centuries—namely, that coitus (though a normal feature of marital life) is merely an accessory, and not an intrinsic element in matrimony itself. Consequently the one-flesh henosis was at last displaced from its proper centrality in the theological conception of sexual relationship, and in its place there was set a purely consensual union—an innovation quite alien to the … Scriptures.20 Most clergy and theologians of this period assumed that sexual intercourse could not take place without some element