After that brief interruption for the sake of the Ember Days, we return to Pope Pius XI’s letter on marriage. We are still addressing the second blessing of marriage. The last thing mentioned was the virtue of chastity, which applies even in marriage. Chastity always means self-control so that we can love others as people and not objects. Outside of marriage, this takes the form of physical self-denial, but the aspect of self-control still applies even within marriage. There are many nasty and prejudiced jokes out there about Catholics having large families and how women are treated. These insults include claims of sexism and hypocrisy. There is no doubt that individual Catholics, being human beings, have committed these and other sins, but it is something else entirely to say the Church teaches these behaviors.
The call to chastity within marriage means the couple has a mutual duty to respect each other as persons, not objects. They are also obliged to help each other in gaining control over and properly directing their sexual desires. This includes satisfying those desires – appropriately – but always and only in a way that includes consent and respect. The self-mastery of chastity is also meant to foster a deeper union of the couple that goes beyond the physical. By incorporating self-denial and restraint within marriage, it opens the way to the couple supporting each other in the interior and spiritual life. Indeed, at their deepest source, sexual desires are but shadows and reflections of the much deeper desire for spiritual union. That union is found above all in God but, through the grace of marriage, a couple can foster spiritual union with each other and support each partner’s union with God. The promise of fidelity, blended with chastity, is meant to foster the trust and deep intimacy that this requires.
At this point in the letter, Pope Pius turns to the concept of “subjection” or “submission” (depending on translation) of wife to husband. Scripture mentions this in 1 Peter 3, Colossians 3, and Ephesians 5 and in each case compares the relationship to Christ and the Church. In a culture that stresses being egalitarian, this language of subjection can be hard for us to accept, but the comparison to Christ and the Church is crucial. The Catholic worldview, unlike a secular one, does not think in terms of power struggles. The call to serve and obey is an honor, not an insult. Jesus himself, who is God and the head of the Church, washed the feet of his disciples and only used his authority for the good of others. The Pope doesn’t explain that here, but he does say quite clearly that a wife’s “subjection… does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors.”
The point being made in scripture and by the Church is that a Christian understanding of marriage “forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it 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.” You have may have seen or heard the statement that “if the man is the head, the woman is the heart” in a family. That comes from this letter; Pope Pius XI coined that phrase here. Just consider which one you can life without, head or heart? Obviously, both are necessary, just in different ways. The pope also points out that the practical implications of this “vary according to the different conditions of persons, place and time.” So no, the Church does not teach that a woman’s only place is in the kitchen or that she can’t make any decisions. It teaches that man and woman are different and these differences are complementary. The unique relation between a man and a woman is meant to be a reflection of the mystery of Christ’s love for the Church. That comparison forms the basis of the sacrament, which is the third blessing of marriage according to St. Augustin. We’ll pick up with that concept next time and continue to break open the Church’s teaching on marriage.
– In Christ,
Fr. Albert