married couples. However, advancements in
women’s rights, contraception available and overall tolerance in society has meant the taboo
surrounding premarital sex is almost non-existent in the twenty first century. This argument will
explore the foundations and teachings that influence Natural Law’s view on premarital sex, including
the Bible and Aquinas’ ideas of human reasoning and eudamonia. Using other approaches to sexual
ethics, I will ultimately argue that Natural Law is not the most reliable approach to premarital sex.
Firstly, Natural Law and its application in the Catholic Church bases its objections on premarital sex
being morally wrong on outdated and old-fashioned foundations. In the thirteenth century, when
Aquinas developed his Natural Law theory, the views of sex in society were very different to the
views we have today. Sex was seen as a sinful and taboo act that was reserved only for married
couples, provoked by the visible effects of sexually transmitted diseases due to lack of contraception.
Thus, Natural Law followed along with the taboo and sets its ideas of sex, and its reservation for
marriage only, on different views than we have now. This is seen in the primary precept to
reproduce which could be interpreted to produce second precepts such as ‘sex is only for marriage’
or ‘children should only be brought into the world through marriage’ if considering the primary
precept to live in a ordered society. This makes the approach unattractive to today’s society where
sex is safer with increased awareness of sexually transmitted diseases and more widely available
contraception than it was in Aquinas’ time. Furthermore, in Genesis it talks of ‘ma leaving his father
and mother uniting to his wife and they become on flesh’. This quote emphasises Natural Law’s
reservation of sex as only in marriage. Despite this, nowadays this reservation is not followed much,
in the 1960s only five percent of couples cohabitate whereas now fifty percent of couple cohabitate
to ‘trial’ marriage or as an alternative to marriage itself. Overall, one can see that Natural Law holds
a very different view on sex to the one society holds today making it an unreliable approach to
decisions about premarital sex because it simply cannot relate to our views anymore.
However, Catholics and other followers of Natural Law would argue the change in societal views is
not a sign that the theory itself is wrong but that society is turning away from God and choosing to
sin rather than follow the word of God. Thus, the reliability of Natural Law’s approach is not
undermined, it is societies fault for succumbing to sin. However, Natural Law, although is a religious
theory, suggests that primary precepts being necessary for human flourishment, or eudemonia, can
be reached using human reason. Therefore either Aquinas reasoned his primary precepts incorrectly
or those who reason premarital sex is okay have reasoned incorrectly. Either way it is clear our
reason is not reliable to give absolute rules thus natural law cannot be reliable when applied to
premarital sex.
The application of Natural Law is seen heavily in the Catholic Church, which follows precepts and
ideas set in Aquinas’ theory. This means the influence Natural Law has is less in our secular society
and very little atheists would agree with Natural Law’s principles, even other denominations of
Christian may disagree with Natural Law’s conclusions on sexual ethics. Therefore Natural Law
struggles to remain relevant and reliable in our secular society because it is only applicable to those
who have Catholic faith. A Kantian approach to premarital sex is similar but does not require belief in
God to justify its view. The theory sees marriage as a contract of rights with high importance which
means rules out premarital sex. However, it is unclear why this conclusion against premarital is
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