What does Catholic/Christian femininity mean to you?

[alphawoman]

Casti Connubii says much differently.

w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii.html

Note: Casti Connubii is an encyclical, and carries more weight in the Church than JPII’s Apostolic Letter

As a side note, I read JPII’s Love and Responsibility, and his pastoral letter on the dignity of women. He states some things very well, while some are in clear contradiction to Apostolic teaching, and simply does not make sense in practical use.

The classic scenario I can think of is if there’s only one seat on the lifeboat. How does mutual submission work in this? It really can’t work at all. With classic male headship, it’s simple. The man gives the seat to his wife, saving her, regardless of her protestations on the subject.

At the risk of sounding condescending, that’s not how exegesis works. Individual papal documents are not at odds with one another, but rather clarify and elaborate the work of papal predecessors. To take one document or one passage out of the broader context of the faith, as you have done with segments of Ephesians 5 and other passages from
Casti Connubii, undermines the fulsomeness of tradition and scripture and disrespects the tremendous value added from sequential papal discourse on scripture.

Your cherry picking of passages in Casti Connubii ss. 26 and 27 ignores the tone that is set in its preamble in 23 and misinterprets its message:

“For matrimonial faith demands that husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other, but as Christ loved the Church. This precept the Apostle laid down when he said: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church,”[24] that Church which of a truth He embraced with a boundless love not for the sake of His own advantage, but seeking only the good of His Spouse.[25]”

A careful reading of Casti Connubii (CC) and Mulieres Dignitatem (MD) is informative. One example of where MD clarifies CC is in the interpretation of Ephesians 5. Where CC interprets Ephesians 5 broadly, MD specifies that Ephesians 5:21 is rightly interpreted as a title or guiding theme for the remaining passage.

This papal letter to Bishops, which succeeded MD, further clarifies the root of the notion of spouses who are mutually subject to one another as a logical continuation of Genesis. Particularly:

“Through this same spousal perspective, the ancient Genesis narrative allows us to understand how woman, in her deepest and original being, exists “for the other” (cf. 1 Cor 11:9): this is a statement which, far from any sense of alienation, expresses a fundamental aspect of the similarity with the Triune God, whose Persons, with the coming of Christ, are revealed as being in a communion of love, each for the others. “In the ‘unity of the two’, man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist ‘side by side’ or ‘together’, but they are also called to exist mutually ‘one for the other’… The text of Genesis 2:18-25 shows that marriage is the first and, in a sense, the fundamental dimension of this call. But it is not the only one. The whole of human history unfolds within the context of this call. In this history, on the basis of the principle of mutually being ‘for’ the other in interpersonal ‘communion’, there develops in humanity itself, in accordance with God’s will, the integration of what is ‘masculine’ and what is ‘feminine’”.9”

Source: vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040731_collaboration_en.html

Fundamentally, the Church is making three points about spousal subjection:

1. The husband’s status of “head” is a construct of first among equals. He who is first is last, and he who is last is first. The spousal relationship is, by definition, one of total mutual self-sacrifice, with priority and authority infinitely looping simultaneously between the two, such that both are first and last at all times.
2. St. Paul’s characterization of husband as head and wife as heart is revealing, because the body can’t exist without both functioning and mutually supporting in homeostasis.
3. God created Man in his image: male AND female. It is in the union of the genders that we most closely image God, not as individual parties to the marriage covenant. The notion of dominion of one spouse over another has its origin in the post-original sin understanding of spousal roles; the genesis (pun intended) of the genders is the same! We exist to complement, complete, and perfect one another in marriage.

To relate this long discussion to the OP about what constitutes femininity, the notion that womanhood implicitly requires unidirectional subjugation, docility, or passivity, whether in or out of marriage, is false. Absent any papal discussion, an examination of Mary easily debunks that notion. God subjected Himself to her free will through His petition for her fiat. If God, in His infinite perfection deigned to subject Himself to a human woman to facilitate the incarnation, then so must mortal men equally subject themselves to their wives (and v-v).

I would like to reiterate for general readership purposes the value of consulting Mulieris Dignitatem and the encyclicals discussing Mary for a nuanced and comprehensive treatment of Catholic womanhood.

 

[KendraDZ1902]

Completely false.

Christ made the ultimate sacrifice, death on a cross so his Church may live. He dies for His Church like the Husband is willing to die for his wife.

Women aren’t supposed to be willing to die for her husband? While I am going through a divorce (that I have not been given an explanation ) I was very loyal and totally loved him. Some days I still totally love him. I would have laid my life down for him. No greater love is that, right? I think that willing to die for your spouse should be mutual. You need that immense love to be mutual.

Yeah, on the Titanic it was “women and children only” luckily today, cruise ships have enough lifeboats.

 

[alphawoman]

The women I know who were successful in their pursuits, whether presidents of large corporations or a SAHM, tended to:

• Be subtle rather than direct
• Be masters of nuanced conversation
• Speak warmly and keep composure, even in the company of fools
• Make people feel at ease as opposed to intimidated by their presence.

So I guess that is what I would consider to be successful feminine traits.

Fair or not, women can’t do some things that men do without people disliking them, and vice versa. Men, in adverse situations, tend to be expected to lay down the hammer as opposed to seeming ‘soft’, something people are usually repulsed by women doing.

I’ve met female engineers, outdoorsmen, stay at home moms, musicians, etc. In my book, one can be just as feminine as the other. The Bible has only clear roles of femininity in regards to Marriage, which is what I originally responded to.

The attributes that you list are all culture-bound proscribed social behaviours. They don’t speak substantively to the character or intrinsic nature of a woman.

Note also that there is a difference between social behaviours that are socially successful in a given culture with the optimal traits absent culture.

 

[alphawoman]

I have to say, I’m thoroughly enjoying this discussion. The more I delve into our faith, the more I appreciate how beautiful and internally consistent it is in all ways. Everything is inextricably linked and so well articulated.

 

[Xantippe]

Women aren’t supposed to be willing to die for her husband? While I am going through a divorce (that I have not been given an explanation ) I was very loyal and totally loved him. Some days I still totally love him. I would have laid my life down for him. No greater love is that, right? I think that willing to die for your spouse should be mutual. You need that immense love to be mutual.

Yeah, on the Titanic it was “women and children only” luckily today, cruise ships have enough lifeboats.

Interestingly, the majority of live kidney donations between spouses are from wives to husbands.

“Many married women are giving kidneys to their spouses. When considering all of the 655 kidney recipients who received a transplant from their spouses last year in the United States, 74 percent of them were men who received a living donor kidney transplant from their wives. But only 26 percent of recipients who received a transplant from their spouses were women that same year, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network/United Network for Organ Sharing.”

womensenews.org/story/medicine/141115/organ-gap-more-women-donate-and-they-pay-it

 

[underacloud]

Interestingly, the majority of live kidney donations between spouses are from wives to husbands.

“Many married women are giving kidneys to their spouses. When considering all of the 655 kidney recipients who received a transplant from their spouses last year in the United States, 74 percent of them were men who received a living donor kidney transplant from their wives. But only 26 percent of recipients who received a transplant from their spouses were women that same year, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network/United Network for Organ Sharing.”

womensenews.org/story/medicine/141115/organ-gap-more-women-donate-and-they-pay-it

To be fair, kidney failure is more common in men, so the skewed statistics aren’t totally driven by women being more generous than men in this regard.

But then, the skewed statistics aren’t totally driven by the relative failure rates either.

 

[DebChris]

I guess it is just where you live in the states. I’m from a small town in Alabama. At the local Piggly Wiggly men bag the groceries and take them to your car, even if you only have one bag. I’m at my parent’s house and their closest neighbors are 1/4 mile away, but when I “lived in town” guys would help me with my groceries. I lived on the second floor and multiple trips were a pain. lol. Boys from the South are the best, I guess.

I’m in the South also, but in a larger city.
I do love the Southern greeting, “Have a blessed day.” and the fact that there still are gentlemen who give up their seats on the bus, and young gentlemen in training who are being taught to hold open doors.
I am in a neighborhood where neighbors help neighbors. They sit on the porch in the evening talking to each other. Last Sunday as I walked home from Mass, one gentleman was out front cutting hair for another gentleman. As you can see I am new to this neighborhood, which is a very friendly.

 

[KendraDZ1902]

I’m in the South also, but in a larger city.
I do love the Southern greeting, “Have a blessed day.” and the fact that there still are gentlemen who give up their seats on the bus, and young gentlemen in training who are being taught to hold open doors.
I am in a neighborhood where neighbors help neighbors. They sit on the porch in the evening talking to each other. Last Sunday as I walked home from Mass, one gentleman was out front cutting hair for another gentleman. As you can see I am new to this neighborhood, which is a very friendly.

Yes! It is so nice to see little gentlemen in training. I was at a restaurant and there was a wait. A family was standing beside the door and when I was walking up to the door his mother told him to hold the door for me. He was so proud when I told him, “thank you.”

Front porch sittin’ is one of the best things. I’m sure you’ll bond soon with your new neighbors.

 

[Sarcelle]

Right.

And nobody here is concerned about husbands being too self-sacrificing in the context of wifely submission. What we are more concerned about is selfishness and tyranny dressed up in “Christian” dress. All too often when one listens in online on Protestant (or even Catholic) men with strong views on wifely submission (for instance the guys at Dalrock), it’s clear that there is only the most token lip service being paid to self-sacrifice. There’s a dime’s worth of self-sacrifice paid out by husbands, and a dollar’s worth of wifely submission collected. Nobody in those parts is clamoring over their manly right to give up their seat on the life boat. It’s all “make me a sammich”.

Also, bear in mind that being an average Catholic woman is way, way more physically dangerous than being an average Catholic man and requires far more courage, for obvious reasons.

Come to think of it, how often does a an average man in the western first world have the chance to actually lay his life on the line in defense of his wife and children?

The lifeboat scenario is far fetched. Men who are all into domination dressed up as a Christian virtue beat this laying one’s life down for the family drum knowing full well that they will not in all likelihood be called to deliver.

 

[Sarcelle]

The women I know who were successful in their pursuits, whether presidents of large corporations or a SAHM, tended to:

• Be subtle rather than direct
• Be masters of nuanced conversation
• Speak warmly and keep composure, even in the company of fools
• Make people feel at ease as opposed to intimidated by their presence.

So I guess that is what I would consider to be successful feminine traits.

Fair or not, women can’t do some things that men do without people disliking them, and vice versa. Men, in adverse situations, tend to be expected to lay down the hammer as opposed to seeming ‘soft’, something people are usually repulsed by women doing.

I’ve met female engineers, outdoorsmen, stay at home moms, musicians, etc. In my book, one can be just as feminine as the other. The Bible has only clear roles of femininity in regards to Marriage, which is what I originally responded to.

By your standards above, I have failed Femininity 101. Being autistic, nuance in conversation and body language is above my pay grade. I like being clear and direct. Eliminates the chances for miscommunication.

 

[Xantippe]

To be fair, kidney failure is more common in men, so the skewed statistics aren’t totally driven by women being more generous than men in this regard.

But then, the skewed statistics aren’t totally driven by the relative failure rates either.

Here’s another fun one:

cnn.com/2011/LIVING/07/21/sick.couples.o/

“A 2009 study published in the journal Cancer found that a married woman diagnosed with a serious disease is six times more likely to be divorced or separated than a man with a similar diagnosis. Among study participants, the divorce rate was 21 percent for seriously ill women and 3 percent for seriously ill men. A control group divorced at a rate of 12 percent, suggesting that if disease makes husbands more likely to split, it makes wives more likely to stay.”

I’m not saying that men are (on average) morally inferior beings, but I do think that all of the last-seat-on-the-lifeboat talk needs to be tempered with evidence about what is actually happening day to day in the real world. Is this “laying his life down” actually happening day to day or is it the wife just getting a pile of rain checks that turn out to not be backed by anything real?

 

[Xantippe]

Come to think of it, how often does a an average man in the western first world have the chance to actually lay his life on the line in defense of his wife and children?

The lifeboat scenario is far fetched. Men who are all into domination dressed up as a Christian virtue beat this laying one’s life down for the family drum knowing full well that they will not in all likelihood be called to deliver.

Or–very unpleasantly–they see bossing their wife around as being sacrificial.

(I’ve seen this on Dalrock.)

 

[Xantippe]

By your standards above, I have failed Femininity 101. Being autistic, nuance in conversation and body language is above my pay grade. I like being clear and direct. Eliminates the chances for miscommunication.

My daughter is mildly autistic too (and I’m somewhat similar), so yeah, some thing here.

 

[Dulcie]

There’s no one model of femininity, and no one model of submission (either mutual or wifely), just as there is no one model of lived marriage between a man and a woman. I would take it as self-evident that wifely “submission” doesn’t mean entering a childlike state, and it would be a pretty odd kind of man who would find that attractive.

I don’t think the more extreme forms of evangelical Protestantism like the Duggar model are terribly relevant for us as Catholics, though they’re always fun to gawp at (and Dalrock is a particularly unpleasant site with some remarkably warped individuals congregating on it). Casti Connubii, on the other hand, supports a very traditional, family-centered view of marriage without (as far as I can recall) ever suggesting that “submissive” wives shouldn’t be educated, hold down jobs (as long as their jobs don’t harm family life), or take a fully adult and responsible role within the marriage, presumably including anything from budget management to long-term big-picture planning for the family’s future. CC’s understanding of submission doesn’t contradict anything about the Proverbs wife, I think.

Submission in practice is almost impossible to define because what it looks like will vary from couple to couple. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it, or discuss a number of examples of how it works for different couples to consider what we might learn for our own lives, but I think it’s unrealistic to try to suggest that one couple’s model will resemble another’s point for point, or that if we disagree with one model as disastrous then that means submission is a disastrous concept in itself.

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t think the more extreme forms of evangelical Protestantism like the Duggar model are terribly relevant for us as Catholics, though they’re always fun to gawp at (and Dalrock is a particularly unpleasant site with some remarkably warped individuals congregating on it).

**The Duggars have their admirers on CAF and there are quite a number of Dalrock guys who are CAF regulars.

So, we’re not living in air-tight religious compartments. There’s a lot of religious cross-pollination going on, for good and ill, so there is some point to talking about the more out-there Protestants and figuring out exactly where it is that they are making a wrong turn.**

 

[Dulcie]

The Duggars have their admirers on CAF and there are quite a number of Dalrock guys who are CAF regulars.

So, we’re not living in air-tight religious compartments. There’s a lot of religious cross-pollination going on, for good and ill, so there is some point to talking about the more out-there Protestants and figuring out exactly where it is that they are making a wrong turn.

Sorry, badly-expressed on my part. I didn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk about evangelical Christian models, or that there isn’t anything to respect and even emulate in some of them them (although I can’t say I’ve seen anything admirable on Dalrock - the Duggars are a different case). Just that I’m confused by those Catholics who argue that we should be copying them at the expense of our own received models, or alternatively that extreme models of fundamentalist Protestantism are a convincing argument against traditional Catholic teaching on marriage, womanhood and family life. I’ve seen both views among Catholics before now.

 

[Xantippe]

Sorry, badly-expressed on my part. I didn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk about evangelical Christian models, or that there isn’t anything to respect and even emulate in some of them them (although I can’t say I’ve seen anything admirable on Dalrock - the Duggars are a different case). Just that I’m confused by those Catholics who argue that we should be copying them at the expense of our own received models, or alternatively that extreme models of fundamentalist Protestantism are a convincing argument against traditional Catholic teaching on marriage, womanhood and family life. I’ve seen both views among Catholics before now.

Right.

One of my current personal interests is teasing out what exactly the differences are. It’s kind of like the difference between chanterelles and jack o’lanterns–superficially similar in appearance, but in practice, very different.

theforagerpress.com/fieldguide/chant-l.htm

I think one of the major safety features in traditional Catholic life is that (for obvious reasons), the idea of husband as household pope is not part of our tradition.

 

[SWolf]

At the risk of sounding condescending, that’s not how exegesis works. Individual papal documents are not at odds with one another, but rather clarify and elaborate the work of papal predecessors. To take one document or one passage out of the broader context of the faith, as you have done with segments of Ephesians 5 and other passages from
Casti Connubii, undermines the fulsomeness of tradition and scripture and disrespects the tremendous value added from sequential papal discourse on scripture.

Your cherry picking of passages in Casti Connubii ss. 26 and 27 ignores the tone that is set in its preamble in 23 and misinterprets its message:

“For matrimonial faith demands that husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other, but as Christ loved the Church. This precept the Apostle laid down when he said: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church,”[24] that Church which of a truth He embraced with a boundless love not for the sake of His own advantage, but seeking only the good of His Spouse.[25]”

A careful reading of Casti Connubii (CC) and Mulieres Dignitatem (MD) is informative. One example of where MD clarifies CC is in the interpretation of Ephesians 5. Where CC interprets Ephesians 5 broadly, MD specifies that Ephesians 5:21 is rightly interpreted as a title or guiding theme for the remaining passage.

This papal letter to Bishops, which succeeded MD, further clarifies the root of the notion of spouses who are mutually subject to one another as a logical continuation of Genesis. Particularly:

“Through this same spousal perspective, the ancient Genesis narrative allows us to understand how woman, in her deepest and original being, exists “for the other” (cf. 1 Cor 11:9): this is a statement which, far from any sense of alienation, expresses a fundamental aspect of the similarity with the Triune God, whose Persons, with the coming of Christ, are revealed as being in a communion of love, each for the others. “In the ‘unity of the two’, man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist ‘side by side’ or ‘together’, but they are also called to exist mutually ‘one for the other’… The text of Genesis 2:18-25 shows that marriage is the first and, in a sense, the fundamental dimension of this call. But it is not the only one. The whole of human history unfolds within the context of this call. In this history, on the basis of the principle of mutually being ‘for’ the other in interpersonal ‘communion’, there develops in humanity itself, in accordance with God’s will, the integration of what is ‘masculine’ and what is ‘feminine’”.9”

Source: vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040731_collaboration_en.html

Fundamentally, the Church is making three points about spousal subjection:

1. The husband’s status of “head” is a construct of first among equals. He who is first is last, and he who is last is first. The spousal relationship is, by definition, one of total mutual self-sacrifice, with priority and authority infinitely looping simultaneously between the two, such that both are first and last at all times.
2. St. Paul’s characterization of husband as head and wife as heart is revealing, because the body can’t exist without both functioning and mutually supporting in homeostasis.
3. God created Man in his image: male AND female. It is in the union of the genders that we most closely image God, not as individual parties to the marriage covenant. The notion of dominion of one spouse over another has its origin in the post-original sin understanding of spousal roles; the genesis (pun intended) of the genders is the same! We exist to complement, complete, and perfect one another in marriage.

To relate this long discussion to the OP about what constitutes femininity, the notion that womanhood implicitly requires unidirectional subjugation, docility, or passivity, whether in or out of marriage, is false. Absent any papal discussion, an examination of Mary easily debunks that notion. God subjected Himself to her free will through His petition for her fiat. If God, in His infinite perfection deigned to subject Himself to a human woman to facilitate the incarnation, then so must mortal men equally subject themselves to their wives (and v-v).

I would like to reiterate for general readership purposes the value of consulting Mulieris Dignitatem and the encyclicals discussing Mary for a nuanced and comprehensive treatment of Catholic womanhood.

Unfortunately, encyclicals often contradict themselves. They are not infallible documents and there have been many occasions where they simply can not be reconciled.

The core issue is Paul states women submit to their wives as the Church submits to Christ’s authority, and husbands love their wife as Christ loves the Church.

To say Christ is submissive to His Church in the same exact way the Church is submissive to Christ, like how ‘mutual submission’ is defined here, is patently absurd.

 

[Xantippe]

Unfortunately, encyclicals often contradict themselves. They are not infallible documents and there have been many occasions where they simply can not be reconciled.

Eh, but in this case, I don’t feel that you’re trying all that hard.

 

[SWolf]

There’s no one model of femininity, and no one model of submission (either mutual or wifely), just as there is no one model of lived marriage between a man and a woman. I would take it as self-evident that wifely “submission” doesn’t mean entering a childlike state, and it would be a pretty odd kind of man who would find that attractive.

That’s where I think these conversations go off the rails. I have a very different idea of male headship that doesn’t involve barking orders all the time, not listening to my wife, and doing whatever I feel like regardless of her feelings. That is certainly far from how my Grandfather treated my Grandma, and there was no question who was ultimately in charge when the rubber hit the road in that marriage.

I just know I’ve seen what people would say are ideal egalitarian marriages, and am left unimpressed. In the ones that didn’t end in divorce, both husband and wife are miserable. There was actually an interesting study that egalitarian marriages had less sex than traditional marriages.

I’ve seen marriages with traditional leads with the man as the head, and both are happier. This is universal among several cultures I have encountered. There’s an innate psychology in the sexes that St. Paul and the Church Fathers understood. It goes against the last fifty years of feminist thought(that has seen the decimation of the institution of Marriage), but the does not make it wrong or oppressive.

Are there abusive husbands? Sure, just like there are plenty of abusive wives.