" Christianity and Sex" An essay written in 1930 that could have been penned yesterday!

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Christianity and Sex This essay by Christopher Dawson was written in 1930 and is a defense of Christian morality at a time when that morality was coming under increasing attack.
www.catholicculture.org www.catholicculture.org
 
Oh boy time for some heavy reading! Thank you for posting!
 
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A good reminder that the “sexual revolution” actually started in the 1920s.
 
I have bookmarked this as something to read, when I have time to give it the attention it deserves.

Anything by Christopher Dawson is bound to be a good read, and very worthwhile. Time well spent.
 
You said it, sister. Real Catholic Women don’t vote. End the suffrage!

Actually the article doesn’t discuss that directly. Was it a coincidence? Sexual morals were deplorable in ancient times when women had no voting rights. Dawson decries the increase of bureaucracy and state power as the family declines. It’s difficult to say whether the move toward equal civic power between the sexes has really had a detrimental impact on the family; I think it’s probably a cause/correlation fallacy.
 
From the article:
“If, on the other hand, marriage is transformed into a temporary arrangement for the satisfaction of the sexual impulse and for mutual companionship, which is not intended to create a permanent social unit, it is clear that the family loses its social and economic importance and that the state will take its place as the guardian and educator of the children.”
 
A comparison with Ancient Greece:
“This aversion to marriage and the deliberate restriction of the family by the practice of infanticide and abortion was undoubtedly the main cause of the decline of ancient Greece, as Polybius pointed out in the second century B.C.14 And the same factors were equally powerful in the society of the Empire, where the citizen class even in the provinces was extraordinarily sterile and was recruited not by natural increase, but by the constant introduction of alien elements, above all from the servile class. Thus the ancient world lost its roots alike in the family and in the land and became prematurely withered. The reconstitution of Western civilization was due to the coming of Christianity and the re-establishment of the family on a new basis.”
 
I managed to read the whole thing today and I’ve taken out chunks of it for future reflection, if anybody wants to see snippets!
 
I just finished it; there’s a lot to chew on.
Thanks for sharing this.
 
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