Nishmat's Women’s Health and HalachaIn memory of Chaya Mirel bat R' Avraham

  • Hebrew
  • English
  • Espnaol
  • Francais
  • donate
Menu

Role of intimacy in marriage

16 November, 2016

Question:

I am newly married. A question on the role of intimacy. According to the Torah, who is this for? Is this for the wife's pleasure alone? Is it for the husband's pleasure? (Obviously it is a means to have children but aside from this). According to the Torah is the wife meant to feel she is doing this for the sake of her husband's pleasure, or is the husband meant to be doing this to give his wife pleasure? Or is it both?

Thanks very much for this clarity.


Answer:

Mazal tov on your recent marriage!

The Torah intended for intimacy to be a pleasurable experience for both spouses. While only the husband has a Torah commandment of onah (which includes giving sexual pleasure to his wife), the wife should also make efforts to give her husband sexual pleasure. Both spouses should invest efforts into this very important part of the marriage.

For further reading, please read the article by Rabbi Avraham Peretz Friedman on the Torah approach to marital intimacy that appears on our website.  You can find further discussion in his book Marital Intimacy, which has our highest recommendation.

Please feel free to get back to us with any further questions.


This internet service does not preclude, override or replace the psak of any rabbinical authority. It is the responsibility of the questioner to inform us of any previous consultation or ruling. As even slight variation in circumstances may have Halachic consequences, views expressed concerning one case may not be applied to other, seemingly similar cases. All health and health-related information contained within Nishmat's Women's Health & Halacha Web site is intended to be general in nature and should not be used as a substitute for consulting with your health care professional. The advice is intended to offer a basis for individuals to discuss their medical condition with their health care provider but not individual advice. Although every effort is made to ensure that the material within Nishmat's Women's Health & Halacha Web site is accurate and timely, it is provided for the convenience of the Web site user but should not be considered official. Advice for actual medical practice should be obtained from a licensed health care professional. For further questions or comments:  The Nishmat Women's Health and Halacha Site is a public service of Nishmat, The Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women. This project and others like it are made possible by contributions from people like you. If you have benefited from the service, and wish to enable us to help others, click here to donate.

Users of Internet filtering services: This site discusses sensitive subjects that some services filter without visual indication. A page that appears 100% complete might actually be missing critical Jewish-law or medical information. To ensure that you view the pages accurately, ask the filtering service to whitelist all pages under yoatzot.org.

Accessibility Toolbar