A good interviewer is transparent, so that his questions draw out the best answers from the one being interviewed. Vittorio Messori -- best-selling author of books eliciting thoughts from both John Paul II and Benedict XVI -- has been an enigma to most of his readers, but now he offers some deliberately provocative comments concerning marriage, suggesting that we “return to pre-arranged marriages.”
He explains further:
If marriage is not just continuous emotional chirping, but it is a pact for life, it is worth re-evaluating the wisdom shown in the past, when parents chose their daughters’ husbands. So many of my forty year old single or separated female friends have confided to me that we should go back to pre-arranged marriages. Instead of leaving everything up to chance, it is better to put our trust in someone who has experience and is able to make an informed judgement based on temperament, whilst taking into account factors such as age, solidity and perhaps even material wealth as well…”
And yet, if a culture hasn't been choosing well for several generations, then at what point will young people be able to trust their parents' judgement--parents who are more than likely themselves to have been divorced, and probably struggling with many dimensions of their faith. Wisdom is a gift of God that accumulates among the faithful over the years. That might be a problem in some places, no?
He continues, pinning the blame for bad matches on smarmy romantic notions:
[I]t is precisely this romantic Nineteenth century concept of love which is steeped in rhetoric from the Italian novel Heart and full of women whose only role is to care for the family that has ruined the Catholic family. If anything, the role of Catholics today is to combat romantic love. Marriage, I repeat, cannot be based on emotions, because emotions are, by nature changeable. Without faith in Jesus, the promise of “forever” made between a man and a woman would be irrational.
Now, interestingly, I've met a couple whose marriage was arranged. They were very happly, having been raised in southern India. They had only met briefly when going down the list of suggested spouses drawn up by their parents. She was something like the sixth on his list, and he was the second on hers. A fifteen minute discussion sealed the deal.
"What did you talk about?" I asked, shocked.
"School plans. Job prospects. Basic stuff." was the cheerful answer.
They were delightful and deeply Catholic. But the key element was that they shared a rich culture and their families had been doing this for centuries. It was an art. When the children are young, the parents take note of their peers, and they watch the development, the formation, the school progress, the growth in virtue. They keep tabs on the families they admire, and take note of the ones who would make good spouses for their children. For them--with all of those added layers--it worked.In fact, although they were living in the States, their families back in India were keeping their eye on prospects for their children, whom they hoped would continue the tradition.
It probably doesn't work for everyone, but with both the man and the woman given the veto power and a chance to size up each prospective mate, it has quite a good success rate. The added benefit was that the entire community was invested in each marriage, and if either the husband or the wife in a union began to stray from his or her responsibilities to the family, the people close to them offered fraternal correction, based on the Gospel.
Could it work in the diverse societies now found in the West? Where everything including food, entertainment, work ethic, and lifestyle are hyper-individualised? Highly doubtful, but would it be worse than what we have now? Hmmm, perhaps just a different kind of bad.
Interesting idea, but maybe one for the back shelf. Way back.
Comments
“People have realized that the complete removal of the feminine element from the Christian message is a shortcoming from an anthropological viewpoint. It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity."
This is just another of the unintended consequences of the cultural acceptance of contraception and abortion! Men's sexuality has been robbed of its creative essence. It is now viewed as something that imposes a burden on women (when conception happens to occur), something used to control women or something that is purely recreational. Why would men bother?? In taking away their responsibility, we've also robbed them of their significance! In the big picture of humanity, men have been made into nothing more than a nuisance women have to figure out how to control in order to bring about the next generation. Men don't see it as their task to protect the vulnerable because they see themselves as the vulnerable ones. A few well preserved vials of sperm would make men entirely obsolete in the world's ethos today!!
That is astounding Robin, and good for you for standing up. At the heart of that matter, I think, is even worse than a gender mixing message. There is an increased sharper and sharper focus on the "self." Solid Catholic teaching returns our focus away from ourselves to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The original sin, Eve denied her womanhood when she desired to be like "gods." Since the only god she knew was the Father. Where was Adam? He stood impotent... in other words, they were divorced. There's a young girl at Robin's son's high school who was just told that she is the center of the universe and it's a tragic disservice to her.
Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.
I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids. Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.