Josef Pieper on Maternal and Paternal Love

Somewhat in relation to ideas I was musing about the other day, Josef Pieper (as quoted from the Anthology) has something interesting to say about the difference between maternal and paternal love:

It has always been said that mothers, as those who love most intensely, seek less to be loved than to love. A mother's love for her children is "unconditional" in a unique fashion; that is, it is not linked with any preconditions. Because of that it corresponds to the deepest longings of children, and indeed of every human being. Maternal love doesn't have to be "earned"; and there is nothing anyone can do to lose it. A father, on the contrary, tends to set conditions; his love has to be earned. But that likewise repeats a fundamental element peculiar to all love: the desire that the beloved not only "feel good" but that things may in truth go well for him. A mature person's love must, as has rightly been remarked, contain both elements, the maternal and the paternal, something unconditional and something demanding.

The Masculine Genius

The quest for and the perception of beauty. This is an integral part of the masculine genius, yet much maligned in our age both by women (with some justification) and by some feeble-minded men who think they can thereby ingratiate themselves with women. Men can be friends with women or lovers, but no man should ever be buddies with women, especially at such a price. A man who disparages the masculine genius is just as pitiable as the woman who disparages the feminine genius. You want to shake him and say, "Snap out of it, brother!"

If no man ever found Helen beautiful, there never would have been a Trojan War; but neither also would there have been an Iliad. Speaking from my own experience with women, it just doesn't seem that women have a taste for beauty like men. This can be seen foremost in the ways some women attempt to make themselves appear beautiful to men. A woman's beauty resides in her soul and her virtues; anytime she attempts to appeal to a man with immodesty, she appeals to what is base and lustful in man, but not to man's desire for beauty. But sometimes it seems that women don't see any difference between the two. 

(We first learn from our mothers that we are loved, but it is only from our fathers that we learn that we are worthy of love, that is, that we are beautiful. And for those of us who had absent or less than perfect fathers, we learn that more perfectly from our Heavenly Father anyway.)

The works of art women make, too, are often original, powerful, tender, humorous, disturbing, genius, intricate, and often moreso than art made by men, but rarely do I find it more beautiful. (A notable exception, I think, is the realm of the performing arts, at which women excel in creating beauty, and that, I think, because they are portraying beauty from within, rather than beauty in something else). I know I have some female readers. I don't mean to offend by saying this. I'm generally curious whether you agree. 

It follows, also, that women just can't perceive beauty in men like men can. I do not think women find beautiful men attractive. There are other things about men that attract women. As with women, a man's beauty lies in his soul and his virtues. A woman may find a man's soul and virtues attractive, but probably not because they are beautiful, but for other reasons (and there is nothing wrong with this; it is perfectly natural). I got the sense, growing up with my mom and my sister, that they were entirely oblivious to male beauty. Maybe I'm wrong, and their appreciation of beauty was deeply hidden, but as they would have had no reason to hide it, this doesn't seem likely. 

This is one reason why I think men need male friends. Everyone needs someone to find him beautiful (women, do you agree?), and men are the ones best equipped for the task. It is a part of man's genius, after all. (And I mean nothing impure or disordered here). In friendship, men show other men that they are beautiful and worthy to be loved, though in our age of suspicions about love between men, this end of friendship is heavily veiled under other pretexts, communicated in indirect ways. In less perverted ages, this was not necessary, as can be readily noted from literature and Scripture. 

But I am curious as to whether I'm wrong about all this. To any women who wish do respond: Do you find men beautiful? Is your attraction to men motivated by a quest for beauty? What qualities do you find make a man beautiful? In seeking female friends, are you drawn to the beauty of woman, or to something else? What makes a woman beautiful?

Valuing Marriage, Family, and Friendship

(Part 1 of 3) Marriage, family, and friendship together form a threefold foundation upon which society flourishes. In our time, all three are under assault. 

There was the Protestant/Puritan/Victorian prudishness, which viewed the body and sexuality as dirty and animalistic and which suppressed and hid this part of our nature (with some exceptions, such as outdoor nude swimming and bathing, which is too much for even our "sexually liberated" era). 

Then there was the Sexual Revolution, which was a reaction against this, oddly keeping the belief that the body and sexuality are dirty and animalistic, but going to the opposite extreme of reveling in it by behaving as animals and exhibiting and using the body as an object. Following this was the rapid destruction of the family and the ubiquitous practice of perverse, selfish, and disordered sexual acts. 

Following this, in my opinion, was another reaction, in many Catholic and other Christian circles, an overvaluation of family, marriage, and sexuality, which has caused its own problems. What are some examples of what I mean? The notion that sexual intimacy is the only or the highest form of intimacy. The framing of all Truth through the lens of marriage and sexuality.

What we need, then, is a solid valuation of marriage, family, and friendship, neither undervaluing, nor overvaluing, any one of the three. In my opinion, the overvaluing of marriage and sexuality actually worsens the assault against true marriage and sexuality. If in our society the sexual relationship is considered the highest and only true form of love and intimacy, and friendship is reduced to a kind of second-rate option, it is then no surprise that those who are not called to true marriage will be under heavy pressure to create false visions of marriage and sexuality, since love and self-gift are the vocation of all people. The best way to defend marriage and sexuality, as the Catechism suggests, is the cultivation of and flourishing of intimate (but chaste and disinterested) friendship.

Marital/sexual relationships should be valued, then, but moderately, in their place. The same applies to familial relationships and friendship. We need all three in order to flourish as a society. We must recognize the excellence and the limitations of all three.

Friendship is limited in that friends cannot achieve total unity, for they are not one flesh. Marriage is limited in that spouses cannot achieve total disinterestedness with one another, because they are one flesh. As it turns out, the excellence of each is also the limitation. Friendship is at its highest in disinterested love which gives birth to virtue and truth; marriage is at its highest in unitive love, which procreates new life. It is for this reason that there are some things a person can say and do with his/her spouse, but not with a friend; and there are some things he/she would say or do with a friend, but not with his/her spouse. (I contend, against what some would say, that spouses are not entirely capable of true friendship.)

Yet, both friendship and marriage, properly lived, are images of Charity, of Christ's sacrificial love. Only in our relationship with Christ can we achieve both total friendship and total unity. And the world needs examples of true marriage and true friendship to guide us to that end toward which we were made.