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Post by homeschooldad on Jul 14, 2023 6:35:50 GMT
If nothing was changed, then why did teaching shift from marriage's primary purpose being procreation to procreative and unitive? Were they always held as equal? Short answer, development of doctrine. I'm not so sure there is any conflict. I always say that two of the first commands given in Genesis are (1) what you may eat and what you may not eat and (2) "be fruitful and multiply". Yet right on the heels of this, God says that it is not good for man to be alone, that he needs a helpmate. Marriage has both ends. To perform the act solely for procreation smacks of thinking of man like a brute animal. Yet the act is intrinsically ordered to procreation, not that each and every act results in this, nor that those infertile through no fault of their own may not engage in the act, but that the act itself has procreation (or at least its potential) as its end, and this end may not be deliberately frustrated. Using NFP does not frustrate this end; any couple who uses NFP knows that, however remote it is, a conception could occur. If they cannot accept this risk, they must abstain. That is just nature.
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Post by tisbearself on Jul 14, 2023 11:49:42 GMT
I think it's important to note that according to Scripture, God stated that he created woman to be man's helper, suggesting that unity and accompaniment were an important reason for God to do this.
Genesis 2:18 : "18 The Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him."
God also mentions in Genesis 1:28 the command for man to "be fruitful and multiply", but it's pretty clear God didn't just create woman for the purpose of procreation. Moreover, the Church's teaching on this has not changed -how could it, when God's word is right there in Scripture? It's more a matter of which purpose is emphasized by the Church in a given era.
Some reasons I can think of for why procreation might have been emphasized by the Church in previous eras:
1) "Be fruitful and multiply" is mentioned first in Scripture (Genesis 1) whereas the concept of woman as helper/ companion is not mentioned till Genesis 2.
2) In previous eras, marriages often were not made for companionship or romantic love, but instead were made for purposes of economics, such as protection, support and survival of women, the whole human race, and the Catholic Church. Procreation was generally a primary purpose of many marriages because having many children was how a primarily agrarian society made sure there would be enough surviving children to support the parents in their old age and to prevent resources like property from passing out of the family's hands. At a time when many if not most people were marrying primarily for the purpose of having children, and not so much out of love for the prospective spouse, it was natural for the Church to stress that. However, it's telling that by the late 1800s, the Baltimore Catechism was stating the first purpose of marriage was to help each other get to heaven and procreation was only the second purpose. This was also around the time Western people were starting to think more in terms of companionate marriage rather than pure economic or arranged marriages.
3) I also think that during some periods in history, Catholics including clergy, saints etc were more likely to feel or express negative attitudes about marital sex that more reflected the social attitudes of their time than the official teaching of the Church. The Church has never taught that properly ordered marital sex was bad, wrong, or dirty, but individual Catholics often felt that it was, for their own reasons, ranging from personal weaknesses to those saints who had mixed or negative feelings about marriage and if left to themselves might have chosen to remain single. Emphasizing procreation was a stronger justification for marital sexual pleasure than emphasizing unitive purposes.
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Post by homeschooldad on Jul 14, 2023 14:35:26 GMT
I think it's important to note that according to Scripture, God stated that he created woman to be man's helper, suggesting that unity and accompaniment were an important reason for God to do this. Genesis 2:18 : "18 The Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him." God also mentions in Genesis 1:28 the command for man to "be fruitful and multiply", but it's pretty clear God didn't just create woman for the purpose of procreation. Moreover, the Church's teaching on this has not changed -how could it, when God's word is right there in Scripture? It's more a matter of which purpose is emphasized by the Church in a given era. Some reasons I can think of for why procreation might have been emphasized by the Church in previous eras: 1) "Be fruitful and multiply" is mentioned first in Scripture (Genesis 1) whereas the concept of woman as helper/ companion is not mentioned till Genesis 2. 2) In previous eras, marriages often were not made for companionship or romantic love, but instead were made for purposes of economics, such as protection, support and survival of women, the whole human race, and the Catholic Church. Procreation was generally a primary purpose of many marriages because having many children was how a primarily agrarian society made sure there would be enough surviving children to support the parents in their old age and to prevent resources like property from passing out of the family's hands. At a time when many if not most people were marrying primarily for the purpose of having children, and not so much out of love for the prospective spouse, it was natural for the Church to stress that. However, it's telling that by the late 1800s, the Baltimore Catechism was stating the first purpose of marriage was to help each other get to heaven and procreation was only the second purpose. This was also around the time Western people were starting to think more in terms of companionate marriage rather than pure economic or arranged marriages. 3) I also think that during some periods in history, Catholics including clergy, saints etc were more likely to feel or express negative attitudes about marital sex that more reflected the social attitudes of their time than the official teaching of the Church. The Church has never taught that properly ordered marital sex was bad, wrong, or dirty, but individual Catholics often felt that it was, for their own reasons, ranging from personal weaknesses to those saints who had mixed or negative feelings about marriage and if left to themselves might have chosen to remain single. Emphasizing procreation was a stronger justification for marital sexual pleasure than emphasizing unitive purposes. Very well put. The procreative and unitive ends were there from the very beginning, viz. Genesis. One thing I would add, is that there are many non-sexual ways to show love for one's spouse, other than the conjugal act, whereas there is only one licit way for procreation to take place. (I say "licit" because there is the modern phenomenon of in vitro fertilization, which utterly divorces procreation from that act.)
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Post by theguvnor on Jul 14, 2023 15:54:02 GMT
My wife would like to offer this tip for happy marriages:
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Post by tisbearself on Jul 14, 2023 16:40:43 GMT
Mr Bear would have agreed with that. He was very much a "happy wife, happy life" type person. When he did put his foot down, he put it down very hard, but he didn't put it down often.
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Post by theguvnor on Jul 14, 2023 18:01:58 GMT
Every marriage differs, but my mother was more of an organizer and doer than my father and so in some ways is my wife. I tend to raise wry eyebrows at any 'textbook' approaches to 'male' and 'female' roles in relationships by this time in my life. I tend to work on more of a, 'Is this working approach?'
I rarely put my foot down as well. The last time I did it was the other day when my wife's PC froze and she started getting very upset. I told her to go take a drink of something cold and disappear for an hour or two and I'd sort it out. Turned out to endless stupid Windows 10 updates trying to all get done at once due to her not using that machine for a couple of weeks. I have come to detest Windows 10 and its updates. I detest them so much I have a PC underneath this desk with Linux installed as a backup computer. It started out life as a 'nettop' PC but has been mucked about by me so it now has a fair bit more RAM and a much bigger SSD disk in there.
She also makes me do all tech buys for the household - mainly because she knows I prefer substance over style an won't buy something just because it looks cool. One of her friends bought a Dyson hoover that cost about six hundred quid. I refrained from saying anything but was thinking, 'Why would I need this for a small house?' I bought a 50 quid hoover from the catalogue store and yes it takes me five minutes more to do the hoovering but I don't have to buy special Dyson only bits and pieces for it.
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Post by homeschooldad on Jul 14, 2023 18:19:12 GMT
Every marriage differs, but my mother was more of an organizer and doer than my father and so in some ways is my wife. I tend to raise wry eyebrows at any 'textbook' approaches to 'male' and 'female' roles in relationships by this time in my life. I tend to work on more of a, 'Is this working approach?' I rarely put my foot down as well. The last time I did it was the other day when my wife's PC froze and she started getting very upset. I told her to go take a drink of something cold and disappear for an hour or two and I'd sort it out. Turned out to endless stupid Windows 10 updates trying to all get done at once due to her not using that machine for a couple of weeks. I have come to detest Windows 10 and its updates. I detest them so much I have a PC underneath this desk with Linux installed as a backup computer. It started out life as a 'nettop' PC but has been mucked about by me so it now has a fair bit more RAM and a much bigger SSD disk in there. She also makes me do all tech buys for the household - mainly because she knows I prefer substance over style an won't buy something just because it looks cool. One of her friends bought a Dyson hoover that cost about six hundred quid. I refrained from saying anything but was thinking, 'Why would I need this for a small house?' I bought a 50 quid hoover from the catalogue store and yes it takes me five minutes more to do the hoovering but I don't have to buy special Dyson only bits and pieces for it. There are many marriages where the wife organizes all of the family finances, pays the bills, and in some cases, gives the husband an allowance after she collects his paycheck (whether she also has a paycheck or not, either way). Perhaps I'm reading more into it than is there (and there would be many different flavors of "wife as CFO"), but I have to wonder, at least in some cases, whether there is the idea, spoken or unspoken, that the husband can't be trusted to manage the family finances wisely, and the ostensibly more "sensible" wife takes the reins. (An arrangement in the opposite direction, with the sexes reversed, would have everyone screaming bloody murder, a fortiori with similarly malignant assumptions, a fortiori if the wife also had a paycheck, and whatever something stronger than a fortiori would be if the wife worked and the husband didn't, but you never hear of such a thing.) My wife and I had an ideal financial arrangement, about which some to whom I've described it were taken aback ("because that's just not the way things are done!"), but here it is anyway, and I would add to that, in fourteen years together, we never had any arguments about money. (How many couples can say that?) Here's what we did. She had her own bank account, 401(k), and Roth IRA. I had my own bank account and 401(k). (I didn't have a Roth.) We had our own credit and debit cards for things that were purely our own purchases (her craft materials, my electronics, and so on). Every month, we would split the shared bills equitably according to a formula, and used a spreadsheet. I would show the spreadsheet to her, say "you good with this?", and she always was. I then moved "her part" into my checking account and paid the bills. When our son was born, we split those expenses equitably as well. (I say "equitably", some bills were 50/50, such as electric, some bills were more mine, some bills were more hers.) When the divorce sadly took place, my attorney told me that the financial part of it was the easiest division he'd ever seen. We didn't have money mingled together except on an ad hoc basis. My 401(k) was larger than hers, so she got a chunk of mine to make things even, and that was it. Utterly uncomplicated. (And, yes, I know in marriage, all of a couple's money and goods belong equally to each other. We recognized that. Nonetheless, keeping finances separate, and collaborating on common expenses, spared us a lot of argument and heartache that happens in so many marriages. Of all our problems, money was never one of them.)
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Post by tth1 on Aug 4, 2023 14:40:19 GMT
We males are also useful for carrying heavy shopping bags I've discovered since being married. Don't forget we have to put the bins out, wash the car and mow the lawn.
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Post by tth1 on Aug 4, 2023 14:43:52 GMT
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Post by tth1 on Aug 4, 2023 14:45:11 GMT
I hate ICT. Bring back quills and parchment. I [allegedly] inserted an image in my last [blank] post. Where it's gone to I don't know.
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 4, 2023 16:14:20 GMT
I do the bins, but no-one drives in this household so I am spared car-related chores. A lot of people in London don't drive anymore. The costs of parking the car are huge in some spots and the LTNs are a pain in the fundamental. My wife is currently visiting her mother but still checks on me daily with video calls. Her cat Tasya who couldn't come to England pops up in a lot of these purring because Tasya seems to still remember me and is wondering where my voice is coming from. Tasya is a very old cat now though, approaching twenty years old, but still quite bouncy and playful.
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Post by farronwolf on Aug 4, 2023 16:31:48 GMT
We males are also useful for carrying heavy shopping bags I've discovered since being married. Don't forget we have to put the bins out, wash the car and mow the lawn. Don't forget keep the cars/motorcycles/camper serviced, lawn/power equipment serviced, keep well running, fix/replace appliances, do any electrical, carpentry or plumbing work, landscaping, electronics issues, cut/split firewood, any outside cooking/grilling, and some inside cooking, and the list could go on.
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Post by tth1 on Aug 8, 2023 16:10:37 GMT
I do the bins, but no-one drives in this household so I am spared car-related chores. A lot of people in London don't drive anymore. The costs of parking the car are huge in some spots and the LTNs are a pain in the fundamental. My wife is currently visiting her mother but still checks on me daily with video calls. Her cat Tasya who couldn't come to England pops up in a lot of these purring because Tasya seems to still remember me and is wondering where my voice is coming from. Tasya is a very old cat now though, approaching twenty years old, but still quite bouncy and playful. I have heard that many people in London no longer drive. We have a double drive and a reasonably sized garage, probably something we couldn't afford in London.
I loathe driving and would happily give it up. Living in a major metropolitan area means there is a lot of public transport. However, until recently we could get calls in the middle of the night to go to my mum who lives 16 miles away and public transport is not too good at that time. Plus, I cannot rely on it getting me to work on time unless I leave really early and wouldn't mid arriving too early. Therefore, I still drive because it's a matter of convenience.
My wife cannot drive. When she failed her driving test on the fifth occasion she gave up. She can drive but the moment you tell my wife she's being assessed/examined/tested she goes to pieces. It is a bit of a sore point because when we go out I'm always the designated driver and often have to decide whether I have one small beer or if we're having a meal a small glass of wine instead. Sometimes I get really strict with myself and will not let the smallest drop of alcohol past my lips if I'm driving. Yesterday, we went to a baptism and at the social event afterwards I made a glass of beer last from 1.30 to 4 pm. I then went on coffee.
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 8, 2023 17:18:39 GMT
That's millionaire territory in London. Also, given the endless charges if you go down a wrong road here or go through a LTN when you are not meant means only 30 percent of people in this borough own a car and the local council would like to see that fall by another five or ten percent.
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Post by tth1 on Aug 9, 2023 14:41:02 GMT
Another reason to add to my list for not living in that there London.
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