Women who withhold sexual congress with their husbands are sinning against God and their husbands, a Ghanian bishop said last week. 

The Bishop of Sunyani told the members of the Mothers Union of his diocese that a happy marital sex life keeps husbands faithful. Infidelity was the scourge of society, the bishop said, and wives had a duty to do their upmost to protect the home and the family.

According to a report from the Ghana News Agency (GNA) the Rt. Rev. Festus Yeboah-Asuamah told the assembly it was the responsibility of wives to satisfy their husbands’ sexual needs.  “This does not mean men should also over-stretch their wives in sex,” he observed.

Dr. Yeboah-Asuamah also warned wives against creating a false division between marital relations and the Christian life.
The bishop “expressed concern that some women had engaged themselves with religious activities to the extent that they do not even have time to satisfied their husbands sexually. This habit, the Bishop said, was a contributory factor to sexual promiscuity by men, which had teared homes and families apart.”

Dr. Yeboah-Asuamah’s comments came in a talk upon the subject: “Women, You Are The Pillars of the Family and the Church,” at the annual diocesan Mothers Union conference held in Sunyani.  

The bishop affirmed the church’s teaching that marriage was a lifelong union of a man and a woman and whose purposes as set forth in the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer were procreation, a safeguard against sin and for mutual aid and comfort of husband and wife. 

Mutual flourishing he noted was based not on a mirrored set of responsibilities, but upon the complimentarity of man and woman. Husbands and wives had distinct rolls to fulfill in marriage, but it was a mistake to segregate the relationship into mens’ and women’s work. Each had a responsibility to raise the children, maintain the peace and purity of the marital home, and provide economic support, the said.