The First World War wiped out almost a generation of British men, and thus there was a generation of British women, often young war widows, who found themselves without a man to marry because there were no men to marry (i.e. in their own social class). Muriel Spark mentions such long-time Singles in her The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Indeed Miss Brodie is one of them, her lost love Hugh buried in some far-off battlefield.
Spiritually, Catholic women are in a similar situation, for Catholic culture as our parents (or grandparents) might have known it was destroyed after 1963. It lingered in some places (and still exists to some extent in Poland), but the culture has been blown up even in such tribal enclaves as Glasgow. Saving himself for marriage, steering clear of mortal sin, finding a nice girl to get married to and having lots of kids...? Are there still men like that in Glasgow? Outside SSPX circles, I mean.
If our parents and grandparents bothered to fight the culture war against Catholic marriage and family, they lost. Losing wars has severe consequences. Generations not even born during the war can suffer from it. This is why it is important for our generations of Catholics to keep on fighting for marriage and the family. Otherwise one day a telephone call from a concerned teacher will land your imaginative child or grandchild in sex reassignment therapy. You laugh? I almost laughed, back in 1991, when a pro-life speaker predicted men would marry men one day. I think he mentioned legal euthanasia, too. What a loon, eh?
Meanwhile, there are Single Catholic men out there of two kinds: (1) the spiritually dead, in a state of mortal sin, and definitely CINO, if they even admit to their baptism, and (2) the wary. The spiritually dead you cannot do anything about. They're dead. With the grace of God they will come to life again, but you're not the grace of God, are you? They may have live-in girlfriends, or they may be serial womanizers, or they may have internet porn addictions. They are easy to spot by the third date. By the third date, sex is in the air, so you mention that you believe sex should be reserved for marriage, and he disappears. Behold!
The wary are the ones that interest me and should be the ones that interest you. Unlike many married friends, I do know some great Single Catholic men. They go to Mass. They read Catholic blogs (like this one). They strive to live their faith. But they're wary because there are such things as no-fault divorce and as the economy. Some may prefer traditionally feminine girls, but there don't seem to be many traditionally feminine girls around, or no traditionally feminine girls who are interesting as well as traditional. The men I know don't seem to fall in love with pretty empty-headed nincompoops. I am not sure why, as these seemed to have been the women men preferred back in the day.
Incidentally, I know of a young woman who told a young man I know that he was the first guy she had ever met who was smarter than her. If I ever meet her, I will shake her hand because that is the most brilliant, worldly and cynical chat-up line I have ever encountered in my entire life.
The greatest gift you can give to a man who has a crush on you (and upon whom you have a crush) is freedom from the fear--often mentioned on the manosphere--that you will divorce him out of boredom, take all his money and poison his children against him. How you can communicate this assurance is a mystery although I suppose it might come up naturally in one of those talk-until-3 AM sessions people on the brink of falling in love seem to have.
Another good gift is the ability and willingness to work at least part-time even once you are married and even when you have children. No, you may not really want to do that and maybe you won't have to, but I'm afraid poor old Joe Generation Y is not Saint Joseph and most of the time he will not be able to support an entire family on his sad Generation Y salary right now.
Meanwhile, I cannot say it enough: although the internet has helped kill off your generation with porn, it does have the ability to form links between likeminded Catholics, male and female, all over the world. Read the blogs, chat on the blogs, flirt on the blogs.
I shall now clean out another set of kitchen cupboards, for lo I am a married woman, and cleaning out kitchen cupboards more than once a decade is part of the job.
Ah! I couldn't agree more. I might also add that unfortunately, despite the lack of good Catholic men and the generational war which has been slowly wiping them away, I find that many "trad" young girls do not put their brains to work to become interesting, if they aren't naturally so. There is a common theme amoung mad-trads for the young girls to occupy themselves lightly until their Knight comes along. I am neither feminist nor cynic, but there are more beneficial things to be doing besides a) wasting time and racking up debt doing "general studies" at your local college with no goal in mind or b) being content in a minimum wage job for years and years because some day your prince will come and you won't have to work because your job will be at home. Young women should be able to support themselves, in the likely event that you may not marry for many, many years, or in fact may not marry at all. If you're standards is the interesting, intelligent, kind and committed Catholic man, then you should be prepared to wait a while, because they are few and far between. Also, if your standard is such for him, you should be committed to making yourself as excellent for him as you hope he will be for you.
ReplyDeleteAs a side note, I wonder these men are not as content to marry a pretty face nowadays, and search more for interesting and intelligent. Maybe it is due to the feminist movement, and so they want women in general to live up to their claim of possessing these traits. Or perhaps due to society there is a vast majority of women who lack the integrity women have had in the past? What was once typical in a woman is now hard to come by?
It is so much easier for women to pick up and leave now. In cases of abuse, this is a good thing. However, when women are feeling discontented with the lot they signed up for on their wedding day, that can be very tragic. Men and women really must be rooted in reality about themselves and their beloved when they decide to marry. They also must be rooted in reality about marriage. It's not the picnic the wedding magazines paint it as: all eating delicious take-out from the best china off crates in a newly painted luxury apartment before the truckload of snazzy furniture arrives. Ha!
DeleteMy hypothesis is that men now expect wives to play a social role at home that they were not expected to play before (when wives were for children, cooking, housework, help in the fields/position and doweries). In general, married men don't go out to the Water Buffalos meetings (etc.), theatre, bowling, or their clubs to play cards anymore. In general, I would guess that men of certain professions once expected their wives to be charming hostesses at most but now we have to be entertaining, too, taking the place of all those men they would have been socializing with at night (before circa 1969).
ReplyDeleteOr possibly marriage is a lot more egalitarian now, with clever chaps very much wanting to marry clever birds, and dumb-but-hearty chaps marrying dumb-but-hearty birds.
Maybe it also has to do with the fact we have more choices (or at least the illusion of having more choices) when it comes to spouses now? (I think women are also now more likely to look for an interesting and intelligent husband, rather than just someone who can support them.)
ReplyDeleteMaybe clever chaps would have always preferred to marry clever birds, but, being expected to marry someone local at a younger age, men in times past were more willing to settle?
It could be!
DeleteMaybe it's because they know the woman they marry will be educating their children. I'm sure I read somewhere that the biggest influence on the education level of children was not the father but the mother. Ive seen the educated man marrying the uneducated woman situation play out in my own family and the result is the father, who already works full time, also has to take responsibility for making sure his kids are educated apart from the little they get at school. The mother comes from a family where education is just not valued and many don't complete high school. And I don't meant going on to a trade, I mean going on the dole.
ReplyDeleteAussie girl in NZ
Ahhh....was she pretty?
DeleteWell I'm sure he thinks so. Not what most would regard as pretty but nice looking enough. She wears mostly sports gear but then so does he. She was 36 and regarded by her rather large family as "on the shelf". She is very social and a great hostess where as he is quite socially awkward (until he has had a couple of drinks !).
DeleteHe got to his late 30s, realised he should get serious about finding a wife (prodding from his brother) and she was a good Catholic woman he got on well with. They got engaged quite quickly.
Aussie girl in NZ
Well, she's a good Catholic woman and he thinks she's pretty, so it's all good. Maybe he likes being the one to make the kids knuckle down and do their homework. Heaven knows we need more tradesmen and businessmen than lawyers and media studies majors, and I bet New Zealand does too!
DeleteAbsolutely! The wealthiest member of our family has his own drain laying business. But as you will note in my comment, her family don't do trades. The male members go on the dole (except one who is a bouncer) and the females seem to have children with different men. And I know he enjoys educating his children. I can also understand how other men might like to marry a woman who can participate in that, especially if education is important to both of them. That was my main point.
Delete"Another good gift is the ability and willingness to work at least part-time even once you are married and even when you have children. No, you may not really want to do that and maybe you won't have to, but I'm afraid poor old Joe Generation Y is not Saint Joseph and most of the time he will not be able to support an entire family on his sad Generation Y salary right now."
ReplyDeleteI've found it to be rather the opposite, unfortunately; Catholic men look at me askance when they realize that I have a job that's more than a space holder pre-marriage employment. I'm self-employed and work from my home, a job that would easily transfer to a post marriage and with children life. These men go and marry some cute Catholic girl who has no intention of working following their marriage and often has student loans as well.
"If your standards is the interesting, intelligent, kind and committed Catholic man, then you should be prepared to wait a while, because they are few and far between. Also, if your standard is such for him, you should be committed to making yourself as excellent for him as you hope he will be for you."
Very well said! Working on my part and waiting for just such an interesting, intelligent, Catholic man.
Emma (the seamstress)
Oh heavens. That is just BIZARRE. Are the young men all millionaires or crazy where you live?!?! I hope you find an interesting and INTELLIGENT Catholic man soon!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if men's opinions about a working wife vary by region, and especially by coastal city vs. more rural area. I know in my mom's small town, the fact that I was planning to go to law school was a turn off to a lot of nice Christian guys (I wasn't Catholic then). They would ask me semi-subtle questions about wanting to get married, have kids, etc. I think most of them wanted a stay at home wife for their families, and as far as I know, they found them. These guys weren't rich, but we're going to school for engineering and lived in a low cost of living area. So I would say that yes, to the devout guy looking for marriage in his twenties, teacher is probably the only occupation that is truly attractive/not an obstacle.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the "going away to law school" was a factor, too? Aw, this is truly aggravating and challenging my cheerfully generalizations. I suspect you are right and it really does depend on the region, not to mention the local culture! Maybe a good answer is "I'd love to be a stay-at-home mom, but if I don't find the right man, I'll have to get a job to support myself, and that's why I'm going to law school." I think the "I'd love to be a stay-at-home mom" is the important part, but the second part might wake these guys up to the realities of women's lives.
Delete