Meaning of "Right Reason" in Casti Connubii

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Elizabeth3

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Another Catholic wife is telling me that “right reason” and even “not inconsistent with Christian piety”, simple means “not sinful” whereas I was interpreting those to mean decisions that are unreasonable and/or sinful.

For clarity-Casti Connubii “This subjection, however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs.”

Catechism of Trent -Again, and in this the conjugal union chiefly consists, let wives never forget that next to God they are to love their husbands, to esteem them above all others, yielding to them in all things not inconsistent with Christian piety, a willing and ready obedience.

One of the hypothetical situations we were discussing was a wife getting a medical diagnosis and her husband, who doesn’t trust doctors, tells her to use a natural remedy as opposed to conventional treatment. She thinks the wife would be obligated to obey her husband while I said the wife still has the basic human dignity of determining her own medical treatment and while she should talk to him about it, ultimately the decision is hers, especially if the diagnosis is serious and she thinks it unreasonable to pursue a natural remedy.
 
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The phrase “right reason”, recta ratio, comes from Aquinas meaning right reasoning in acting through the virtue of prudence. Aquinas emphasized the role the natural human power of reason has in morality.

Perhaps you would do better on the philosophy board with an explanation of Aquinas on right reason. I’m not big into philosophy and certainly not very well versed in Thomism.

The reference to Christian piety is referring to the virtue of piety, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Read the definition in the Catholic Dictionary online at CatholicCulture.org
Elizabeth3 said:
She thinks the wife would be obligated to obey her husband
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Stuff like this makes me crazy.

She is so far out Ieft field I think she’s actually in the parking lot outside the stadium.
 
Thank you. I will research Aquinas on this a bit and if it’s not clear I will take you up on the suggestion to check with the philosophy board. The reason the whole question started is because I mentioned I wasn’t a big fan of Protestant books on submission in marriage and preferred to refer to Catholic materials. She said there aren’t very many Catholic materials that go into the practical every day stuff of living it out and the Protestants are the only ones talking about it. She also said something about her husband having to answer to God for unreasonable decisions and her responsibility is obedience on her part. She said, unreasonable decisions are matters of prudence on her husband’s part, it’s not for her to disobey. This last part reminds of some the Protestant spiritual covering theology seeping into her understanding. It makes me crazy too. Thank you again!
 
Elizabeth3 said:
She said, unreasonable decisions are matters of prudence on her husband’s part, it’s not for her to disobey.
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So for the sake of argument, if her husband left Christianity and became pagan, and demanded that she renounce God and start worshipping whatever pagan pantheon he would be following, would she abandon God to obey her husband?
 
She is clear that she does not have to obey if something is a sin so I think we would be in agreement in this case. However, in the hypothetical described above she thinks that because it’s not technically a sin for a husband to tell his wife to use a natural remedy over conventional due to it being a prudential decision on his part, she would be obliged to obey because both “right reason” and “not inconsistent with Christian piety” mean she has to obey in all things but sin.

In my mind, a wife doesn’t lose her human dignity or ability to make decisions for herself, especially when it comes to medical decisions, when she marries and that this wouldn’t fall under the scope of the husband’s authority so she is not obliged to obey.
 
Elizabeth3 said:
However, in the hypothetical described above she thinks that because it’s not technically a sin for a husband to tell his wife to use a natural remedy over conventional due to it being a prudential decision on his part, she would be obliged to obey because both “right reason” and “not inconsistent with Christian piety” mean she has to obey in all things but sin.

In my mind, a wife doesn’t lose her human dignity or ability to make decisions for herself, especially when it comes to medical decisions, when she marries and that this wouldn’t fall under the scope of the husband’s authority so she is not obliged to obey.
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It sounds like she needs to talk to a priest. Her husband has no more a right to decide how to treat her body (when she’s conscious and not incapacitated) than being able to tell her sleep outside in the snow. She is his wife, not his slave.
 
Completely agree. She talks a lot about obedience being crucial for peace and unity in the family but she seems to put those goods over and above the wife’s liberty and basic human dignity.
 
LumineDiei said:
Because most of the Protestant stuff out there that insists on a “daily living it out” view the wife (and often, women in general) as perpetual minors that can’t make a intelligent decision on their own.

Personally, I view women that subscribe to this as having a disordered sexual fetish wherein they enjoy being treated like a child in all manner of married life. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be so quick to ignore their own God-given intelligence and the fact they are a beloved daughter of the king, not a subservient slave whose sole existence is to be mindlessly obedient to a man.
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It does make you wonder how they can fall so easily into these errors if there wasn’t some kind of underlying desire to live this kind of lifestyle. I do feel bad though that she is Catholic and she is living under misconceptions that are much more restrictive than Church teaching. Because we are talking about things in general and hypothetically, I don’t know how things look IRL for her. I’d be really curious to know if her husband agrees to these ideas or if she’s living in her own little world from reading Protestant materials on the subject.
 
Thank you. I’ll suggest it. Maybe it will clarify things for her and help her distinguish between Protestant error for real truth.
 
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