Husband talk

I find women differ much, both in the degree and manner in which their feelings will permit them to talk about their husbands. I have known women set a whole community against their husbands by the way in which they trumpeted their praises; and I have known one woman set everybody against herself by the way in which she published her husband's faults. I find it difficult to believe either sort. To praise one's husband is so like praising one's self, that to me it seems immodest, and subject to the same suspicion as self-laudation; while to blame one's husband, even justly and openly, seems to me to border upon treachery itself.

The Vicar's Daughter, George MacDonald

News from 1857

"No priestly pride has ever exceeded that of sacerdotal females."

Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope

JSM

Funny story. John Stuart Mill spends a ton of words arguing against the oppression of women and then comes to this conclusion:

If, in addition to the physical suffering of bearing children, and the whole responsibility of their care and education in early years, the wife undertakes the careful and economical application of the husband's earnings to the general comfort of the family; she takes not only her fair share, but usually the larger share, of the bodily and mental exertion required by their joint existence.

If she undertakes any additional portion, it seldom relieves her from this, but only prevents her from performing it properly.

The care which she is herself disabled from taking of the children and the household, nobody else takes; those of the children who do not die, grow up as they best can, and the management of the household is likely to be so bad, as even in point of economy to be a great drawback from the value of the wife's earnings.

In an otherwise just state of things, it is not, therefore, I think, a desirable custom, that the wife should contribute by her labour to the income of the family. In an unjust state of things, her doing so may be useful to her, by making her of more value in the eyes of the man who is legally her master; but, on the other hand, it enables him still farther to abuse his power, by forcing her to work, and leaving the support of the family to her exertions, while he spends most of his time in drinking and idleness. 

John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

(Spaces added to help me read the whole thing. And one more funnyism from the same essay: The greater part of what women write about women is mere sycophancy to men. Busted.)

Peter and Joan

They were the happiest couple in that country, because

they always understood each other, and that was because

they always meant the same thing, and that was because

they always loved what was fair and true and right better,

not than anything else,

but than everything else put together.



George MacDonald, The Princess and Curdie

Here again, why we should promote motherhood

That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago, was certainly not the last of her kind. Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion. With dim lights and tangled circumstances they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul.

Middlemarch, George Eliot

The good old days

Father Beisel reminds us that our great-grandparents probably knew what they were doing, even when it came to order in the pews.

I'm sorry if you misunderstood how I was trying to offend you

I forget nearly everything I read on the internet, but I haven't forgotten this item on apologies from Simcha Fisher, which means I'd probably better post it:

The personal apology for the bogus offense that causes phony pain.  This is by far the biggest category of offenses that I putatively cause, and I refuse to apologize for them.  When people are offended: 

-Because I was writing “My Ideas About Subject Y” and failed to include a large passage about Subject Q; 

-Because I’m writing about my personal experience, but the reader’s personal experience was different—DIFFERENT, I TELL YOU; 

-Because they just flat out didn’t read carefully, and either missed the point entirely, missed a key paragraph, or somehow read some invisible paragraph that I didn’t actually write, but which was apparently chock full of offensive statements; or 

-Because they think “charity” means “liking everything all the time.” 

I generally don’t even bother to respond to this kind of thing.  I work hard at saying exactly what I mean, and don’t have the responsibility to say things twice to people who aren’t listening anyway.  Apologizing to people who haven’t actually been injured is like giving someone candy to make their tummy ache go away:  it just makes things worse.

Thanks, Simcha. I hope we run into each other in real life sometime because I know it never works out between Lutherans and Pope-types online.

Invoke a bit

A Christian lives his days with Christ and in contemplation of Him.

His days pass in remembering the sufferings of Jesus. When the clock strikes eleven, he knows that the bells are ringing in the noon hour of his Redeemer, when thick darkness overshadowed him. In the afternoon at three o'clock, he breathes a grateful prayer of joy, for the Lord has finished. Every stroke of the clock calls upon him to consider what Christ did and suffered in that hour.

Seed-Grains of Prayer, Wilhelm Loehe

Fight hideous poverty

A clenched fist may be able to retain whatever is in its grasp, but it can never receive anything more. So too a clenched heart, but worse: the damp darkness of the tight-clenched heart will begin to fester.

I am so glad that Gauntlets pointed out Rev. Scott Murray's Memorial Moment awhile back. Such a worthy addition to my inbox (when I, um, get to it. Sigh).

Here's part of what he wrote about marriage yesterday:

Yes, marriage is a messy business. It is fraught with difficulties, sick children, worry about money, dirty diapers, and frightful disagreements. But marriage enables us to get out of ourselves and seek meaning in the other.

….Marriage isn't for everyone, but everyone ought to be for marriage. There is no way to be in true relationship with another apart from the sacrifice of self. And the more we give of ourselves the more we will have of ourselves. The more we hold back of ourselves the less we will have. What a hideous poverty resides in the heart of those who will not give themselves for the other.

Here we find just a hint of what it means to be truly human in the world created by the God who molds man out of the dust of the earth. We are to find our ultimate meaning not in ourselves, but in the other. The relationship of man and woman points to the relationship of the Bridegroom, Christ, with His bride, the church. Man and woman were not created to be alone, but to be in union with one another and with their God.

From Father Gunnulf

. . . a terrible temptation came over me. I thought about the way the Savior had hung nailed to the cross all those hours. But his disciples suffered inexpressible torments for many days . . . . Then it occurred to me that many of these people had suffered more than Christ himself.

I pondered this until I felt that my heart and mind would burst. But finally I received the light that I had prayed and begged for. And I realized that just as they had suffered, so should we all have the courage to suffer. Who would be so foolish not to accept pain and torment if this was the way to a faithful and steadfast bridegroom who waits with open arms, his breast bloody and burning with love.

The Wife (Kristin Lavransdatter), Sigrid Undset

Thanks for nothing

From The Lost Art of Self-Preservation (for Women):

What feminists do not acknowledge (but do know) about the work/motherhood dilemma is that it's not really much of a dilemma.  If you screw up at work, you will be fired.  To be fired from motherhood, you have to fail spectacularly and repeatedly, and this failure will have to be noticed and documented by teachers, social workers, police officers, and judges.  Therefore, work will always come first because the pushback for failure will be harder and more immediate from a boss.  To a child, "normal" will be what Mommy creates for her, even if that's neglect, abuse, chronic selfishness or the less malign flakiness.   

What irritates me most about these sorts of articles is the idea that women must jump on the 7-7 treadmill for the betterment of the child, for the fulfillment of the mother.  The majority of women out there working aren't doing so because they love it or because it's making their lives richer.  They're doing it because they need the money to pay for food and rent.  Their jobs aren't glamorous and never will be.  They're trapped because of the economy, because of divorce or single motherhood, or because of outstanding student loans.  And there is no "work/life" balance.  There is only work and then whatever you can get done after work - the same grind people had before the period of the mid-twentieth century American prosperity. 

Emphasis mine. Full post here.

Kyrie, eleison

Touchstone calls it like it sees it in this month's issue. Please read what is available online, when you have the time. And this, by way of a teaser:

Christians are not the only ones in a position to understand what Augustine and Leo XIII and Paul VI understood—that marriage resides at the very foundation of culture. They are not the only ones who have reason to be concerned about the bastardization of the citizenry through same-sex marriage, or about the Kulturkampf that threatens to leave behind it a moral wasteland blanketed by impenetrable judicial thickets. They are not the only ones capable of standing for freedom. Christians may, however, be the only ones capable of standing against contraception, which is their particular duty.

Douglas Farrow, "Why Fight Same-Sex Marriage?," Touchstone Jan/Feb 2012

Old Possum explains it all

"People can be persuaded to desire almost anything, for a time, if they are constantly told that it is something to which they are entitled and which is unjustly withheld from them."

T.S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture, "Notes towards the Definition of Culture"

Funny you've likely already seen, recommended

If you haven't used up all your YouTube time today, spend it on The Lutheran Satire channel. You won't be sorry.

The wrong sort

"The wrong sort believe that children are 'a distinct race.' They carefully 'make up' the tastes of these odd creatures--like an anthropologist observing the habits of a savage tribe--or even the tastes of a clearly defined age-group within a particular social class within the 'distinct race.' They dish up not what they like themselves but what that race is supposed to like."

C.S. Lewis, "On Juvenile Tastes"

Beauty is truth, truth beauty . . . and they never need to know.

For the times they didn't really change that much at all

Susan Fenimore Cooper, daughter of James and an accomplished author in her own right, whispers this bit of sanity to those who would hear:

"A word more on the subject of home life, as one in which the interests of the whole sex are most closely involved. It is clear that those interests are manifold, highly important to the welfare of the race, unceasing in their recurrence, urgent and imperative in their nature, requiring for their successful development such devotion of time, labor, strength, thought, feeling, that they must necessarily leave but little leisure to the person who faithfully discharges them. The comfort, health, peace, temper, recreation, general welfare, intellectual, moral, and religious training of a family make up, indeed, a charge of the very highest dignity, and one which must tax to the utmost every faculty of the individual to whom it is entrusted. The commander of a regiment at the head of his men, the member of Congress in his seat, the judge on his bench, scarcely holds a position so important, so truly honorable, as that of the intelligent, devoted, faithful American wife and mother, wisely governing her household. And what are the interests of the merchant, the manufacturer, the banker, the broker, the speculator, the selfish politician, when compared with those confided to the Christian wife and mother? They are too often simply contemptible--a wretched, feverish, maddening struggle to pile up lucre, which is any thing but clean. Where is the superior merit of such a life, that we should hanker after it, when placed beside that of the loving, unselfish, Christian wife and mother--the wife, standing at her husband's side, to cheer, to aid, to strengthen, to console, to counsel, amidst the trials of life; the mother, patiently, painfully, and prayerfully cultivating every higher faculty of her children for worthy action through time and eternity?"

While Miss Cooper's handling of the subject hits rather bluntly upon our modern sensibilities, her essay, Female Suffrage: A Letter to the Christian Women of America, is worth a perusal. Find it here.

Old Possum on family

Now the family is an institution of which nearly everybody speaks well: but it is advisable to remember that this is a term that may vary in its extension. In the present age it means little more than the living members. Even of living members, it is a rare exception when an advertisement depicts a large family or three generations: the usual family on the hoardings consists of two parents and one or two young children. What is held up for admiration is not devotion to a family, but personal affection between the members of it: and the smaller the family, the more easily can this personal affection be sentimentalised. But when I speak of the family, I have in mind a bond which embraces a longer period of time than this: a piety towards the dead, however obscure, and a solicitude for the unborn, however remote. Unless this reverence for past and future is cultivated in the home, it can never be more than a verbal convention in the community.

T.S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture

Wolfish wifehood

Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it.

G.K Chesterton, "The Emancipation of Domesticity," Brave New Family

Rules

They nibble at it with negative criticism; they chip pieces off it and exhibit them as specimens, called "hard cases"; they treat every example of the rule as an exception to the rule, but they never look at the rule.

G.K. Chesterton, "Marriage and the Modern Mind," Brave New Family

For naptime or bedtime

No particular reason; just that it's one of the most fascinating articles I've ever read.

A New Way to Be Mad