China's "Leftover Women"

After all these years of writing about Single Life and marriage, this video made me cry.

When I began to write about "Seraphic Singles" and "Searching Singles" I really meant Single women over 25. I just didn't consider college-age girls "Single". If you're still being educated, you're not in a good time to get married and have children. (Graduate school can count as the beginning of a career, especially if you're being funded, i.e. paid.)

Of course, if girls in your community marry at 19, then naturally you might feel "left over" at 20.  In China, apparently, the scary year is 25, which maddens me because I was scared of being unmarried at 25 myself, which I know now was ridiculous.

I never, never want to cry down marriage or extol a "swinging single" lifestyle, but honestly the whole idea of shaming women for being unmarried makes me furious. Some unmarried women are just not called to marriage. Other unmarried women long for marriage but quite sensibly aren't going to marry just any guy. Others are completely passed over for years because they live in unhealthy, decadent societies that actually punish women for being good wife material.

The situation in China is particularly sad because most young women have no brothers or sisters to take the pressure off them. Indeed, they must all know they could have been aborted in favour of a brother. Or maybe a series of sisters were aborted before their parents gave up hope for a son. At any rate, this is all terribly sad--and surprising, too, since there are 33 million more men than women in China. Surprise.

Update: In case you are wondering, here are the top ten countries for a sex ratio bizarrely skewed against girls: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bhutan, Western Sahara, China and India. I wonder what dark magic brought that about. Hmm. Source

Update 2: I came across this while looking for baby stats. What does this mean in terms of integrating men from these countries into Canada and Europe? Discuss.

Update 3: Okay, I found this. To my surprise, along with China and India are mentioned former Soviet republics in the Caucasus. These seem to include Armenia, Georgia and Azerbiajan. Then there's Vietnam. But highest of all of the skewed more-boys-at-birth ratio according to the CIA is Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein? I didn't think they had abortion, let alone sex-selective abortion. What gives? (By the way: Liechtenstein, Curacao, Azerbaijan, mainland China, India, Vietnam, Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Macedonia, Kosovo. Liechtenstein and Curacao are majority Catholic.   Azerbaijan and Kosovo are mostly Muslim and Albania half-Muslim, but Armenia and Georgia certainly aren't "Muslim countries"[Macedonia is 33% Muslim.]. My apologies, Gulf States! I guess the discrepancies are because of huge numbers of male foreign workers who either are unmarried or don't bring their female relations with them.)

Traddy Scouting for Girls

Our Guides fly the Saltire, however.

So I was in a rustic Georgian cottage on a Boy Scout campground 20 minutes south of Aberdeen when a desert monk I had never before met said, "You're Edinburgh Housewife!"  And I thought with guilt about my deplorable habit of shutting down blogs and starting new ones, etc., and the priest added that he loved Traddy Tuesdays. He thought they were funny and did a lot of good as much online traditionalism is sad. Apparently he really liked my jokes about people in the TLM community, so I will REVEAL that I have DISCOVERED that our FSSP priest took advantage of my absence on Sunday to preach against losing sleep over Amoris Laetitia.

Naturally the Girl Guides were absent too. Since I am naturally a motherly woman (see also Mulieris Dignitatem), one of my happiest moments of Edinburgh parish life was seeing Girl Guides suddenly come marching into church in their homemade blue uniforms.  Of course I am content that the altar servers are always male, but here at last was something for the GIRLS.  This amazing development was thanks to one of the mothers, a Frenchwoman who had somehow imported a young French traditional Catholic Scouting leader, so after Mass I congratulated her and suggested that the Guides come to the Historical House some time for tea.

This was an outrageously presumptuous invitation, for the Historical House is a business first and my home second, and I ought to have asked my husband, but I got carried away in my spiritually maternal joy. And somehow "tea" turned into "camping weekend", and eventually I had to confess to my husband what I had done. Fortunately he was terribly good about it. He even organized the Guides' nature walk; really, he was splendid. Sadly, camping is absolutely forbidden in the Historical House grounds, so we cleared out our dining-room and the Guides slept there. In the morning, B.A. and I marched our temporary family of French and Scottish daughters to the bus stop and we all went to Mass.

This year I was invited to join the board of the tiny independent Scout/Guide organisation, and to my joy I was invited to go along on the April camp. I suspect there are sneaky plans afoot to make me into a future Brown Owl for future Brownies or a Guide Captain when we run out of French ones. However, for the time being I was just invited as me, and one of the reasons I just got up at 5:30 AM on Saturday was to finish my analysis of Amoris Laetitia before I was due to join the Guides.

I was, of course, a Guide myself once upon a time, which I suppose means I have just been a lapsed Guide since I was 14 or 15. However, I was a Brownie and then a Guide from the age of 6, which meant 8 years of Brownie-Guide training and therefore the ability to pack a knapsack with everything necessary for Guide camp and to roll a decent (if sadly fat) bedroll within an hour's notice. I even had a long denim skirt--okay, I know I have made fun of the long denim skirt but I admit it is an essential piece of tradwear, especially when camping.  Off I went to the bus stop, with B.A. carrying my bulky bedroll, bless him.

The trip to Aberdeenshire was done in stages. First we all went to Pittenweem to visit St. Fillan's cave. The Guides had to find it through clues given to them during some elaborate game, whereas two of the driving parents and I just obtained the key and visited it first ourselves. Then the car I was in went to Stonehaven where we picked up two more Guides from the railway station. Finally we arrived at the Scout camp and, as we were late and it was now raining miserably, the decision was made that the Guides, like the leaders and I, would sleep indoors on bunk-beds, not in a tent on the soggy field. Naturally we would all spend a lot of time outdoors, rain or no rain, sog or no sog. So we did, the girls and I (making up the numbers) running about playing Speed Noughts and Crosses.  At some point one of the leaders drove off to fetch the chaplains, already down from their wee Orkney island to say Mass in the Extraordinary Form for the faithful of Aberdeen and us.

They came for supper and the Campfire. As all Guides (active or lapsed) know, Campfire is the Most Important Part of every Guide meeting or camp, featuring songs and sketches and, if the company is religious, prayer. Ours was in the rain, and I was very impressed that not only had the Guides had created a splendid fire, they had built a little shelter, complete with bench, for their Redemptorist guests and me. There were songs, dances and a funny game of "Freeze"and, most impressively, a "multi-media" presentation of the story of King Robert the Bruce and the relics of Saint Fillan. This involved actresses both in front of and behind a flash-lit screen and a musician playing a flute. Father Chaplain said a few words and a few prayers and then, goodness gracious, we prayed a five-decade rosary, which began with such prayers as "Sacred Heart of Jesus--SAVE RUSSIA."

After Campfire, the Guides and leaders all had various duties, but I didn't, so I betook my damp and bone-cold self to the leaders' dorm. When the Guides trooped off to their room, I was sure the night would be punctuated by giggles and chatting and leaders getting up to shout "Girls!", but it was not. Our Guides were told to be quiet and sleep, and so they were quiet and slept. Excellent respect for Guide Law, I must say. We adults slept like dead stones thrown from the seat of Moses.

After breakfast (grace before and after), the Guides were quizzed on Guide Law, which they recited in unison, and then I taught them the Guide Law marching song, which pleased everybody very much, especially me. The Guides had a lesson about Scouting and Catholic Scouting history, and Guides to make their formal Guide Promise were prepared for the ceremony that would take place after Mass in Aberdeen.

We struck camp in time to get back into cars and get to church. When we arrived the Aberdeen devotees of the EF were praying a pre-Mass rosary and Father Chaplain was hearing confessions. The white handout/booklet with the Propers was available in both English and Polish, which I found delightful. The homily was on the necessity of joining religious orders, and I would have felt very challenged had I not been married. I suppose I could put B.A. aside and go into a convent, but I very much doubt anyone would want me to do that.* After Mass there was After-Mass Tea and then the Promise Ceremony in the garden. This was followed by lunch in the church hall and then a 20 minute reflection on the Guide Laws by Father Chaplain. We tidied up, said our good-byes, and went back to our homes, wherever they were.

The weekend was highly edifying. There were so many prayers that when B.A. said grace before Sunday dinner, my first thought was "That's it?" However, this didn't dim the joy and fun of camp in any way. Lord Baden-Powell himself had been to that campground when it opened (!), and although he might not have approved of our Catholicism, he would certainly have approved of all the Christian reverence, to say nothing of the emphasis on Guide Law. On the other hand, he may have pointed out the lack of military smartness in our muddy skirts at church. (Actually, he would have had a heart attack.) Still, it's a very young company, and there is time for improvement. As our Guides seem to be growing in discipline and other Guide virtues, it is certain that their uniforms will one day take on a Baden-Powell approved smartness, even after camping in the rain.

Speaking of smartness, as I have volunteered to give the Guides a few cooking, baking and hostessing lessons, I must scrub the kitchen today. I don't think the lessons will be in my kitchen, but anyone who volunteers to teach Guides anything ought to show a bit more pride in the state of her spice shelf.

*There is an order of traditional Benedictine nuns in Missouri who have the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. If anyone knows of other religious orders of women who love the EF, please give links in the combox. Naturally, I am a big fan of the Benedictine Sisters of Saint Cecilia in Ryde, but unfortunately they do not have the EF.

Meanwhile, if I were a young man with a call to Benedictine religious life, I would visit here. (It's where I would send B.A. on my deathbed, should I die sooner rather than later.) However, if I felt most drawn to the life of a desert monk, I would visit Papa Stronsay. Yes, it may be in the North Sea, but it's still a desert. It's a damp desert.

UPDATE: Edinburgh Housewife is up again for those who feel like reading old posts. You have a nice Son of the Most Holy Redeemer of Papa Stronsay to thank for this!

Is Your Name John Deere?

I had a funny message from reader Michael, who took up social dancing after all our deliberations at "Edinburgh Housewife" on the subject. In short, he was a hit with the girls and other men around didn't like it.

Male competition for female attention is a funny thing. In one Italian-Canadian/Italian-American subculture, it was once customary for an envious man to chase a stranger away from "his" crowd of women by marching up to him and bellowing:

"Is your name John Deere?"

"N-no," the stranger would say.

"Then stop cutting my grass!"

My friend Valentino, an Italian-Canadian poet, once wrote a very funny post about this, and it stuck in my mind.  I cannot help but contrast this stag-like challenge with the whining of the Swiss (or German) young men in Michael's story:

Hi Dorothy,
This story is as follows. I took [very seriously] the advice of Alisha and the others to start dance. I even overcome my motor difficulties to learn how to dance. If there is a Christian dance night close by, I usually go. [I go also] to the ecumenical dance night of the campus ministries at the neighboring university town, some 60 km away. My good female friend, the same age as me [at 33], is a PhD student there.

Some 2 months after the last dance night, two young guys approached her and complained about me: that I look older than 35, that I have last-minute-panic, that I go to dance night to find a girl, that I dance with different women all night and that I even danced with a young girl who is younger than 25! The latter was actually about 23 and after she told me lots of jokes while dancing. I asked her only for her Facebook [friendship] but not for her e-mail-address. Also they [thought I was] a womanizer, which is very far from true. But [I think I understand why they thought this.] I wanted to [promote] dancing in saying [that] there has to be an intermediate stage of communication between men and women which is neither talking only or the other extreme [i.e. sexual intimacy]. Instead of [understanding me] to mean dancing was "intermediate", they [thought I meant] preliminary…. In the end it looks [as if] the boys, who didn’t want to dance themselves at that time, were a little bit [envious of] me. Happily, my friend and another girl defended me! I really feel that men really need time to mature. We are maybe 6 years behind the girls! What do you think about it?
Nice greetings Michael

What I think is that it is probably safer to have male rivals go whining to your female friend than marching up to you, flexing their biceps and yelling "Is your name John Deere?" I also think the male rivals are cowardly not to ask the girls to dance, especially when almost all girls at social dances are dying for the guys to ask them to dance. My mother used to say, "Faint heart never won fair maiden!" (Or was that Marilla Cuthbert in the Anne books? Ah well, same difference. That reminds me, when a Scotswoman denied any knowledge of the Scottish tradition that there must always be cake in the house in case a caller drops by, I realized that this wasn't Scottish, this was Lucy Maud Montgomery.)

Update: By the way, are any of my beautiful, Catholic, Single female readers tangueras?  Just asking. 

Storgis Laetitia: Wherein I say what I think

Catholic World Report has published the thoughts of a symposium of its regular contributors on the recent Papal Exhortation. Here's mine.  My working title was "Beach Ball Theology". Wah ha ha ha ha! The editors chose not to go with that. Frankly, as I entered into the joy of Girl Guide camping (stay tuned), I thought they might spike the whole piece. Let's see if they kept the line about... Oh, they HAVE!

Free Thomas Aquinas!

With every click over to Laodicea.

As I said (or will say elsewhere), the Thomists are going to be the ones to read on AL. The Thomists will actually fact-check.

"The Joy of Love Experienced by Families"

I'm reading as fast as I can. But I sure wish B.A. was at home to listen to me wail when I get to the parts I really do not like. As usual with this pontificate, there are the swipes at unnamed unpastoral Christian bogeymen. However, if you read Paragraphs 36, 37 and 38, you will probably see at once who THAT particularly bogeyman is.  Sw. Jan Paweł II, módl się za nami!

Still, I'm not done reading, so I cannot make any conclusions as yet.  The experience of reading is rather painful although it is clear that the intended reader is anyone with an elementary school education. This, however, may say more about me than the text. I can easily imagine various Jesuit pals reading the document with tears in their eyes, shouting "YES!" and "This is truly consoling."

I wonder what they are making of the non-Christian "specific pastoral care" mentioned in 45. Personally, I object to having the idea of preaching Islam to the Islamic with the idea of keeping Christians in the Middle East in the same paragraph. On the one hand, say what, and on the other, imagine saying in 1939 that efforts should be made to keep Jews in Germany.

Still, same-sex marriage is ruled out, and although it is strongly hinted that the Germans can do whatever they want and that birth control is up to the individual conscience, at least after it has already had a baby or two (42) ... Well, same-sex marriage is still ruled out. And I must keep thinking about my dear old profs saying "This is truly consoling" and striving to see why they would say that.

Update: Very good stuff in the 80s. Despite Paras 3 & 37, clear fidelity to Humanae Vitae, thank heaven.

Update 2: Very good stuff in the 90s, too. Don't like the word "equality" here, but otherwise good sermon on 1 Corinthians 13. Priests at weddings could save themselves some  work and just read  this. Like everything else, it's written at a non-specialized level, so if it finished Grade 8,  the congregation wouldn't be lost.

Update 3: Apparently it's being reported that Francis says birth control is "up to the conscience." Anyone who reads Para 3 and 37 can be forgiven for thinking that. However, Para 80, people. Para 80.

Update 4: Para 129 cites Babette's Feast. That will make for interesting articles.

Update 5: Excellent marital/family advice. Francis appears to be much more at home in pastoral theology than in dogmatics, which he seems at times to think is at war with pastoral theology.

Update 6: Okay, there is so much attributed to Saint John Paul II in this document, that 36-38 surely cannot be a deliberate insult to him. It looks like one, but the more I read the more exhortation, the more unlikely that seems.

Update 7: Regulating births up to conscience of couple & nobody else in 222 without repeating injunction of Para 80 although NFP "should be promoted."

Update 8: Apropos mixed marriage: 228.
In some cases, one of the spouses is not baptized or does not want to practice the faith. This can make the other’s desire to live and grow in the Christian life difficult and at times painful. Still, some common values can be found and these can be shared and relished. In any event, showing love for a spouse who is not a believer, bestowing happiness, soothing hurts and sharing life together represents a true path of sanctification. Love is always a gift of God. Wherever it is poured out, it makes its transforming presence felt, often in mysterious ways, even to the point that “the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband" (1 Cor. 7-14) Good stuff.

Update 9: Uh oh. Here we go at 243. Francis says the divorced in new unions are "not excommunicated." What does that mean?  Can they receive or not? Can they receive or not? If they can, are they not in an objective state of mortal sin if they willingly have sex outside of sacramental marriage? And if they aren't, which extramarital sexual acts are mortal sins and which aren't? Is receiving the Eucharist when in a state of mortal sin a mortal sin or not? Have we scrapped the whole concept of mortal sin? Come on, come on. The pastoral theology is great, but dogmatic theology comes with the office. This is where it gets tough, Holy Father.  No skin off my nose, but there are souls at risk here. Unless, of course, there's no hell after all. The interesting thing about dogmatics is that it's all connected. Unravel a thread, and there goes your cosmic cardigan.

Update 10: B.A. has come home spitting mad about "the confessional should not be a torture chamber." Yeah, I hope ISIS don't read that thought aloud to the next crowd of Christians they behead/machine gun/set on fire. The confessional should not be a torture chamber. Popes should not stuff chickpeas up their noses. Babies should not float about the room on pink clouds.

Update 11: I'm at Chapter 8--really very tired--and yet I suspect this is where one has to be most clear-headed. I think I should take a LONG break and have dinner and read a Polish storybook or two and then go back to it. Voice of the Family is freaking. I think they are overly harsh in places. The right to life of the unborn is clearly and firmly stated

Update 12. I have made a lemon Victoria sponge cake and Umbrian lentils are burbling on the stove.  My Quebec niece and nephew have just received their Easter present from Scotland.  I am full of domestic virtue and family joy. I just wish Pope Francis had written two separate documents: 1. the cool pastoral stuff that I can't find much fault with and 2: a terse outline of what he has decided. How hard could that have been?

Update 13. 301 "Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace." I'd have sent this to a proofreader, myself. If you're going to translate something that outrageous, it's best not to i can haz stutter.

Update 14. More 301. "More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding “its inherent values”,or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin." I'd leave her or marry her except it would, um, be a sin! I see he tries to get St. Thomas Aquinas on side. As if.

Update 15. Stones again. Chair of Moses again. Listen, Moses was the one a-okay with divorce. 305.
"For this reason, a pastor cannot feel that it is enough simply to apply moral laws to those living in “irregular” situations, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives. This would bespeak the closed heart of one used to hiding behind the Church’s teachings, “sitting on the chair of Moses and judging at times with superiority and superficiality difficult cases and wounded families”."  Yeah, because for $30,000 a year (max), that's what it's all about for parish priests.

Update 16. 311. "The teaching of moral theology should not fail to incorporate these considerations, for although it is quite true that concern must be shown for the integrity of the Church’s moral teaching, special care should always be shown to emphasize and encourage the highest and most--" Ah, integrity, inshegrity. Oh no. There's a NINTH chapter!

Update 17.  END. The Chapter 9 is okay and no doubt I would have found it deeply consoling (etc.) if not for the explosions of Chapter 8. Now all I have left to do is count how many times the Holy Father cited himself (and the Relatio) in the footnotes.

My initial conclusion is that I would feel really worried if my husband read Chapter 8 over and over again and talked about how merciful and tender it was. As Francis points out several times, people age and cease to be sexually attractive. He kindly didn't mention that women seem to age much more unattractively then men do. One imagines several devout, merciful and tender men chucking their aged wives for hot and tender young colleagues, knowing that after a few years of deeply meaningful accompaniment with their parish priest that they'll be permitted to receive communion again--none of that boring annulment stuff necessary.

Naturally I have amused myself by imagining what other "irregular" situations  one might bring to one's parish priest, e.g. chap's bisexual wife will leave him if does not accept her new girlfriend, chap also sleeps with new girlfriend, chap feels a bit uneasy about  it all. I pick this example as I went to the wedding of this couple. Fortunately for any parish priest around, none of them were Catholics. At least, the couple wasn't. Maybe the girlfriend was. Or how about: Muslim guy has three wives, and they all convert to Catholicism. Are they all still married? What happens to his two least favourites?

But no doubt polygamy can be left for another day because it's an African worry, and this document was clearly for the Germans. Jawohl, mein Kardinal!

Update 18. Ann B's going ape over the Aquinas stuff in 304. I admit I didn't find it too convincing, but I'm too tired to get the ST off the shelf.

George Washington's Deathbed Conversion

Craziness! Apparently the tale is in the Jesuit Annals. I wonder if my dad knows this.