This is the third essay in a four part series on the Catholic feminine. Part one can be found here and part two can be found here. In this part, perhaps the most abstract of the three, I will be reflecting on various aspects of the feminine principle by observing how women actually are in the world, especially in relation to men by juxtaposition. These are of course my private opinions and do not represent Catholic dogma. Nor do I attempt any proof of these opinions, but I do believe them to be true and hope that the reader will gain some insight by thinking about these important things.

Mankind’s nature is ordered in a hierarchy. Bodily parts have varying degrees of nobility as do bodily functions. The powers of the soul are also arranged by nobility and reason is the noblest of the soul’s power. Likewise, sight is the noblest power of the senses.  And the power of sight most strongly corresponds with the power of reason. Thus, we often use the act of sight as a metaphor to describe the act of grasping a concept by reason.

Men and women have complementary strengths and varying signs of their peculiar dignity. Men tend to be more consistently governed by reason, which again, is the noblest power of the soul. For this reason, the man is the head of the spousal relationship and in this regard, man has the greater share in nobility. This is also why men are more visually oriented than women.  Another reason why sight is the noblest of the senses is because it signifies less attachment to the mundane.¹ By sight, we can apprehend an object without physical contact. This is also true of hearing and smell, but sight at least appears to be less confined to the mundane than either of those. Touch and taste are the most material of the senses.²

Women are more oriented towards the touch which is more mundane and likewise, they are more inclined to emotion.  While sight is the most noble of the senses, St. Thomas Aquinas explains that touch is primary among the senses in a certain respect, as “all the other senses are based on the sense of touch.” ³ Further, while some animals exceed men in various senses (hearing, smelling, perhaps tasting, and even sight), mankind has the “finest” sense of touch and it is this power that signifies his superiority among all of the animals. Women, by their greater excellence in this power, have the greater share of nobility in regard to our royal position among creatures. Hence, it is men who are more likely to fail to live up to their human dignity and “act like brutes.”

Women are less mechanically oriented than men. They value relationships more than men do. In this regard, they have the greater share in human dignity. Young boys play with toy machines like model trains, but women aren’t nearly as interested in machinery. Young girls prefer baby dolls, or houses. They have the greater share in dignity in this respect, contrary to the false opinions of modern society. This is because women naturally place greater value on things that are actually more important. The home and the family is of much greater import than machines. Men, perhaps for this reason, are more inclined to the error of utilitarianism. Again, it is the women who insist that the table be set for dinner. Men are happy to eat straight from the stove. It’s practical, men think, but they are wrong; the women are right. 

The mechanical orientation of men is of practical origin, just as domesticity is practical for women. The practical is necessary, but it ought to be subject to the higher things. Touch is practical (and necessary) but it is subject, in a sense, to the power of sight. Likewise, emotion is practical and necessary, but it is to be subject to reason. However, as regards the mechanical orientation of men versus the relational orientation of women, men’s opinions and inclinations ought to be subject to women’s because relations, family, and the home take precedent over machinery and objects. However, in terms of general decisions, men have a greater inclination to be governed by reason, and it is for this reason that men ought to be the head of the household just as reason ought to be the head of the soul. ⁴

Women tend more towards domesticity and the good of the family, which is practical and necessary, but it is to be subject to the greater good of the commonweal, to which men are more inclined. This is not to say that one ought to sacrifice the good of his or her family for the good of the commonweal in all circumstances, but that without proportionate reason, the good of the family or individual ought not come at the expense of the commonweal. The nature of motherhood is to be more intimately connected with the mundane and with the domestic. The nature of fatherhood is to be mediately connected to domestic concerns.  The natural gaze of the woman tends towards the family, towards the earth. The gaze of the father, as a natural priest of the family, tends towards the heavens, towards God. This is, again, why the father is the head. Jesus, who is the true Priest, whose gaze is always fixed on heaven, is the archetype of the bridegroom. For this reason beyond the others, as St. Paul explained in the verse cited above, the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church.

Beauty

Women are more beautiful than men, and beauty per se is not mundane. Beauty itself is by no means superficial. As regards the possession of beauty, women have the greater share in dignity. In her book, The Privilege of Being a Woman, Alice von Hildebrand noted that otherwise in nature, it is the male in the species that is more beautiful (e.g. the peacock, the lion, etc.) This inversion of natural beauty is undoubtedly meaningful. Von Hildebrand suggests that it signifies that sexuality is something different, something higher for man than for animals.  She is correct.

Higher things, physical or abstract, always signify more noble things. Thus a king’s chair is always above the people, never in a pit. Moses ascends the mountain to meet God; Jesus ascends a mountain to pray and to appoint His Apostles. The heavens are above the earth, not below. In music, higher notes are more inclined to signify heavenly beauty, and the lower notes signify the mundane, the earthen. Modern music tends to be heavy with bass and drums – the lower, more primitive and mundane tones.  Most popular music is inherently ordered to draw man to earth – to incline man to look at himself – to draw him away from heaven. Sacred music is just the opposite; it tends to be played on instruments that excel in the upper ranges, and the voices tend towards higher notes (not exclusively of course). 

Women have a higher pitch in their voice than men. This again signifies a greater share in beauty.  The higher pitch in their voice not only signifies a greater inner beauty, but also a vocation — their voice is physically more adept to elevate than to bring down and their vocation mirrors this. Hence they are natural encouragers, nurturers, comforters. The physical characteristics of their voice are symbols signifying that women are ordained⁵ to lift up, to turn our attention to the heavens. How many male saints would without the briefest hesitance credit their mother or grandmother with pointing them towards God? I am no saint, but I owe what little saintliness I have to women in my life and above all to the blessed virgin Mary.  

It is true that this tendency towards beauty, whether in voice or physique or elsewhere, can sometimes accomplish the opposite effect. Men can be distracted from heavenly things to pursue earthly beauty. But this is a corruption on the part of man. The misuse of a thing does not disprove its purpose. All beauty should point us to God – especially His most beautiful earthly creation: woman.  

The irony of mundane beauty is that those who are least attached to the world can most keenly appreciate its beauty. Those who are inordinately drawn to earthen beauty cannot actually appreciate it. St. Thomas says that those who lust cannot appreciate the beauty of a woman, and he doesn’t only refer to their inner beauty; that much is a given. The irony is that those soaked up by physical beauty, lusting after it as its own end, cannot even appreciate the physical beauty itself.

Women are less inclined to be attracted to merely external beauty than men. Again, in this respect, they have a greater share in human dignity by their nature. The gaze of man tends towards that which is most beautiful according to the mode of apprehension. Since vision is the mode, man’s gaze tends towards the external beauty. This is good and practical, but it ought to be subject to the apprehension of a purer beauty at which women naturally excel. That is, women excel at apprehending the inner beauty, which is more detached from the earth and therefore is more representative of the higher things. 

Man’s excellence in reason (above the other powers of the soul) is mirrored by his orientation by the more excellent sense of sight (above the other senses). But this visual orientation (which is a good) is the material cause of his lesser share in dignity as regards the apprehension of inner beauty. That is, man’s greater tendency towards reason is paralleled by his greater tendency towards sight and this tendency towards sight is a direct cause of his greater tendency to be distracted by external beauty. The power that signifies and should orient him towards heaven on one hand leads to a tendency that draws him back down to earth on the other. What is strong in one sex is weaker in the other, and what is strong in one sex leads to another weakness in that same sex that is complemented by a strength in the other sex. There are multiple layers of meaning in this. We do well to reflect on them.

It seems to me that men are better at apprehending the big picture and women are more adept at responding to details. Both are complementary strengths. But Dr. Jessica Murdoch and Alice von Hildebrand have both said just the opposite, i.e. that women see the big picture and men see the details. There are probably many ways that “seeing the big picture” can be more aptly said of one sex or the other. I will leave it to the reader to consider the different ways. But my friend, Andrew Preslar, offered the following which may help harmonize our opinions (summarizing from memory): 

Men see the big picture ad extra, as something to be obtained, hence, our need to investigate, to make plans and conquer, to achieve. Women see the big picture ad intra, as something to be elevated, hence, their need to nourish, to beautify, to maintain or improve order. Women are more prone to see the big picture in what is actual, rather than potential. Men see the big picture in their goals as in seeking out mysteries. But women are not as inclined to seek out mysteries as men are. They are more inclined to be the mystery that is worth seeking.

Virtue

Men have the greater share in nobility in regard to excellency in some virtues and women have the greater share in others. The theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) are more noble than the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance) because they are more oriented towards heaven than earth. Men are more generally oriented towards heaven and women more towards earth (as mentioned above) but women have a greater tendency to excel in the theological (heavenly) virtues than men while men have a greater tendency to excel in the cardinal (mundane) virtues.  

It appears that women have a greater excellency in faith, which is the doorway to salvation. Women are certainly more inclined to the theological virtue of love, which is the greatest of all virtues, and the form of all the theological virtues. Without love, all other virtues profit nothing.⁶ As men’s excellence in reason leads to their deficiency in appreciating purer beauty, women’s deficiency in reason (and consequent strength in emotion) leads to their superiority in the virtue of love. Let the reader carefully attend: When I say “deficiency in reason,” I do not claim that women aren’t as intelligent as men. It is plain from common experience and empirical evidence that the sexes are equally intelligent. Nor do I even claim that men are actually more governed by reason than women are. My claim is that their nature is more ordered to be that way, but other factors can hinder any natural inclination. Factors could include social and cultural influences, restrictive vices in the men themselves, and other things.  

As stated, each deficiency leads to, and is accompanied by a strength in another area and vice versa. Deficiency in reason is caused by strength in emotion. Deficiency in appreciating inner beauty is caused by strength in sight.  

Women also have a greater tendency to excel in the theological virtue of hope. How many Christian women do not fully expect to attain salvation? Men are more likely to fret about their own salvation because of their greater tendency to hope’s opposing vice: despair. Men’s strength in reason causes a deficiency in the virtue of hope because, as Chesterton notes, hope is only useful when it’s unreasonable. Women have the strength of hope as a direct result of their deficiency in reason (due to their strength in emotion) which hope, in some way, presupposes. However, while having a lesser tendency towards such, men do have a unique opportunity to excel in hope. For when a man embraces this virtue, he generally attains heights unreached by women. Virtues usually presuppose the conquering of some impediment, and the greater the impediment conquered, the more beautiful is the resulting victory, the more radiant its form. Man’s strength in reason, i.e. his tendency to rely on reason alone, is often an impediment when it comes to the virtue of hope. He must overcome this impediment to excel in the virtue of hope and when he does, he does so in great measure. But in summary, it is clear that women exceed men in the tendency to possess the higher and more noble virtues which we call theological.

In the case of the cardinal virtues, men generally have a greater share. Because of their tendency towards reason, men have a greater share in prudence which is the first of the cardinal virtues and holds a primacy because no other cardinal virtue is possible without prudence. 

Men clearly have a greater share in justice. Women are more prone to show partiality because of the weakness in reason or strength in emotion. The emotional drive sometimes overshadows prudence which leads to this deficiency in justice. Justice, as a virtue, is especially dependent upon the virtue of prudence such that where the latter is lacking, the former is always deficient. There are however, certain situations where a specifically feminine inclination to justice is needed. This is truest in cases where the most needy is overlooked by the more masculine, broader, inflexible sense of justice. And justice itself, as stated in a previous part of this series, is thought of as feminine in quality. How then do we say that men excel in this virtue? It is because, as feminine in quality or character, like wisdom, justice is something to be sought, and men are more inclined to seek her.

Fortitude is the virtue of steadfastness in the face of adversity, which includes courage. Courage presupposes fear and weakness. It is the overcoming of these deficiencies, not evidence of their non-existence. If a man is fearless, he cannot be brave. If he is strong, he cannot have courage. Men are more naturally inclined to excel in fortitude although women, as the weaker sex, have greater opportunity to excel in bravery. That is, the fortitude of women can be greater than the fortitude of men even though men are more naturally inclined to be courageous. There is nothing more courageous than a woman amidst cowardly men. When men fail to act according to their natural role, as they often do, it seems that some force, almost supernatural, spurs women to take up the banner and fight with greater daring than a brave man would have. A courageous woman puts brave men to shame. (And what shall we say for cowardly men?) Just as men overcoming an impediment to achieve the theological virtue of hope grants them a greater opportunity to excel, women overcoming their natural weakness affords them the opportunity to excel in the cardinal virtue of fortitude.

Women are less inclined than men to seek pleasure for itself and therefore they exceed men in the cardinal virtue of temperance. They naturally tend to be more temperate than man. For this reason, it is not an unjust double standard that women are more frowned upon for sexual sins than men are. Women are less inclined to sexual sins by passion than men are, and sin is aggravated by one’s strength against the sin. Thus if a wise and temperate priest murders a man, it is (all things equal) a greater sin than if a raving heathen does the same. If a woman, more inclined to temperance, is found to have two sexual partners, it is more repulsive than if the same were committed by a man who is less inclined to temperance by nature.  

Alice von Hildebrand also points out that this supposed double standard is rightly due to the fact that women by nature are ordered to the protection of chastity. They are the natural guardians of the sacredness of human sexuality, hence their greater tendency towards the virtue of modesty. This is why it is more scandalous for women to forsake that natural role when they misuse their sexuality to incite lust by immodesty or when they behave in an unchaste manner. This is comparable to the man who fails to provide for his family. If a single mother or widow fails to provide for her children, she is pitied. But a man who fails to provide for his family is reckoned as worse than an infidel and scorned by society. (( 1 Timothy 5:8 )) It is scandalous when one abuses a duty given to him (or her) by office. For example, if a policeman breaks the law, it is more scandalous and repulsive than if a drug-addict breaks the law. But it is even more scandalous when one abuses or turns away from a duty given by nature. That is why it is not unfair to women that they are more stigmatized for sexual sins than men are. If anything, it is unfair to men that their sin is not stigmatized by society as strongly as it is for women because this stigma aids in refraining from evil.  

In summary of the above: Men gaze towards heaven (the ideal), women towards earth (the practical), but women excel in the heavenly virtues and men in the cardinal (practical) virtues. 

Other Observations

As stated above, women are less inclined to be attracted to merely external beauty than men are. But at the same time, women are more inclined to vanity in regard to their own external beauty. The weakness of men (his deficiency in appreciating pure beauty) is actually a cause of women’s inclination to vanity regarding their own beauty. If men were stronger and not likely to be distracted by merely external appearance, women would be less inclined to the sin of vanity. Thus St. John Chrysostom said, 

The beauty of woman is the greatest snare. Or rather, not the beauty of woman, but unchastened gazing! For we should not accuse the objects, but ourselves, and our own carelessness. Nor should we say, Let there be no women, but Let there be no adulteries. We should not say, Let there be no beauty, but Let there be no fornication. We should not say, Let there be no belly, but let there be no gluttony; for the belly makes not the gluttony, but our negligence. We should not say, that it is because of eating and drinking that all these evils exist; for it is not because of this, but because of our carelessness and insatiableness.⁷

Woman’s deficiency in reason is the cause of her subordination to man, but this deficiency (and subordination) gives rise to her strength in humility. And it’s no secret that man is more prone to the sin of pride. It is an ugly thing indeed when one habituates himself to a sin that they are naturally inclined to resist. But on the other hand, it is something very beautiful when one habituates himself to a virtue in which he is naturally deficient. For this reason, there are few things uglier than a prideful woman, and few more beautiful than a humble man. Both of these are rare. The prudent woman is more beautiful than the prudent man, and the cowardly man is uglier than the cowardly woman.  

The Inherent Equality of Male and Female

Feminists complain of Mary’s virtue, claiming that the Catholic Church set her up as the model woman: humble, chaste, and obedient. But these women are entirely confused because their priorities are dictated by the world. They too are obedient, not to God, but to their own lusts and the whim of popular opinion. They are subject not to Christ but to the fickle opinions of society. Yes, the ideal woman is humble, chaste, and obedient; so is the ideal man. What absurdity to be offended at the virtue of an archetype! Whoever complained about Christ’s humility? Who has complained that He is perfectly subject to the will of the Father? And His chastity, is that a weakness? Far too many women (and men) have been utterly duped by the sexual revolution.  

Again, the world thinks of virtues like gentleness as weaknesses. And they view wrath, even unharnessed wrath, as a strength. Wrath is a power, but as Josef Pieper has pointed out in his book, “The Cardinal Virtues,” gentleness is not a weakness as is presumed. Gentleness presupposes the power of wrath. Gentleness is not the weakening of wrath but its mastery.

Both sexes are needed to express the fullness of God’s image. But man is not human minus woman, neither is woman human minus man. Man is fully human and so is woman. This is why Christ’s sacrifice atoned for the whole of humanity even though St. Gregory of Nazianzus said, “For that which He has not assumed He has not healed.”⁸ That is, just because Jesus did not incarnate as a female does not mean that women are not also healed by His sacrifice because He incarnated as having a Body which was fully human. Moreover, Jesus is the model for mankind (not just men) just as Mary is a model for mankind (not just women).  

To summarize this section, St. Thomas Aquinas explains why it was fitting that woman was taken from man’s rib:

First, to signify the social union of man and woman, for the woman should neither “use authority over man,” and so she was not made from his head; nor was it right for her to be subject to man’s contempt as his slave, and so she was not made from his feet. Secondly, for the sacramental signification; for from the side of Christ sleeping on the Cross the Sacraments flowed—namely, blood and water—on which the Church was established.⁹

Sexual Morality

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once said that all sexual sin is in some way an attempt to separate sacrifice from love. We want to have sex without the possibility of dealing with its fruit because the fruit will require self-sacrifice and we don’t want that. But we cannot live a virtuous life, that is, a good life, without sacrifice. Sexuality is fundamental to our identity as persons and is the material principle of life itself. Do you wonder why sexuality is insperably bound to life? It has something to do with nature. Do you wonder why sacrifice is inseparably bound to love? It has something to do with Calvary. The conjugal act implies a responsibility, a self-surrender, a deliberate oath that one takes with his or her spouse: “I am giving myself to you completely, not partially.”

This is the genius of Catholic morality. Life is sacred and therefore sex is sacred. All of us, not only priests, monks, and nuns, are called to a life of sexual purity and chastity of heart.  This will require a proper understanding of the feminine and masculine roles which need to cooperate together towards the end of virtuous living, especially regarding sex. Again, while this is a task for both men and women, God chose women especially to be the primary guardians of chastity and modesty. Thus, through their feminine genius, they “domesticate” the man, making him chaste and modest, unlike the brutes. (Recall above the feminine excellence in the sense of touch which signifies above all other senses, the superiority of mankind to the beasts). Men do well to assist women in their sacred vocation.

In the next and final part of this series,  I will show how honoring Mary as our mother and obeying the Catholic Church as a child obeys her mother, are the two most important dimensions needed in our lives, in order to maintain a proper understanding of the Christian feminine.

1. Thus St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Now, the sight, which is without natural immutation either in its organ or in its object, is the most spiritual, the most perfect, and the most universal of all the senses.” Summa Theologiae – 2.78.3 [↩]
2. ibid. [↩]
3. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologiae 1.76.5 [↩]
4. Ephesians 5:23; This is not true in every case. That is, men are certainly not “more governed by reason” than women in every case. It is natural that they should be, and therefore they “ought” to be the head of the household, but it is not always the case as anyone with any experience in life will certainly be aware. [↩]
5. “Ordained” shares a common root with “order.” It is the same base word in Latin. “Ordain” means to set things up in a proper order. [↩]
6. 1 Corinthians 13:13 [↩]
7. Homily 15 On the Priesthood [↩]
8. St. Gregory of Nazianzus – To Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius [↩]
9. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologiae 1.92.3 [↩]