"Temperance has been retconned as an inordinate display of fussiness and prudery by henpecking women, but we have forgotten the seriously detrimental effects that alcohol abuse had on cities after the industrial revolution."
Appreciate this, even if I did have to look up.the definition of 'retconned'. I was raised in a Pentecostal home with no alcohol whatsoever. At restaurants, Dad would tell the waitress that we were "teetotallers". Seldom would they understand his meaning, but, always, I would feel the heat of embarrassment at our 'differentness'. On the flip side, I have perceived (perhaps erroneously) within the Catholic online space a strong tendency to 'psshaw' any skepticism towards frequent alcohol consumption. I'm glad to see that this tendency is not universally present. As for my current life and attitude towards alcohol, neither my husband or I consume , but I don't quite see it as the 'demon liquor' (Rachel Lynde quote--if you know, you know) that my parents do.
Heady start (pun intended) to a touchy subject re: gender roles. Looking forward to more.
I love this and the way you are constructing your arguments. The pendulum has been swinging too far in the other direction, I fear. Looking forward to reading more!
As Unherd's Kathleen Stock remarked recently “Men are pretty much banned from making any generalisations about women good or bad” and so it's always a pleasure to come across warm-hearted acknowledgements like this from feminist writers that (as I myself wrote recently) "masculinity and femininity are complementary polarities in any sane conception of The Good Life. An acknowledgement that the relationship between a man and a woman has the potential to be the finest fruit that life has to offer. And that when things go wrong, they are often better understood as resulting from a kind of Faustian tango between the sexes than as a simple case of one sex always doing wrong by the other. All just timeless truths and plain common sense you might say - and Yes perhaps these timeless truths have ever obtained in the kitchens and bedrooms of our Western society. But they are ones that have been conspicuous by their absence in the groves of academe and in the fourth estate in recent decades." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance
Great piece Helen! Looking forward to this series. I am glad you mentioned the online (instagram?) “tradwife” movement as having a place in the conversation because I think that is where many women may find their first validation of their preferred way of life. The hope is that as they become more confident in their roles as wives/mothers, what you call a traditional lifestyle, that they can become more nuanced in their opinions. And hopefully come across your extremely intellectual critiques of the movement to help them grow in understanding.
Thank you for writing this. I really appreciate the research you’ve done and the way you present it.
I found the second chapter of Abigail Favale’s “Genesis of Gender” to be one of the best explanations of the Church’s view on Genesis and what that means for male and female complementarity.
Looking forward to reading the rest of the series! I think you should write a book!!!!
I find a lot of discussions about this bemusing because most women in my social circle are in very traditional marriages and are just…living their lives, entirely unaware of the sound and fury of online tradwife discourse. If you asked one of them if her husband was the head of the family, she’d say yes; if you asked her if that meant he’d overrule her and make a decision she thought was wrong, she would honestly find that idea bizarre. This is an area where I find the gap between online and reality to be particularly extreme.
I take the point that some women see in tradwife influencers validation for the lifestyle they prefer, and maybe it’s just my age (early 40s), but I also don’t know many women who look to the internet for that. But I also don’t see a lot of women who feel shame about wanting to be at home full-time or only work part-time. I know the conventional wisdom ‘round here is that SAHMs are viewed as low-status but that’s not borne out by my experience in the American south, even in highly educated and wealthier circles - the high-income lawyer to high-income SAHM pipeline is pretty strong, to the degree that female associates in large firms often face a lot of questions about whether they intend to return (full-time or at all) after having kids. I’ve one woman that seemed to feel shame about leaving paid work to stay at home, but that’s it.
I see the internet as a bit of a zeitgeist incubation machine. The trans contagion was the canary in the coalmine for people forgetting how to live and then learning / manufacturing their identities through social media narrative. This definitely has a generational component
Zeitgeist incubation machine is an excellent way of putting it. The trans thing, because it relies on the assumption that there’s a disjunction between created body and “true self” is almost a perfect social contagion for the internet age. Not the subject of this post, but such an interesting area.
Certainly a lot to chew on here. I do find a lot of what you describe as reactionary thinking solid, even though the manner in which it is expressed is often very off-putting. I perceive there is a general yearning in society for proper understanding of sexual dynamics, and it is possible to over-correct. Yet it is also a fortuitous time to hold up the persuasive beauty of God's design. Regarding wifely submission, some influencers may identify this with the unilateral imposition of the husband's will - without reference to his wife, but plenty of others say that it is a clear delineation of headship that is constantly informed by the heart (the wife). Those are very different pictures of reality. Furthermore, I'm confused by the argument from Stimpson-Chapman and others that quotes from St. JPII are a definitive representation of where the Church stands. What about earlier papal encyclicals? Are they overruled by the most recent pontiff? I am thinking of Pope Leo XIII: “The mutual duties of husband and wife have been defined, and their several rights accurately established. They are bound, namely, to have such feelings for one another as to cherish always very great mutual love, to be ever faithful to their marriage vow, and to give one another an unfailing and unselfish help. The husband is the chief of the family and the head of the wife. The woman, because she is flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, must be subject to her husband and obey him; not, indeed, as a servant, but as a companion, so that her obedience shall be wanting in neither honor nor dignity. Since the husband represents Christ, and since the wife represents the Church, let there always be, both in him who commands and in her who obeys, a heavenborn love guiding both in their respective duties. For "the husband is the head of the wife; as Christ is the head of the Church. . . Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in all things." (Encyclicum Arcanum)
Also Pius XI: “This subjection, however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs. But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body, which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.” (Casti Conubii)
There is much more like this from previous popes, it seems that St. JPII was the first to introduce the concept of "mutual submission," which for me is a concept difficult to understand in principle let alone in practice.
“The Church doesn’t deny the husband’s headship. She recognizes that the husband is the head of the family as Christ is the head of the Church. But she also recognizes the husband, is not Christ. Human husbands are just that: human. They are flawed sinful men whose judgement is as likely wrong as right. No wife, no person, is called to give unquestioning obedience to another human person. Rather, as “head” and “heart,” husband and wife are to work together to help their marriage and their family flourish (Casti Connubi. 27).
That metaphor, as employed by Pope Pius XI, is a powerful one. It illustrates its point well (better perhaps than Pius XI intended), for in a healthy human person, times exist when the heart must be led by the head—deferring to it wisdom. Times also exist when the head must be led by the heart—acknowledging its wisdom. So too in a healthy marriage, where both husband and wife recognize the wisdom of the other, trust the other, and exercise wisdom and humility in deferring to the other. That’s what having Sacred Tradition, as well as Sacred Scripture, helps you to see.”
Wives aren't commanded to unquestioning obedience, but they are commanded to obey and to be subject, husbands are not obligated to obey and be subject to their wives. They are commanded to love them and lay down their lives, and this does include listening and being informed by them, as any wise commander is by his subordinates. But there is still a definitive hierarchy which puts one at the helm, and one not. Is this "rigid patriarchy?" Those in religious orders take vows of obedience, which are understood to exclude things that are sinful or degrading. But they are still bound to their superiors in a way the superiors are not bound to them, the submission could not be called "mutual."
The church after V2 has endeavored to accept and engage with the modern world to the maximum extent possible. And where the convictions of the modern world conflict with settled church doctrine, the church has produced less than clear messages. JPII seeming to walk back the traditional view marriage of marriage is a clear example. The catechism likewise says nothing about who is the head of the family. Kind of an odd omission in a world so hostile to the Christian witness in that area in particular. But it’s possible to read these more recent statements as simply not highlighting the traditional doctrine. Emphasizing other facets of marriage. Nothing wrong with that. But unfortunately most take it as implicit repudiation.
This is a super fascinating series! I'm excited to read the rest of the series, and agree that a lot of the online trad-wife culture is pretty vulgar and unhealthy.
However, I'm still not convinced that temperance was a good move for first-wave feminists. From what I can tell, it was mostly a Methodist backed ideology that is unique to the United States and has created a very unhealthy attitude among a lot of protestants toward alcohol in general. I also don't have a lot of respect for Methodist theology beyond that... they pride themselves for being among the first to have women pastors, etc. I would be very interested though to know if there were any prominent Catholic women who were involved with first wave feminists and who advocated for teetotalism.
I hear you. As I said, temperance is certainly not beyond reproach, but just because the outcomes were imperfect doesn’t mean the issue that prompted it was illegitimate or unreal.
Oh, yes. I agree that the issues were legitimate! That's always the unfortunate thing about these matters. You can't always blame the reactive movements that spring up, because they did have a cause that arguably forced their hands.
She might not be particularly famous especially outside Australia, but my great-great grandmother was devout Catholic, advocated for teetotalism after being abandoned by an abusive first husband with 7 children and was the first woman in West Australian Parliament founded the first consumer rights organisation in the country. She lost her senate seat after voting for some crucial reforms to the structure of the parliament that eliminated her seat because she believed it was in the best interests of the state and constituents.
She was a teetotaller on and off herself and her son-in-law (my great-grandfather) was one and he owned a pub too! Australia could never have something like prohibition on a federal level because our constitution doesn’t allow it and is extremely difficult to change. 8 of the 70 or so referenda held in the last 125 years have passed. However, there was plenty of state and local government activity and advocacy around licensing to reduce opportunity for problematic drunkenness and there are still voluntarily dry communities in Australia, most of them remote Aboriginal communities that never recovered from the industrialisation of alcohol production.
Just last year the federal government had to override the Northern Territory government to reinstate alcohol bans that expired 2 years previously on the urgent request of aboriginal elders. In that two years the police, hospitals and social services became utterly overwhelmed by the drink induced domestic violence, violence against children, robbery, petty crime and hooliganism that rendered any town a war zone after sundown in the red centre. If you want to see what society used to look like, when cheap liquor became available at scale, remote Australian Aboriginal communities are still stuck there.
Are you saying that in the Catholic understanding of marriage a wife does not submit to her husband as head of family, even with all due qualifications?
Of Hannah More, Elizabeth Fry, Isabella Graham, and Frances Willard, only Willard could be described as an "early feminist", as she was a women's suffragist. I wouldn't describe other kinds of social reform as "feminism", and you haven't even defended first-wave feminism (where the steelman begins at).
No one was objecting to this dubious classification of "early feminism" then, not even your steelman. Redefining the term is unhelpful. Anti-feminists object to suffrage and what came after.
In no way do antifeminists limit their critique of first wave feminists to suffrage. In fact, they usually begin with Wollstonecraft who was much earlier. Next!
Wollstonecraft held and advocated for ideals that would later shape feminist thought, as opposed to a social reformer who happened to be female. She's *actually* an early feminist. Do "tradwives" disagree that education is good, and poverty, prostitution, and alcoholism are bad? These aren't uniquely feminist values and no one recognizes them as such when they reject feminism.
All of the female social reformers are generally understood as an iterative “first wave feminism,” as most of them were political women explicitly interested in the political and social advancement of women, yes
You’re making another one of my points for me though — these things are only taken for granted now as a result of those reforms. And yes, plenty of the red pill right do recognize those values (especially female education) as “feminist” and question them openly
You’ve done some very heavy lifting here, Helen. I honor it.
The corresponding injunction to ‘submit to one another’ has always been a balancing passage to me for the error you point out.
I am recognizing for the first time the connection between the temperance movement and the suffrage movement. Quite fascinating and faceted.
Great post. Looking forward to more.
"Temperance has been retconned as an inordinate display of fussiness and prudery by henpecking women, but we have forgotten the seriously detrimental effects that alcohol abuse had on cities after the industrial revolution."
Appreciate this, even if I did have to look up.the definition of 'retconned'. I was raised in a Pentecostal home with no alcohol whatsoever. At restaurants, Dad would tell the waitress that we were "teetotallers". Seldom would they understand his meaning, but, always, I would feel the heat of embarrassment at our 'differentness'. On the flip side, I have perceived (perhaps erroneously) within the Catholic online space a strong tendency to 'psshaw' any skepticism towards frequent alcohol consumption. I'm glad to see that this tendency is not universally present. As for my current life and attitude towards alcohol, neither my husband or I consume , but I don't quite see it as the 'demon liquor' (Rachel Lynde quote--if you know, you know) that my parents do.
Heady start (pun intended) to a touchy subject re: gender roles. Looking forward to more.
I should edit, *a strong tendency to 'psshaw' any skepticism towards frequent alcohol consumption by MEN.
I love this and the way you are constructing your arguments. The pendulum has been swinging too far in the other direction, I fear. Looking forward to reading more!
LOVED this piece! A much needed contribution to the increasingly braindead discourse.
Thanks, Neeraja!
As Unherd's Kathleen Stock remarked recently “Men are pretty much banned from making any generalisations about women good or bad” and so it's always a pleasure to come across warm-hearted acknowledgements like this from feminist writers that (as I myself wrote recently) "masculinity and femininity are complementary polarities in any sane conception of The Good Life. An acknowledgement that the relationship between a man and a woman has the potential to be the finest fruit that life has to offer. And that when things go wrong, they are often better understood as resulting from a kind of Faustian tango between the sexes than as a simple case of one sex always doing wrong by the other. All just timeless truths and plain common sense you might say - and Yes perhaps these timeless truths have ever obtained in the kitchens and bedrooms of our Western society. But they are ones that have been conspicuous by their absence in the groves of academe and in the fourth estate in recent decades." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance
Great piece Helen! Looking forward to this series. I am glad you mentioned the online (instagram?) “tradwife” movement as having a place in the conversation because I think that is where many women may find their first validation of their preferred way of life. The hope is that as they become more confident in their roles as wives/mothers, what you call a traditional lifestyle, that they can become more nuanced in their opinions. And hopefully come across your extremely intellectual critiques of the movement to help them grow in understanding.
Thank you for writing this. I really appreciate the research you’ve done and the way you present it.
I found the second chapter of Abigail Favale’s “Genesis of Gender” to be one of the best explanations of the Church’s view on Genesis and what that means for male and female complementarity.
Looking forward to reading the rest of the series! I think you should write a book!!!!
I find a lot of discussions about this bemusing because most women in my social circle are in very traditional marriages and are just…living their lives, entirely unaware of the sound and fury of online tradwife discourse. If you asked one of them if her husband was the head of the family, she’d say yes; if you asked her if that meant he’d overrule her and make a decision she thought was wrong, she would honestly find that idea bizarre. This is an area where I find the gap between online and reality to be particularly extreme.
I take the point that some women see in tradwife influencers validation for the lifestyle they prefer, and maybe it’s just my age (early 40s), but I also don’t know many women who look to the internet for that. But I also don’t see a lot of women who feel shame about wanting to be at home full-time or only work part-time. I know the conventional wisdom ‘round here is that SAHMs are viewed as low-status but that’s not borne out by my experience in the American south, even in highly educated and wealthier circles - the high-income lawyer to high-income SAHM pipeline is pretty strong, to the degree that female associates in large firms often face a lot of questions about whether they intend to return (full-time or at all) after having kids. I’ve one woman that seemed to feel shame about leaving paid work to stay at home, but that’s it.
I see the internet as a bit of a zeitgeist incubation machine. The trans contagion was the canary in the coalmine for people forgetting how to live and then learning / manufacturing their identities through social media narrative. This definitely has a generational component
Zeitgeist incubation machine is an excellent way of putting it. The trans thing, because it relies on the assumption that there’s a disjunction between created body and “true self” is almost a perfect social contagion for the internet age. Not the subject of this post, but such an interesting area.
Beautifully done! This was a joy to read :)
big brain time
Fascinating, Helen. Can’t wait to read the rest of the series.
This is top notch thinking.
Certainly a lot to chew on here. I do find a lot of what you describe as reactionary thinking solid, even though the manner in which it is expressed is often very off-putting. I perceive there is a general yearning in society for proper understanding of sexual dynamics, and it is possible to over-correct. Yet it is also a fortuitous time to hold up the persuasive beauty of God's design. Regarding wifely submission, some influencers may identify this with the unilateral imposition of the husband's will - without reference to his wife, but plenty of others say that it is a clear delineation of headship that is constantly informed by the heart (the wife). Those are very different pictures of reality. Furthermore, I'm confused by the argument from Stimpson-Chapman and others that quotes from St. JPII are a definitive representation of where the Church stands. What about earlier papal encyclicals? Are they overruled by the most recent pontiff? I am thinking of Pope Leo XIII: “The mutual duties of husband and wife have been defined, and their several rights accurately established. They are bound, namely, to have such feelings for one another as to cherish always very great mutual love, to be ever faithful to their marriage vow, and to give one another an unfailing and unselfish help. The husband is the chief of the family and the head of the wife. The woman, because she is flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, must be subject to her husband and obey him; not, indeed, as a servant, but as a companion, so that her obedience shall be wanting in neither honor nor dignity. Since the husband represents Christ, and since the wife represents the Church, let there always be, both in him who commands and in her who obeys, a heavenborn love guiding both in their respective duties. For "the husband is the head of the wife; as Christ is the head of the Church. . . Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in all things." (Encyclicum Arcanum)
Also Pius XI: “This subjection, however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs. But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body, which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.” (Casti Conubii)
There is much more like this from previous popes, it seems that St. JPII was the first to introduce the concept of "mutual submission," which for me is a concept difficult to understand in principle let alone in practice.
None of what you’ve offered contradicts what Emily or I said 😊
How can subjection be understood as both mutual (JPII) and one-sided (Leo XIII, Pius XI)?
“The Church doesn’t deny the husband’s headship. She recognizes that the husband is the head of the family as Christ is the head of the Church. But she also recognizes the husband, is not Christ. Human husbands are just that: human. They are flawed sinful men whose judgement is as likely wrong as right. No wife, no person, is called to give unquestioning obedience to another human person. Rather, as “head” and “heart,” husband and wife are to work together to help their marriage and their family flourish (Casti Connubi. 27).
That metaphor, as employed by Pope Pius XI, is a powerful one. It illustrates its point well (better perhaps than Pius XI intended), for in a healthy human person, times exist when the heart must be led by the head—deferring to it wisdom. Times also exist when the head must be led by the heart—acknowledging its wisdom. So too in a healthy marriage, where both husband and wife recognize the wisdom of the other, trust the other, and exercise wisdom and humility in deferring to the other. That’s what having Sacred Tradition, as well as Sacred Scripture, helps you to see.”
Wives aren't commanded to unquestioning obedience, but they are commanded to obey and to be subject, husbands are not obligated to obey and be subject to their wives. They are commanded to love them and lay down their lives, and this does include listening and being informed by them, as any wise commander is by his subordinates. But there is still a definitive hierarchy which puts one at the helm, and one not. Is this "rigid patriarchy?" Those in religious orders take vows of obedience, which are understood to exclude things that are sinful or degrading. But they are still bound to their superiors in a way the superiors are not bound to them, the submission could not be called "mutual."
The church after V2 has endeavored to accept and engage with the modern world to the maximum extent possible. And where the convictions of the modern world conflict with settled church doctrine, the church has produced less than clear messages. JPII seeming to walk back the traditional view marriage of marriage is a clear example. The catechism likewise says nothing about who is the head of the family. Kind of an odd omission in a world so hostile to the Christian witness in that area in particular. But it’s possible to read these more recent statements as simply not highlighting the traditional doctrine. Emphasizing other facets of marriage. Nothing wrong with that. But unfortunately most take it as implicit repudiation.
This is a super fascinating series! I'm excited to read the rest of the series, and agree that a lot of the online trad-wife culture is pretty vulgar and unhealthy.
However, I'm still not convinced that temperance was a good move for first-wave feminists. From what I can tell, it was mostly a Methodist backed ideology that is unique to the United States and has created a very unhealthy attitude among a lot of protestants toward alcohol in general. I also don't have a lot of respect for Methodist theology beyond that... they pride themselves for being among the first to have women pastors, etc. I would be very interested though to know if there were any prominent Catholic women who were involved with first wave feminists and who advocated for teetotalism.
I hear you. As I said, temperance is certainly not beyond reproach, but just because the outcomes were imperfect doesn’t mean the issue that prompted it was illegitimate or unreal.
Oh, yes. I agree that the issues were legitimate! That's always the unfortunate thing about these matters. You can't always blame the reactive movements that spring up, because they did have a cause that arguably forced their hands.
She might not be particularly famous especially outside Australia, but my great-great grandmother was devout Catholic, advocated for teetotalism after being abandoned by an abusive first husband with 7 children and was the first woman in West Australian Parliament founded the first consumer rights organisation in the country. She lost her senate seat after voting for some crucial reforms to the structure of the parliament that eliminated her seat because she believed it was in the best interests of the state and constituents.
She was a teetotaller on and off herself and her son-in-law (my great-grandfather) was one and he owned a pub too! Australia could never have something like prohibition on a federal level because our constitution doesn’t allow it and is extremely difficult to change. 8 of the 70 or so referenda held in the last 125 years have passed. However, there was plenty of state and local government activity and advocacy around licensing to reduce opportunity for problematic drunkenness and there are still voluntarily dry communities in Australia, most of them remote Aboriginal communities that never recovered from the industrialisation of alcohol production.
Just last year the federal government had to override the Northern Territory government to reinstate alcohol bans that expired 2 years previously on the urgent request of aboriginal elders. In that two years the police, hospitals and social services became utterly overwhelmed by the drink induced domestic violence, violence against children, robbery, petty crime and hooliganism that rendered any town a war zone after sundown in the red centre. If you want to see what society used to look like, when cheap liquor became available at scale, remote Australian Aboriginal communities are still stuck there.
Are you saying that in the Catholic understanding of marriage a wife does not submit to her husband as head of family, even with all due qualifications?
No. I’m saying the qualifications matter a lot.
Of Hannah More, Elizabeth Fry, Isabella Graham, and Frances Willard, only Willard could be described as an "early feminist", as she was a women's suffragist. I wouldn't describe other kinds of social reform as "feminism", and you haven't even defended first-wave feminism (where the steelman begins at).
Early feminism was more expansive than suffrage. Their social reform movements were primarily concerned with women, hence the association. Next
No one was objecting to this dubious classification of "early feminism" then, not even your steelman. Redefining the term is unhelpful. Anti-feminists object to suffrage and what came after.
In no way do antifeminists limit their critique of first wave feminists to suffrage. In fact, they usually begin with Wollstonecraft who was much earlier. Next!
Wollstonecraft held and advocated for ideals that would later shape feminist thought, as opposed to a social reformer who happened to be female. She's *actually* an early feminist. Do "tradwives" disagree that education is good, and poverty, prostitution, and alcoholism are bad? These aren't uniquely feminist values and no one recognizes them as such when they reject feminism.
All of the female social reformers are generally understood as an iterative “first wave feminism,” as most of them were political women explicitly interested in the political and social advancement of women, yes
You’re making another one of my points for me though — these things are only taken for granted now as a result of those reforms. And yes, plenty of the red pill right do recognize those values (especially female education) as “feminist” and question them openly