How to Make Me Angry

Uh-Oh. This ranks with the Chesterton essay from "What's Wrong with the World" in producing ire in me (first, the uber-long quotation; then, my ire):

"The woman who marries, intending at all costs to retain her own career, or who absolutely refuses to be dependent on her husband, does not know the meaning either of Christian marriage or even of true human love. If she is in love with anybody, it is with herself. Marriage means abandoning one's self to enter into one new life, shared with her husband. There cannot be two "careers" where there is only one life. Nor can there be independence. For man and wife are dependent upon one another for everything. Where there is love, all joy or pleasure that cannot be shared, loses its value. There is no need here to give the true name of such unions where independence of life is insisted upon, but that should not prevent clear thinking as to their nature. Further it must be remembered that as regards their work and their place in civil society, husband and wife are in different positions. The husband has a direct connection with the civil economy, the wife integrated into it only through her husband. To put it another way: husband and wife form one unit; and the wife's role in that unity is to assist her husband, not to rival him; she must be an accompanist as regards his public life.

St. Paul's exhortation to wives to be subject to their husbands as the Church is to Christ, raises much comment. Let it be noted that the husband whom St. Paul wants a wife to be subject to is one who, he insists, must love her so much, that he is ready to lay down his life for her, and who actually does give his whole life to her. One must understand what this "subjection" really means. A woman does not lose her personal liberty or freedom or dignity in marriage. She is not bound to obey her husband's every request if it is not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to a wife. She is not a minor, not immature, nor incapable of judgment. As Pius XI says, this subjection merely forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place of love.

The wife is not her husband's servant. They are partners. They complement and supplement one another. She has a right to her own opinion and her husband ought to take cognizance of it. It is not because he is the more expert or more intelligent, or has the better judgment or the greater courage, that the ultimate decision is his; for in fact, the contrary is often the case. The real reason is because where there are two minds in partnership, someone must take responsibility for their work; God has made the husband the responsible partner; therefore he must have ultimate authority.

He has the grace of state. This is a notion that has been lost sight of in the world today, but which is of essential importance in the spiritual life. It comes to this in practice. Where God has appointed someone to decide things for others, those others may securely follow his decisions where they are in accordance with reason and inside the limits of allowed authority; and they may be sure that God's providence will adjust itself (or has adjusted itself, if one prefers to look at it that way) so that in the long run, things work out for the best as so decided. This is not inspiration, although it often does mean a special help to decide correctly. But it is one way of finding out the will of God, and putting one's part in life in perfect harmony with the rest of His providential symphony.

[...]

The true woman rules by submitting; she humbles her husband by the generosity of her love. She strengthens him by her dependence, she builds up his character by throwing responsibility upon him; she is queen of his heart by her love. Now the woman who leaves her throne to do by masculine crudeness and guile what she cannot do by feminine love and tact, admits her own incompetence, and in the modern phrase, "let's herself down," very, very badly. Not only herself, in fact, but also her husband. Not only her husband, but also Christ. For in refusing to be subject to her husband or to be loyal to him, she is also refusing to be subject to Christ or to be loyal to Him. And her plans and achievements of this sort always go wrong in the long run; for she is working against God. The harm done by such a policy is incalculable.

[...]

It is here that many souls err. They see the spiritual life as a service of God, and so it is. But they imagine that the principle value of their service is found in the results they achieve; whereas in God's eye the result - the increase from their sowing - are the fruits of His goodness and His grace and of His Son's merits and sufferings. As far as that particular soul is concerned, it is rather the love that should inspire the service, that God is seeking. And to make things worse, it often happens in the service of God, that those who are seemingly zealous for His service are really serving themselves. They are pursuing their own career. Their zeal is not so much for God's glory as for their own. They resemble those modern wives who insist on having their own career. They are living their own life - not the new life in union with Christ."

- Eugene Boylan, This Tremendous Lover, 321-324, 365

No one should retain their own career at all costs. Clearly family comes first! Following his logic, shouldn't the man give up his career, too, in order to experience dependence on his wife? Goodness gracious: "Where there is love, all joy or pleasure that cannot be shared, loses its value." First, the comma in that sentence bothers me. Second, actually, while I most certainly love Wystan, this does not diminish my pleasure in artichokes, cauliflower, chocolate and mint together, shellfish (actually, I don't know how much I've ever liked shellfish), and the many other foods that he doesn't like.

The woman is the heart and the man is the head?! Men are intelligent and rational, but at least women are caring? (This just makes me think of that great silent movie, Metropolis: "The heart is what joins the hands and the head.") The only gendered synechdoche that I'm okay with is synechdoche that refers to actual gendered body parts.

I'm always thankful for Ephesians 5:21 in discussions of submission: "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God."