BreakPoint Blog
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Deeply pondering the significance of 'but' By: Gina Dalfonzo|Published: July 28, 2010 3:47 PM Rating: 3.50 I was reading "The End of Courtship," a multipart article by Dr. Leon Kass over at Boundless, and came across this passage:
The change most immediately devastating for wooing is probably the sexual revolution. For why would a man court a woman for marriage when she may be sexually enjoyed, and regularly, without it? Contrary to what the youth of the sixties believed, they were not the first to feel the power of sexual desire. Many, perhaps even most, men in earlier times avidly sought sexual pleasure prior to and outside of marriage. But they usually distinguished, as did the culture generally, between women one fooled around with and women one married, between a woman of easy virtue and a woman of virtue simply. Only respectable women were respected; one no more wanted a loose woman for one's partner than for one's mother.I'm particularly interested in the end of that first paragraph. Given that the passage has such a nostalgic flavor about it, implying that those were the good old days, I'd like to hear -- from both men and women -- what do you think about Dr. Kass's attitude here? To be honest, it doesn't strike me as particularly Christian. I'm getting a vibe along the lines of "Yes, there was a double standard, but [oh, the significance of that little word] at least men recognized that there were different kinds of women and treated them accordingly!" Don't you think it was attitudes like this that helped lead to the sexual revolution -- which I agree was horribly destructive and wrong -- in the first place? Or am I reading too much into one short passage? (In case you wondering, by the way, the post title is a quote from Dorothy Parker. I thought it fit.) |
Comments:
"Virtue" has two meanings in this context, and the sentence from the article uses both:
1. excellence;
2. chastity (as in "a woman of easy...").
That is, a woman exhibits excellence when she recognizes that sex is not merely a physical act with a risk of pregnancy but also an emotional bonding to another person. (How many movies have plots centering around the "one night stand" that meant something deeper to one individual, with tragic results?) A woman exhibits excellence when she sees herself not as an isolated individual making altogether autonomous choices, but as a member of a family (both biological and extended) and a member of society, with public expressions of sexuality affecting both. There is an excellence about the maturity of accepting responsibility for modesty. (Note that men who behave in an immodest and unchaste manner are often insultingly referred to as "adolescents" or "boys".)
So it's not terribly surprising that our culture of delayed maturity is also one of little modesty. It is also consistent with a culture where people do not care about others as much as they might, particularly caring enough (in the sense of the Greek "agape") to suffer enough to be modest for the good of all. (And the suffering, as Gina's "good Christian girls" post points out, is altogether real.)
Mind you, I'm not arguing that women SHOULD be able to commit fornication with impunity! Not in the least. I just want everyone to remember that if it's wrong for one sex, it's wrong for the other.
And getting back to the original article, I have a real problem with the idea that we can lump people into different groups or categories based on which sins they commit.
Dr. Kass may not have meant that. From all I've heard of him, he's a good man and has done good work. But that's how this passage came across to me.
LQ, I was addressing the first sentence of the second paragraph of Gina's quote:
"The supreme virtue of the virtuous woman was modesty, a form of sexual self-control, manifested not only in chastity but in decorous dress and manner, speech and deed, and in reticence in the display of her well-banked affections."
In terms of my first post, I was getting at several things:
- The misogyny of the article, where women are often valued primarily for sex, or women who have careers or wait to have children are looked down upon.
- Society has changed, expectations for marriage and mates have gone up, but most of the women I know who are pursuing careers and relationships are quite happy with the way things are going.
- There will always be some people who have trouble finding mates. Gina recently wrote about modest Christian girls who had trouble finding a husband, these girls aren't very different from the author's picture of lonely, sad, 30-something, immodest women. Except for the "modesty" part.
Chris, I was referring to these snippets from the article:
"Women who get married before the age of 25 make up about 64 percent of all divorces in the U.S. On the other hand, women who get married in their late twenties make up only 16 percent of the divorces. This means that any woman who gets married before she turns 25 is about four times more likely to get a divorce. (Women in their 30s have even better odds of staying married.)"
-- and --
"Couples with higher education and higher income are less likely to have marriage problems. ... But, let’s look at some of the stats related to divorce within the first 10 years of marriage:
-Any amount of college decreases the chance of divorce by 13 percent
-An income over $50,000 decreases the chance of divorce by 30 percent
-Couples with an income under $25,000 have a 50 percent chance of ending up getting divorced."
However, we don't know why these statistics are true, and we have to beware interpreting these correlations as causations. Does making more money or getting more education make married life easier? Or is it that people who value education also value commitment? Or that they get married later, when they're more mature? Or ... (fill in the blank, create-your-own reason that education/money/age and long marriages go together without necessarily causing each other).
Much of the past idea of modesty was honestly more to assure a good resume for the breeding stock then to assure virtue. Men didn't have to be modest as they had to give a show of bravery not a show of chastity. And courtesans certainly didn't have to be modest, although for all I know some thought it better for business to dress as if they were.
Ben wrote, "yet seem to be *more* successful in their marriages because of it." How so? Your stat does little to validate this claim.
"The supreme virtue of the virtuous woman was modesty, a form of sexual self-control, manifested not only in chastity but in decorous dress and manner, speech and deed, and in reticence in the display of her well-banked affections."
Meaning 'modesty' as in its most common usage.
Ben, what do you see as the difference between the definitions of "modesty" and "worth"?
I ask, sincerely, because I'm struck by the word you chose to follow your word "supreme".
I have my own opinion, of course, but I'm trying to be in inverse Foghorn mode for a while.
Ben, I am a student of history. I do assure you that his picture of human nature is harmless and endearing by comparison with reality.
http://divorce.suite101.com/article.cfm/divorce_rates_are_falling_as_couples_marry_later
Of course, said women may or may not be modest, but at the least they fall well outside of the author's idea of marriage and family, yet seem to be *more* successful in their marriages because of it.
Perhaps my experiences are unusual. Most of the girls I knew at Asbury are serious and successful about pursuing careers, even while getting married and starting families. And as chance would have it, I had a conversation on these subjects late last night and into the morning with two female friends here. These girls are unmarried, still somewhat looking, but less willing to "settle" than their forebears of last century, looking for men who want a lifelong companionship, not just sex. That's normal around here: most of the girls I know in graduate school are "immodest" (i.e., sleep with their boyfriends), but they are still generally marriage-oriented - with some good degree of success, too, as I've watched my friends pair off, even though the females plan on pursuing careers.
These days, the supreme virtue of a woman is not her modesty, but her worth as a person and human being. Is she a good person? Good with people, good in relationships, hardworking, intelligent, good with money, and not materialistic? If forced to choose, I'd say that these criteria are much more important than just 'modesty'.
Perhaps fewer people are getting married, not because we've become desensitized to sex or amoral, but because our standards have gone up. Arranged marriages still tend to have greater success than a typical American marriage, but then, I wouldn't trade one of their marriages for mine, as I expect more from my marriage than they do from theirs. And, indeed, my wife is my best friend, my companion, and I certainly didn't marry her for sex, but because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.
And in the midst of all this, we find that good, modest Christian girls are also having trouble finding mates.
When, towards the end of the musical, Eliza Doolittle is confronting Henry Higgins regarding his behavior towards always treating her like gutter-trash. His (pathetic) defense is that he treats everyone that way.
Eliza contrasts him with Col. Pickering, saying "He treated me like a lady before I was" (paraphrased).
I don't think that the problem has really ever been that there are two types of women. I believe the problem is that there are two types of men.
There are those that treat women like ladies. And there are those that treat women like objects. To blame the women is to fall into the same trap that Adam fell into "the woman gave me the fruit."
Saltracer
At any rate, we recently returned from a trip where we visited Craigdarroch Castle, which was built by Robert Dunsmuir for his wife Joan. She was 8 months pregnant when they married in the early 1800s.
To me this, along with reading Shakespeare and Chacuer, suggests that Kass' article includes a bit of exaggerated nostalgia.
However, I read this article almost immediately upon return from our trip. It adds more fuel to the discussion.
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2010/07/a_decline_in_mo.html
It's nothing new by any means. It's just another way of saying "Why buy the cow when milk is cheap?"
I also think he's over-simplifying. Perhaps the biggest reason that respectable women guarded their bodies was that they could become pregnant--a rather obvious indication of sexual activity. Thus they served as a restraint on men's selfish sexual activity.
It all comes down to selfishness. We want what God tells us requires a lifelong commitment.