Time Immortal

Count Roland writes in with a comment on…this article, I think. It is, as he himself notes, mostly tongue in cheek.

But, O Writer, are you not a patriarchal Christian who follows the misogynist St. Paul’s God given ordinance to demand your wife be your servant as if you were the Lord?* It says it plain as day right there in Ephesians 5:23. Oh, I remember too that the righteous man Lot offered his daughters for rape instead of his male guests. And isn’t this husband, by listening to and helping his wife contravening Paul’s admonition that women are to be silent and listen to their husbands instruction? As a Catholic, how do you work with these texts and the matriarchal reprisals of secular culture? I can’t seem to think of a third way, can you?

One observes in the case of Lot that the angels of God — probably in response to Lot’s unjust action — quickly intervened to ensure that the whole family escaped unscathed. God corrects for when men — even righteous men — go astray, as all men do.

One piece of Scripture that I’ve seen a couple Catholic bloggers mention in response to this article is Proverbs 31:

An excellent wife who can find?

She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.

She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant; she brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night.

She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet.

She makes bed coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them; she delivers sashes to the merchant.

Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.

And indeed, my own thoughts in response to Ephesians is to admonish the person citing just 5:23 for being a narrow-minded fool with no ability to quote Scripture in its proper context. For indeed, if one reads past Ephesians 5:23, one quickly encounters St. Paul’s instructions for men. And indeed, if one considers the cultural context in which Paul was writing, the instructions to men are the more radical. It is not exactly new or novel to suggest to wives in a patriarchal society (such as the society of the Ephesians to whom Paul was writing) that women should be obedient to their husbands. It’s a very novel — indeed, radical — thing to suggest to men in that same society that they must love, in the most absolute and powerful sense, their wives.

And of course, if one reads a little further, Paul gives away the game by admitting that he is merely drawing on the cultural context of the Ephesians in an attempt to give an example of the relationship between Christ and the Church. Although he does end thusly: “however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

How remarkably sexist!

(Actually, in the spirit of keeping one’s tongue firmly in one’s cheek, it would probably be taken as an intensely sexist suggestion if one were to say to the husband-bashing MSNBC columnist that she should respect the husband she has just finished trashing in print.)

As to whether there’s a “third way” about it, I do not know. Mind you, I suppose the question has to be asked: has the Christian way ever really been tried, honestly and in full alignment with the teachings of Christ and His apostles? Methinks the answer may be a resounding “no!”

But why does society seem so binary? science or Religion. Matriarchy or Patriarchy. Conservative or Liberal. Orthodox or Heretic (wait, there are some true binaries…)

Other than the obvious ease of such thinking. I think it is because we have lost the ‘and more’ that faith brings to the union of faith and reason. Reason is ultimately based in logic which, in general, has two truth conditions: T and F. There are logics with more than two truth conditions, but they are out of the experience of all but logicians. positivism reduces reality to the observable and the unobservable, but it tends not to remember that there are things which can be observed which just not have yet been observed and, more importantly, forgotten that the five senses, even with aids, are not necessarily the only modes of touching reality. Hubris, you have called something like this before.

Quite. And indeed, it is hubris.

A binary worldview has its uses, of course — Roland points to the distinction between orthodoxy and heresy, which is certainly binary. Equally, the distinction between right and wrong is, if we are honest, usually “cut and dried.” That does not mean that it is always easy to sort out the heretical from the orthodox, or the wrong from the right…but just because the way is difficult does not mean that there is really only one destination we should end up at if we strive to follow Christ.

*Of course I am facetious in this paragrapch and slightly in the next, but this seems to be a ‘teachable moment’ in which the proper use of Scripture as well as the beauty of recent Papal teaching on the subject of marriage can be explored.

Roland adds this to his email. I hope, to the good Reader, that the disclaimer on his part was not necessary.