The Wrongs of Women’s Rights
The recent decision to deploy women on submarines has been hailed as a victory in the continuing struggle to liberate women from the oppression of the domineering male sex. Conservatives have generally deplored the move, citing the inevitable sexual tensions and lowering of morale that will result from putting young males and females in such close quarters for long periods of time. (And, think of all those poor male homosexuals who find the submarine service so attractive because of the lack of female competition!). Some conservatives even go so far as to declare their opposition to women serving in any military capacity, but they are a species on the endangered list: Even the great nemesis of women in uniform, James Webb, has backed off, proving once again, that no honest man can be a US senator.
What almost no decent conservative is willing to revive is the old argument that differences between men and women should be reflected in legal, social, and economic structures that encourage women to pursue their traditional role as wives and mothers under the protection and authority of the senior men in their life: fathers, husbands, or guardians. There is, it is true, a "men's movement," consisting mostly of disgruntled peripheral males who are forever whining about their manhood. But if we set such marginalized creatures aside, we can safely conclude that there are few defenders of what feminists like to call "the patriarchy." Even conservative Republicans have largely adopted the feminist myth that one of the triumphs of civilization has been the liberation of women that has taken place in the past, roughly 150 years.
The "patriarchalist" counter-argument, which I have been making for over 30 years, denies the so-called facts in the case. Traditional sex roles, they say, are a function of natural differences—physical, emotional, intellectual—between the sexes. The authority of senior males over a woman is, then, a natural means of protecting her in her role as wife and mother, a role essential for the bearing and rearing of the next generation, which is, after all, the primary duty of each generation. To speak of the oppression of women is like speaking of the oppression of men whom gravity prevents from flying.
When we say that an institution or custom is "natural" (as I have indicated earlier), we mean that it is a response—sometimes quite imperfect—to natural needs. To determine the naturalness of an institution, we look first for a biological basis and then try to establish a base line by making a broad cross-cultural examination. Finally, since there can be quite a wild variation in cultural forms, we should look most closely at the highest traditions to which we are heirs—Christian, Greek, Roman, Medieval. If we determined that the subordination of women was natural, it would not follow that we should approve of clitorectomies, foot-binding, or brutality.
Then, in talking about the "liberation" of women, we shall have to be very careful about what we mean. Many people speak of women's suffrage as a large part of the liberation movement, but the right to vote is clearly irrelevant. A French resident-alien female here in the United States cannot legally vote, but she is possessed of nearly every other civil and social right the feminist revolution has dreamed up. To make the discussion very precise, let us speak only of the liberation of married women from their husbands and look most carefully at the Anglo-American tradition.
But before beginning such an inquiry, we should also make up our minds about corporal punishment within the home. Do we think it is never to be permitted? (If so, on what grounds.) Is it permitted against children but not women? Are there limits that have been observed among civilized peoples? The most extreme case is killing an adulterous wife and/or her lover for honor. This was permitted in Italy and in several American states down into the second half of the 20th century. Are Italians and Texans simply brutes or are such customs—extremely common both in our own and in other traditions—a reasonable response under certain circumstances.
In any such discussion, we must set aside irrational convictions and all the misinformation we may have picked up in school or in popular books on either side, whether the pro-feminist inventions of modern social historians like Lawrence Stone or the simian fantasies of Lionel Tiger, followed by George Gilder.
Then let us start with some very simple propositions. To make the task easier I am going to insert a brief overview that summarizes my earlier work as a preparation for a discussion of the revolutions in English and American law that took place in the past 150 years:
"Feminists, looking back at the traditional sex roles of 19th and 20th century Europe and the Americas, have often written sneeringly of “the patriarchy,” as if the insertion of the definite article confers an academic anathema upon the word. Anti-feminists have responded by explicitly defending patriarchy or by discussing male dominance in terms of the rigid hierarchy of baboons. But human social life has little in common with that of the boorish baboon, and “patriarchy,” as the word suggests,[ refers properly not to the virtually universal human tendency toward male dominance but to societies in which the fathers and senior males rule over the family and tribal structure with sovereign authority.
Our image of patriarchy inevitably comes from Old Testament patriarchs like Abraham and Jacob, who exercised a regal authority over their wives, children, and extended kinfolk. This pattern of authority is not uncommon among other pastoral peoples, but, as societies grow and develop greater complexity, much of this authority is transferred to chieftains, kings, and representative bodies. Nonetheless, in every known society, men have occupied and continue to occupy most of the highest niches of power and prestige.
Why is this so? Anyone who has taken a look, however brief, at his fellow human beings, will have noticed that members of the male sex tend to be bigger and stronger than their nearest female relatives. The difference--on an order of roughly 10%--is not so great as in some species, but it is enough to ensure that most men can physically dominate most women. This disparity is partly a function of inherent physical differences but even more of the different roles played by men and women in society. Most women in history have had to spend a good deal of their time and energy on bearing and rearing children. In primitive societies, this burden, though it might be shared with female relatives, was a good deal heavier than it is in an era of daycare and electrical appliances.
Social roles are not, however, the whole story. Organized women’s athletics are, for the most part, a recent development, but they have existed long enough and, in recent decades, with a good deal of government encouragement without really eliminating the gap between the sexes. Even today women do not often compete with men in aggressive male sports such as boxing and football, and even in sprinting men maintain a significant advantage. The fastest official score for a man running 100 meters is Usain Bolt’s 9.58 seconds, about 9% faster than Florence Joyner’s record 10.48, about which questions have been raised. At the 2008 Olympics, gold medal winner Shelly-Ann Frazier’s 10.78 seconds was beaten by the number 8 male runner’s 10.00. We can begin to believe in sexual equality in the physical sense when there is no sexual distinction in sports, that is, when men and women compete in the same leagues.
It is only natural to assume—and scientific research has gone a long way to verify this assumption—that in the evolution of mammalian, specifically primate species, males and females developed specialized roles: Men became the experts in hunting large game and fighting the enemies of family and clan. Because these specialties are associated with certain attributes of mind and spirit as well as with bodily functions, the nervous and hormonal systems of males and females develop somewhat differently. The differences, in any individual cases, may be quite slight, but overall women are more verbal, men more analytical, women more inclined to what is now called “multi-tasking,” men more prone to concentrating on problems one at a time. For a detailed survey of evidence down to the early 1980's, see my book, The Politics of Human Nature. As human societies have grown and developed—often in strange and wonderful ways--they have always been shaped by these fundamental facts of sexual dimorphism. In a near-universal pattern of dominance, younger humans defer to their elders and females to males.
But, given the creativity of the human race, the type and extent of that power varies greatly, from the easily familiarity of pygmy husbands and wives to the rigidity of Chinese men who (down into the early 20th century) bound women’s feet to make them more dependent. Then we have to distinguish between the basic principle, the sexual differentiation of political power, and, for example, the family practices of nomadic shepherds. Wherever our search may lead us, it will not be toward the reestablishment of a patriarchal theonomy based on Old Testament law.
It is dangerous to speak too broadly, but, in general, sexual distinctions have been more marked in developed civilizations than in primitive societies. At the same time, the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome--and of Medieval Europe—developed traditions and rules that required respect for mothers and wives, sisters and daughters. Men controlled the government and the army, dominated the economy, and occupied most of the high status positions. Women who inherited power were often regarded, fairly or not, as weak rulers, and both the woman pharaoh Hatshepsut and Queen Elizabeth I were sometimes portrayed or described in terms that hinted at masculinity. Nonetheless, while men may have ruled (theoretically) their children as absolute monarchs, their authority over wives was, as Aristotle says, political rather than monarchical in the sense that it was limited by law, custom, and respect.
Ancient civilizations, as they developed more complex social, political, and liberal systems, increasingly took steps to protect wives from abusive husbands. The institutions of power were, nonetheless, dominated by men. This domination did not reduce women to slaves or chattel or even to the level of dependent children. While Athenian women were generally subject to the authority of a father, husband, or guardian, some of them were involved in commerce. Roman women were much freer to engage in business and to evade the control of a guardian. They could not, however, engage in public (that is, most legal and political) business, which must have restricted their sphere of operations. Nonetheless, Roman women had greater economic opportunities and a wider sphere of liberty than most European and American women had down to the late 19th century."
So, to conclude this introductory argument, distinct sex roles are more or less universal in human societies and a natural adaptation of the human species to the needs of propagation and social order. Natural tendencies, however, can find almost infinite types of expression. Higher civilizations, while continuing to protect women, have also found ways of accommodating the needs of complex societies, for example by finding the ways of establishing contract rights for married women engaged in business. What the feminist movement has done is to destroy the institutional framework of marriage and society and reduced many men and women to a form of social organization more typical of non-human primates than of even the most primitive human societies.
More to come...
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I am reminded of Der Spiegel's recent article on income inequality between males and females.
Germany had the greatest inequality, it lamented, while Romania and Latvia had almost none.
Thus I did wonder how they could suggest Romania and Latvia could be models for Germany. Could it be that more women working for longer hours is a sign of poverty, while the contrast of bourgeois life of Germans is more a sign of stability and less uncertainty in households and families about the future? Not an easy question to answer, but that's more or less hinted to be the case by people who have researched gender differences in work and pay, like Thomas Sowell.
It might be that the feminist response is a natural response to the challenge of reevaluating social roles in an evolving economy where man's natural strengths no longer appear to provide significant advantage. One example would be social discouragement of violent efforts in defense of personal interests. Physical confrontation and retaliation are uncommon now in respectable circles, where in previous decades the failure to defend honor and family through violent means would be considered less than virtuous. Violence appears to be almost exclusively the province of military and police authority, as well as certain sectors of the underclass.
Another example might be increased economic dependence on classes of machinery that are no longer accessible to any but the most highly trained technical personnel. Problem solving creativity has always been expensive in the workplace, so producers are inclined to design each manufacturing process to reduce their need for this skill. If something breaks, the solution choice is often to either replace the device, or consult technical personnel staffing call centers in Mr. Sanjay's homeland.
Dr Fleming, you've mentioned your displeasure of the so called 'men's rights' movement in several older issues of Chronicles I have acquired as well as above, but only in passing. Setting aside for a moment their use of 'rights' which you rightly disdain, what is the trouble with one casting their lot with such a group? From my limited reading of them, it sounded like they were setting themselves up as a new victim class in much the same fashion as many white nationalists do. But I am interested in hearing your take, lest I divert the conversation too far off course.
The most extreme case is killing an adulterous wife and/or her lover for honor. This was permitted in Italy and in several American states down into the second half of the 20th century. Are Italians and Texans simply brutes or are such customs—extremely common both in our own and in other traditions—a reasonable response under certain circumstances.
Please explain why killing a wife is a reasonable response under certain circumstances. And why should wife-beating be acceptable? Is this condoned in the Bible? Is killing a wife a right of a husband? And why should customs that are extremely common be acceptable.
@4: Lou (and not a few other responders), you need to take some basic lessons in reading. Restrain your knee jerks long enough to read thoroughly and think about what the author is saying. Perhaps, you are young; then you need to learn a bit of respect, especially when you are pouncing on a writer as careful as Dr. Fleming. If you are not young, you are being foolishly quick and careless. I know, I was like you not that long ago. And though I was taught respect and restaint in some degree from my childhood, I shed a good bit of it as I learned from college professors, the media and every other modern celebrity (including some "preachers") how to be assertive, arrogant and rude.
When I said "and not a few other responders" I was not referring to responders of this specific post, but to all posts on this site.
In reading and responding, I think a few conservative virtues are in called for, namely: paying attention to and respecting others, thoughtfulness, and self-control (i.e. a little justice, prudence and temperance).
It is all about stake. Men used to have an equal stake in society. Thanks to feminism men now have an inferior stake in society. Women now have superior rights in society and inferior responsibilities.
Since you're talking about the military, lets talk about that. There should be a unitary physical standard for men and women for admission to the military. There are too many women in the military who don't have the physical strength to do the job. Anyone who doesn't have the physical strength to overpower a man who is 6 feet tall and stick a knife in his heart shouldn't be in the military. If that man is trying to shoot you, you'll have no problem with this.
Women should be serving in all roles in the military, including combat. Anyone who is weak shouldn't be in the military.
Also, women must be required to register for the draft. Equal rights, Equal responsibilities, No excuses.
Nigh on to twenty years ago, here in the Red River Valley, a man killed his daughter's husband. The husband was very abusive, such that she had had to be hospitalized several times. Finally, she fled with the child of the marriage to her parents' home. The husband came after her. The husband got out of his pickup and marched with determination, so the testamentary went, toward the house. The father of the young lady came out with a large caliber semi-automatic and emptied its contents into the husband, killing him instantly.
The case went to trial on murder one because there was obvious intent. The husband was not armed although he had a weapon in his truck.
The jury found the man guilty. The judge overturned the jury verdict, declaring the man not guilty, stating, as I was told, that the positive law of Louisiana could not supersede a father's duty to protect his daughter.
There were those who wanted the judge taken off the bench and even disbarred. Others merely thought that it was ghastly that a murderer, the circumstances not withstanding, would be set free with a bench "not guilt." Some agreed with the judge.
At the time, I was compelled to work with a group of feminists. I'll call them Kate Chopin girls because Kate was a local feminist hero (cannot use "heroine"!). They were outraged that the judge had more than implied by his judgment that the father had some authority of morality and tradition over the young lady. Her protector against her "evil" husband was the state, a state which had already fumbled with a series of injunctions and peace bonds against the man, with the likely end being the woman's death.
Now, had the young woman killed the husband, I am betting that the same Kate Chopin girls would have been on her side. The father's action, however, ended her terror, kept her from having to contemplate divorcing her husband and the father of her child, and removed from her any contemplation of herself needing to murder him. That is what, among other things, daddies are far.
Mr. Sanjay: It could be that Germany today is a society of high-paid male engineers and mechanics, as shown by their globe-dominating auto industry. Whereas Latvia and Romania are way behind in those areas. And, as part of their communist inheritance, Romania and Latvia high death rates, especially for males. Many talented men there don't live long enough to make high salaries. Life expectancy:
USA 76 years for men - 81 for women (5-year difference)
Germany 76 - 82 (6)
Romania 69 - 76 (7)
Latvia 67 - 78(11)
And that means a lot of talented men, who might have earned decent wages, died in Latvia and Romania at age 55; where they would have lived in the USA or Germany.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
One reason women are allowed on subs, and in the military generally, is that America is now so safe it faces no real military threat. Despite the GWOT (Global War on Terror), which properly seen ought to be a police action, not a war. Likewise with the invasion of our borders by immigrants; it's another police action that ought to be handled by border patrols, not the 82 Airborne. There is no *existential* military threat to our existence, so the military now is primarily the largest social program.
I am pleased to see Tom Fleming initiate this conversation. It is one of the most misunderstood topics of our times. The liberal arts departments at practically all of our universities have been flooded with Feminists who teach only the Marxist view of women and men. It is normally placed on the mere economic level in terms of applying class conflict models to the fundamental reality of being a man or a woman. --- women can work just as easily as men can work, therefore women should work. As the GOP often says about elections, it is all about Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.!! Or as Bill Clinton famously stated our cultural decadence, "It's the economy stupids."
As Josef Pieper observed in his essay on art and contemplation, "Only The Lover Sings,": Man's ability to see is in decline. Although modern man's restlessness and stress, his total absorption and enslavement to practical goals and purposes certainly contributes to this disability; the average person of our time loses his ability to see because there is too much to see."
There is no way in the current climate that the subtle potentialities of women can be developed to the point of recognition. Her mysterious powers of persuation by seduction instead of force, or her natural propensity to the contemplative aspects of civility can simply not compete with the diminished eroticism of Hooters, Vogue magazine, Bitch Buiness Woman and all the rest.
Again Josef Pieper:" The ancient sages knew why the concupiscense of the eyes was a'destroyer'. The restoration of man's ability to see (This refers to both men and women's ability to see for those dear readers whose imagination and minds have been poisoned by the marxist cultural indoctrination from which we are all now suffering) Man (again this means both men and women for you cultural marxist)can hardly be expected in this day and age to see again with his inner eye (or intellect --the ability to know-- in the ancient understanding) unless one were willing and determined to exclude from one's realm of life all those inane, contrived but titillating illusions incessantly thrown at us by the entertainment industry."
Or as D. H Lawrence put it "It is the obvious things we can no longer see. Whatever else the sun is, it is not just a ball of flaming gases." For most of us the sun remains both obvious and obscure just like the once obvious differences between a man and a woman that the marxists have managed to obscure
through their long march in the form of " the feminist movement" ---to the detriment of almost all american men and women.
It takes a certain amount of courage to even suggest this topic but whatever words one might use to describe Dr. Fleming, coward, is not one of them.
This should be fascinating. The family laws of our poor, benighted ancestors are rarely explained (much less defended!) by the current legal establishment.
I once had a con law professor lead a discussion on women in the military. One student, whose heart was in the right place, tried to argue that women shouldn't be in combat because they have their period and it would be unsanitary. The class erupted in laughter, showing how silly and ineffective conservatives look when they try to use liberal/utilitarian logic to justify their conservative instincts. He should have just come out and said that men are supposed to protect women from violence so they can raise the next generation.
Women sailors on Navy submarines is breathtaking idiocy. It could only have happened under a liberal administration.
Dr. Fleming, thank you so much for posting such an insightful article. I myself am especially disturbed by the rise under John Paul II of "Christian Feminism." In The Theology of the Body JPII makes a somewhat surprising interpretation of St. Paul's writings on wifely submission. And in one of JPII's encyclicals, he specifically calls for a "new feminism."
These teachings have been taken up by numerous (mostly female) Catholic authors who -- although they acknowledge the fact that women and men are fundamentally different with complementary roles and value the vocation of motherhood -- in practice, basically conclude that the only area in which secular feminism is wrong is in its promotion of contraception, abortion and sexual relations outside of marriage. (Of course, I suspect they would claim that I'm misinterpreting them.)
So for all their willingness to praise those who choose the role of the traditional housewife, I can't shake the feeling that the resultant "Christian feminist" ideal winds up being something along the lines of Sarah Palin -- a woman who (allegedly) can have it all, career and family too.
Your thoughts on this phenomenon within the Church would be greatly appreciated.
Several important questions have been raised, and I shall devote future posts to them, including the Catholic Church's position and honor killing and the evolution of feminism as a response to changing economic and social conditions. Mr. Templeton raised this last question, and although I will reserve a compete answer for later time, I can say, initially, that in a general way the legal and social systems of civilized peoples are flexible and do change to accommodate new needs. In early America, for example, men were often away from their businesses for extended periods of time during which their wives exercised, by a variety of legal fictions, power of attorney. A similar development took place in England, though on more formal terms.
But feminism has nothing to do with constructive responses to changing social necessities any more than Marxism is a constructive response to the impoverishment of the workers. As Mallock so brilliantly analyzed it, over a hundred years ago, Marxists were primarily aiming at seizing power and ruling without restraint--he saw this before Marxists took power anywhere. So, then, what is the real agenda of feminism? One item comes out very clearly in the Enlightenment, if not before: men and women, they argued, should have the right to divorce because it is slavery to have to live with an unloved or undesired spouse. Underneath this argument is a very basic desire, which is sexual license, and sexual license requires the destruction of Christianity except as a mere belief. The Christianity that guided the lives of Catholic France, Anglican England, or Calvinist Scotland was the great stumbling block. Aldous Huxley made a similar argument later in life and so did one of Heffner's collaborators, who in a book about the sexual revolution said that pornography and feminism went hand in hand in exposing women to sexual predation. Interestingly, Fitzjames Stephen, the semi-repentant liberal utilitarian, saw the implications of his hero's (JS Mill's) support for women's liberation, that it would lead to the sexual exploitation of women. I can expand on any of these points in response to queries but do not wish to weary you all with too much detail. I have a board meeting to attend the next two days as well as another, graver matter that may prevent me from being as responsive as I like.
Chesterbelloc's final comment, for me at least, is a perfect example of the use of Ockham's Razor. Perhaps his classmate was either too ignorant or-worse-too fearful to wield it.
I realize that my response is a bit incoherent. What I intended to say is that we should distinguish between the practical consequences of social change--for example, young girls becoming teachers on the prairie because no men were available--and the feminist ideology which is as anti-woman as it is anti-man. It is also important to note that it was male politicians and judges, not women, who liberated married women from their husbands.
A number of mens-movement types have written in, though their comments are in moderation and will not be posted until I have the time to sift through them. The basic argument is that males should recognize they are at war with women, and that social conservatives--whatever that means in this context--are as much part of the problem as feminists. (By the way, they make the case against the mens movement better than I could ever do.) A milder argument is that we should now enforce real equality, by making women adhere to the same physical standards in the military. I understand their frustration and naturally concede the point, but the larger point escapes them: That it is a man's duty to protect his women and no matter how much the character of American women has been ruined by schools and legislation--authored by men--our duty does not change. While I would not take this gallantry to the suicidal point that Waugh's Tony Last does, the basic MM argument only makes matters worse. If a few men started acting like men--as opposed to whiny brats--they might get a response from some women. Remember the old woman's advice from Nietzsche? Goest thou to woman, do not forget to take thy whip. While I do not advocate corporal punishment--far from it--I do recommend virility.
Neil Templeton stated: "Violence appears to be almost exclusively the province of military and police authority, as well as certain sectors of the underclass."
This is a vital point, and highly lamentable. Your words immediately reminded me of the phrase "monopoly on force", though I couldn't remember where I'd read it. A cursory search shows me that this coinage is often attributed to Max Weber, who seems to endorse a state monopoly on violence as a laudable thing. What amazes me is the near universality of cooperation, even among American males (maybe especially among us), with the idea that the only legitimate use of force belongs to the state. Whenever I discuss the Second Amendment with friends, none of them seems to understand the point of it, namely for citizens to be able to protect themselves from an intrusive government. Indeed, my friends, even the self-styled conservatives, seem to think that relinquishing violence (even in self-defense of property or family) has been a natural and noble development in Western civilization. This ties in with Mr. Templeton's comments about virtue and honor. I wonder how many American men today possess the physical courage that might be required to defend not only the physical safety, but also the honor, of their wives and daughters? As a husband, I must confess I'm not sure I know myself what the true Christian response ought to be to an insult to my wife. Am I required, as a Christian, to overlook insulting comments or gestures toward my wife when I learn of them? To bear with them simply because that is both the drift of the culture and the spirit of the law? In the recent past, especially in the South, I get the impression from Mr. Peters' anecdote above that males were not so unclear on these issues as my peers and I are today.
Dr Fleming wrote about physical violence to women and children. I asked that he elucidate his comments. Furthermore, since Dr Fleming posted the comment, he knew he would be asked to explain himself. From what I have read on this website, Dr Fleming appears to be a man with strong convictions, but, if I read him right, he is neither an ideologue nor a hypocrite. It is quite refreshing reading what he has to say whether I will end up agreeing with him or not.
Mr Wihowski, with all due respect, I feel no animosity towards anyone. I am looking for clarifications: what is true, what is hype, what is nonsense. I believe the points I raise are valid. However, if my writing has offended anyone, my apologies. That is and was never my intention.
Dr. Fleming, this simple query will probably require a single-sentence response.
Is feminism mainly meant to attack Christianity, through the means of sexual license? Or is it mainly meant to achieve sexual license, through the means of cutting a road through Christianity?
I asked, because Pulitzer Prize winner Connie Schultz considers herself both Christian and feminist.
There is a kind of system at work. As we deprive responsible people of their traditional authorities and responsibilities--caring for and educating and disicplining children, for example--we then transfer that authority to not always reliable officers of the state--teachers, social workers, and policemen, but there is an underclass that for reasons good and ill refuses to comply. Thus they may be ignorant religious fanatics who think they are fit to educate, punish, and prescribe medical treatment to their children or ghetto rats who life off welfare, prostitute their women, and use violence as the first rather than ultimate response.
What I would like to hear from Lou and other skeptics is their response to the overall approach I have taken. Do they agree that we should seek norms for human behavior in the facts given to us by biology, anthropology, and history, or is there some other approach? If they want another approach, what is it?
I may think I am Napoleon but I would not be surprised if no one believed my claim--or Ms Schultz,wh holds a degree in journalism (which should exclude her from all claims to be an educated or honest person) and professes friendship with a United Church of Christ (Obama's "church") pastor. (This much I gleaned from the Google). She is a leftwing Democrat married to a Democratic senator. What is the likelihood of her knowing what Christianity is, much less being a Christian? I'm giving 50 to one against, and you'd be a fool to take the offer.
Christianity was under attack on several fronts, by those who preached pure rationality and excluded all supra-rational religious faith, by neo-pagans, and by sexual liberationists. Most of these people fall into at least two classes: Descartes,for example, was a pure reason guy who nonetheless believed in the Rosicrucian fantasty. Voltaire and Franklin believed in pure reason but were also a freemasons--meaning they accepted a good deal of mystical mumbo-jumbo--and chased women for sport. Feminism, as much as Marxism and libertarianism, is not compatible at any level with Christianity.
I am delighted to see that you have finally come around to my views, Dr. Fleming. I always had faith in you.
I dont see how one can seriously claim to be a 'Christian' feminist. As Dr Fleming observed a few years ago, that is like saying one can be a Christian pornographer or a Christian murderer.
Dr Fleming, so then you believe that feminism and the so called liberation of women is a fraud? That its been done so a few alpha males can control their own private harems of women? If thats true, it seems alot of regular or 'beta' men get the short end of the stick out of such a deal - family court law, domestic violence laws, etc. I see your point but I havent come around to it yet, I would need further convincing.
@Lou, 25 September, writes:
Please explain why killing a wife is a reasonable response under certain circumstances. And why should wife-beating be acceptable? Is this condoned in the Bible? Is killing a wife a right of a husband? And why should customs that are extremely common be acceptable.
The article "On Dueling, Divorce, and Red Indians", Chronicles, March, 2010, by Father Hugh Barbour, touched on the vital importance of a man's honor in the context of dueling. Read it and your attitude toward honor, among other things, may become less scornful. What he says about the illusion of moral progress is also pertinent to your claims for the superiority of the feminist regime we have been suffering under for the past four decades.
After quoting from an 1861 letter by the first Roman Catholic archbishop of the state of California, condemning dueling, in which the archbishop derisively compares dueling to the activities of "the red men of the forest", Fr. Barbour comments:
"In place of the traditional argument is an argument from urbanity. Here we are confronted with an instructive example of what becomes progressively more common as a justification for Christian morality: the superior culture of modern men versus that of the savage, an argument from moral progress instead of a rational judgment of the injustice endured and the legitimate means to overcome it. This is a rhetorical argument—not a presentation of the principles of natural law, but an appeal to human respect.
Family feeling, far from being violated by the duel, is precisely what justifies the duel in a man’s mind in the first place—a sense of identity and manly dignity that must be defended as a possession more valuable than life, just as a woman may kill a man seeking to violate her, even though such a violation would not take her life."
Fr. Barbour goes on to quote "the greatest of practical moralists", St. Alphonsus, who
"did not regard certain extenuating reasons for dueling as morally improbable—for example, a loss of honor before one’s military peers sufficient to ruin one’s livelihood—until Pope Benedict XIV forbade any dueling under any circumstances whatsoever. A sense of honor based on a man’s name, or title, or profession, or even his physical strength has a very sound natural foundation, and this foundation ultimately is based on his family, present or future. This is something that civilized Christians may have in common with savages, and without which they may become inferior to them.
In the light of these arguments and observations, it is perhaps not so easy to condemn as purely evil men in the pre-birth control, pre-sexual revolution, pre-no fault divorce era who believed they had to beat the disobedient, and, if the worst happened anyway, no choice but to kill, the adulterous wife. Marriage was the only avenue a man had for producing an heir, and a wife who allowed herself to be polluted with another man's seed could destroy not only a man's honor before his peers, with the disastrous consequences noted above, but the legitimacy of all his children, his own and bastards alike.
Are we better off today - do our women live better, happier, safer lives; do our male children think of growing up to enter into marriage as a sacred duty - now that the threats of corporal punishment and honor killing have been removed, while once rare evils such as divorce, abortion, and sexual exploitation are now rampant?
Father Barbour's last quote ends with the words "inferior to them", and it is my comment in the last two paragraphs.
My views on the sexes have changed very little since The Politics of Human Nature, though perhaps I was somewhat too open to the argument that changed conditions were behind some of our changing mores.
If we agree on the basic principle, that males and females have different duties in life and thus different social positions and that it is the male's responsibility to protect the females in his family, then a father or husband exercises, either on a desert island or in many societies, the ius vitae necisque, the power of life and death, which can only be exercised under well-defined circumstances. I am speaking now in descriptive, not prescriptive terms, that is, as an observer rather than a moralist giving advice. Now, if we go back to our earlier discussion of marriage, we agreed--did we not--that a primary, if not the primary--purpose of marriage was the perpetuation of the family, both in the genetic sense that my children are 50% of me and in the sense of property, which will pass down to my heirs and their heirs as a means of preserving the family. A wife who cuckolds her husband undermines the family and thus the society by introducing cuckoos into the nest. A husband might bully his relatives into accepting his bastards on some level, but in a traditional society he cannot alienate his estate from his natural heirs. If people are interested in this topic, I can put in some few pages I wrote some years ago, but I would rather postpone it until I have surveyed a bit of the common law tradition on the husband's responsibility for his wife, including for her torts and misdemeanors.
Frederick Engels :
"Thus when monogamous marriage first makes its appearance in history, it is not as the reconciliation of man and woman, still less as the highest form of such a reconciliation. Quite the contrary. Monogamous marriage comes on the scene as the subjugation of the one sex by the other; it announces a struggle between the sexes unknown throughout the whole previous prehistoric period. In an old unpublished manuscript, written by Marx and myself in 1846, [The reference here is to the German Ideology, published after Engels’ death – Ed.] I find the words: “The first division of labor is that between man and woman for the propagation of children.” And today I can add: The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male. Monogamous marriage was a great historical step forward; nevertheless, together with slavery and private wealth, it opens the period that has lasted until today in which every step forward is also relatively a step backward, in which prosperity and development for some is won through the misery and frustration of others. It is the cellular form of civilized society, in which the nature of the oppositions and contradictions fully active in that society can be already studied.
"A sense of honor based on a man’s name, or title, or profession, or even his physical strength has a very sound natural foundation, and this foundation ultimately is based on his family, present or future. This is something that civilized Christians may have in common with savages, and without which they may become inferior to them."
Mr. Jacobi, thank you for that quotation and explanation. It's gratifying to read Fr. Barbour stating so clearly the connection between a man's sense of honor and a desire to defend family and reputation, and proving that such feelings have a natural basis. The connection between these has been disastrously blurred, and I think it is impossible to argue that the disappearance of corporal punishment in the home and defense of family honor has been a good thing.
Fr. Barbour's final sentence brings up the interesting paradox of the apparent similarity between appropriate physical retaliation and the behavior of mere savages. You say that Fr. Barbour quoted Pope Benedict XIV's forbidding dueling under any circumstances whatsoever. In forbidding dueling, was Benedict XIV also arguing from urbanity, as the archbishop of California evidently was?
Oh yes, and Fr. Barbour's brilliant article showed how quickly a good principle--dueling is often a corrosive effect on society and should be curbed or banned--can be corrupted. What would an anti-dueling extremist have to say about the Wild West, where men quite literally had to take the law into their own hands or there would not be law? Are Vigilance committees and lynch mobs an outlet for violence and anarchy--as leftists would say--or legitimate means by which societies enforce their rules in the absence of an effective means of law enforcement? I have surveyed much of the best work on these topics, and the results are clear: Vigilantee movements spring up as a rational and decent response to crime and lawlessness, and punish the criminals with a minimum of harm to society. They can go bad and become instruments of political factions or prolonged blood feuds. (Read Doc Sonnichsen's I'll Die Before I'll Run or more recent work on, for example, the Sutton Taylor feud) But the fact that any good institution can be misused is no argument against the institution. Some men prostitute their wives, but that is hardly an argument against marriage.
I should add that much of the Church's opposition to dueling stems as much from Roman law as it does from Christian teaching. And, let us not forget, that while it is a sin to take part in a duel, it was not necessarily a sin that could not be remedied by penance.
Engels and Marx borrowed their social origins theory from LH Morgan, quite a good student of the Iriquois. Morgan himself was obviously influenced by the State of Nature theories of Rousseau, Locke, and Epicurus. From my reading of Morgan, he was simply mistaken but had no political ax to grind, but Marx and Engels had nothing but political axes, and bloody ones at that.
No, the Church had long opposed dueling and there is a long list of letters and denunciations of the practice, but sometimes with the door apparently still open. Again, this was as much a reflection of Roman law, which sought to repress violence among the populace, as a Christian rejection of violence. Remember that dueling in the 18th and 19th century was often quite frivolous and a good many decent men were killed over small points of honor that were not worth a drop of blood. I am sure the Pope was not thinking about what a decent man would have to do,say, in 12th century Iceland to save his family. But this was part of Fr. Barbour's point: that while there are good reasons for a civilized people to prevent dueling, we run a grave risk when we attribute the wrong cause, as someone noted above when, for example, our only argument against women in the military is utilitarian. My former colleagues were always writing articles about how daycare spread disease or misbehavior, when they should have been concentrating on a mother's duty to bring up her own kids.
The issue with Fr. Barbour's piece is of course for sale.
Dr Fleming -
Are the anti-dueling hysterics of the 19th century the root of the anti-gun fanaticism? Since, as you say, the left always desires to destroy the status quo no matter what that may be could it then be said that anti-duelism was not out of a concern of frivolous violence but rather attacking the right to defend ones honor against scoundrels?
Dr. Fleming is quite right with regards to dueling. As an example, both Alexander Hamilton and his son Philip were both killed in pointless duels over political arguments. It is true that Alexander Hamilton was more than willing to declare to friends that Aaron Burr was unfit for office and that Hamilton helped manipulate the House of Representatives when that body elected Thomas Jefferson over Burr in 1801 for president, but it was certainly within the realm of political debate to attack Burr's narcissistic and unprincipled politics. Brought to our own age, is a duel in order if someone quite rightly calls Mitt Romney a political chameleon or points out that Barack Obama despises the historical American nation?
#13 KDZ. Not squarely on the topic, but I challenge the assertion that this could only have happened in a "liberal administration." I hear an echo of the old lying Republican plea that they are better than the "liberals." Bush would certainly have been capable of such, nor could one imagine Reagan, Kemp, Dole, Bennett, etc. putting up much opposition and certainly no honestly couched opposition. You people must give up the delusion that voting out "the liberals" in favour of the Republicans is any kind of solution. The definition of insanity---doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The only hope is a breakup of the American Empire so that the healthier remaining parts can save themselves.
Show me bad women and I will show you bad men---invariably.
As much as we the posters agree on the evils of feminism, the modern society does not. Individuals that claim having sex with 5000 partners are deemed cultural heros, while big corporations have sensitivity training seminars for the coworkers of lesbian couples, women who share each others eggs and anonimous sperm donors in order to conceive and create a lesbian family. This is all a byproduct of a feminism which may have started as a way to enable some ambitious women to achieve their phds, but it is here with us now and its presence appears to be irreversible. Forums like this one do not even get attacked anymore nor do they even get dismissed as of "oh schucks" variety. Unfortunately the hard right is increasingly irrelevant in the culture wars of today.
34. I don't think we should jump on Burr for the one good thing he did.
#33 Mr. Maxwell -- women seem to be more sympathetic to the anti-gun position and vote accordingly, but it does seem that they are not the main cause of the drive to ban guns here or in the other Anglophone countries.
Mr Chan,
Dr Fleming has been good in the past at tracing the often obscure roots of liberal ideologies. The most common explanation is that modern leftists, being the political descendants of social democrats and before that outright revolutionary socialists like disarmament because the various reactionaries are the ones who have most of the weapons. But I think that is too simple, I imagine it has more obscure origins as it doesnt seem to have been a large movement until the 20th century. And as we know, no leftist movement just comes from nowhere.
Dr. Wilson,
I was mainly being hyperbolic--venting my spleen. But I do think there's some difference between Republicans and Democrats on social experiments like women in the military. The Dems, as thoroughgoing liberals, are more utopian than most Republicans. I think, also, that female sailors on submarines is significantly worse than women on Navy ships (which I also oppose)--women serving on submarines causes me to think we are losing our sanity as a country. Since you concluded as much a long time ago, you can think of me as moving in your direction.
@35 Mr. Wilson,
Show me bad women and I will show you bad men—invariably.
As a good Christian answer me this then; was Adam responsible for Eve? Be honest now.
@19 LOU:
1. The piece ended with "More to come..."
2. I read Dr. Flemings comments on killing an adulterous wife and corporal punishment in the home as an item meant to provoke meditation on the rights or wrongs these types of things. He had not overtly taken a side on the issue at that point in the article.
My point was that you wait a bit for the "more to come..." before wasting blog space. Most of us are here searching for truth. But that takes time and careful thought, not just reacting to a few lines that irritate us.
Not a few of us responders react by typing our first thoughts. Is that just our needing to see our own words in print (a.k.a. hearing our own voice) or just the carelessness bred by these types of discussions?
I am grateful to people like Dr. Fleming and Dr. Wilson who are take time to respond to us and are patient with our impetuousness. Some responders I think need to count to 10 once in a while. I'm sure Dr. Fleming, Dr. Wilson and others at Chronicles are doing so.
P.S. Lou, I would not have wasted blog space with this reply if I had not apparently distressed you to some degree. I felt I needed to reply.
@36: "Unfortunately the hard right is increasingly irrelevant in the culture wars of today."
Possibly, if you think in of some sort of "macro" picture. But the culture wars are fought by real people and families struggling against the onslaught. The "hard right" can at least help the few that will listen. And those few can help a few more... Dum spiro spero.
"You people must give up the delusion that voting out “the liberals” in favour of the Republicans is any kind of solution."
This needs repeated before the coming mudslide of GOP candidates in November do what they have always done when the demo-rats are thrown out in favor of the repo-rats. The choice is between more war and foreign aid abroad or more government and domestic aid at home. Stupid conservatives have already been set up to take the fall for anything bad that happens to the GOP in November. The GOP establishment has already spent more time and money making sure the DEMS win in Delaware than the tea party spent in trying to win the GOP primary. It is the same stunt they have pulled for years -- Buchanan cost Bush Sr. a second term by denouncing the Clintons,but Bush II would bring dignity to a Whitehouse the Clintons stained, Reagan was pro-life but was tricked, etc. etc. etc. The only unbelievable reality of American politics for our time is what American voters still believe about the GOP being a party for conservatives.
#13 KDZ and #35 Dr. Wilson:
The women's auxiliaries were disbanded in 1978 by Jimmy Carter, a Democrat -- a "liberal," whatever that means. The ladies then were integrated into the regular military, except for combat units. The policy was continued and advanced under those good Republicans, Reagan and the Bushes -- "conservatives," whatever that means. 113 women have been killed, so far, in the Iraq and Afghan Wars started by those good, "compassionate conservative" Republican chickenhawks, Bush II and Cheney. Men of honor would have gone themselves before sending girls to fight.
Addendum: It's worth mentioning that in the Vietnam War -- the last large war before women were integrated into the military -- deaths of American troops were more 10 times that in Iraq and Afghanistan. But only one woman died in combat. Seven others died in accidents or from natural causes. All were nurses, following Florence Nightingale's example of treating the combat wounded.
@36 and @43: “Unfortunately the hard right is increasingly irrelevant in the culture wars of today.”
That reminds me of the story of the Dumb Monk. There was a monk who was holy, but not too bright. His Guardian Angel carried him aloft and showed him two monasteries. One monastery was peaceful. The second monastery had demons crawling over it. "Which is the holy monastery," the Guardian Angel asked.
"Uh, um, the one with no demons on it," the Dumbo Monk replied.
"Wrong!" the Guardian Angel said. "The peaceful monastery already has stopped fighting, and the demons are inside."
The hard right -- or whatever it is we are -- has a lot of problems, including sellouts and other bad characters. Even the best of us still suffer in this hideous culture. But we're still fighting. Some of us, anyway. Everyone else lives in peace.
“Unfortunately the hard right is increasingly irrelevant in the culture wars of today.”
Well hell yes they are irrelevant. Who the heck around here ever asserted that truth,goodness or beauty has a damned thing to do with anything of relevance today? It's the economy stupid!! Socrates was irrelevant to his times. Christ was irrelevant to the Saducees and Pharisees, St Benedict was irrelevant to the Romans of his day, St, Augustine wrote while Hippo collapsed, Boethius was imprisoned while Theoderic ruled, Clyde Wilson was relegated to baby sitting graduate students while freshmen were taught by perverts and wierdos, Tom Fleming still hustles for a living in his sixties while idiots are requested to edit once prestigious journals,.. Anybody who takes the current political climate as the bar of relevance deserves Satan as their master. The pearl of great price became irrelevant soon after Chartres was finished;and England
was done when when Hanacker Mill was discovered in desolation "midst a ruin atop and fields unplowed and spirits called on a fallen nation,spirits abroad on a windy cloud."
As Clyde Wislon once said, Behind every wounded woman is a bad man, which also means behind every good man, is a good woman. When is the last time anybody in the relevant political climate had either one of those creatures as a companion? Bah humbug to youngsters seeking relevance in an irrelavant age!!! I hear their hiring at National Review for you folks who think it is still all about Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!!!
With regards to Dr. Wilson's take on Burr's killing of Hamilton, I would say that all the damage Hamilton did to the republic had been performed during the Washington presidency. Hamilton was the first loose constructionist of the Constitution, so much so that his chief collaborator on the Federalist Papers, James Madison, became Hamilton's bitter enemy soon after Washington's inauguration. Hamilton was the first intellectualizer of the imperial presidency. He was the first economic centralizer. Hamilton was the originator of slavishly binding America to the stockjobbers and swindlers on Wall Street. However, by 1804, Hamilton was pretty much a spent political force and the Federalist Party was in collapse. By dying, Hamilton did some good by preventing Burr from achieving high office again.
#41. Did not Adam allow Eve to persuade him to violate God's instruction?