Tea at Trianon: Don’t Overcomplicate Marriage!

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Don’t Overcomplicate Marriage!

From Todd at Catholic Answers:

Not only have marriage rates been tumbling for a generation; now young adults in the West aren’t even coupling and fornicating like they used to, either. Everyone has a theory as to why:

Effortless access to pornography is sating or dulling the desire for sex that used to motivate a young man to pair with a young woman (and ideally to marry her).
The nonstop entertainments and virtual relationships afforded by devices are disincentivizing both men and women to socialize in person.
Economic factors, real or perceived, are making those virtual relationships, and casual group hangouts, easier to fit into the budget than traditional dating (and certainly marriage and children).
Some ambient cultural or environmental pollutant is messing with young people’s minds and bodies: the sexual confusion wrought by pervasive gay and trans activism; stunting of social skills during the Covid years; residual hormones from sixty years of artificial contraception leeching into in our water supply; vaccines or seed oils or chemtrails or whatever your public-health soapbox is.

Whatever the reason or reasons, the West is staring smack at a crisis unprecedented in history: a systemic loss of desire for one generation to court, mate, form families, and create another generation.

In this context, we might take a fresh look at recent discussion over the state of Catholic marriage preparation. (I spent several years as a diocesan marriage & family minister, preparing thousands of couples for matrimony, and the subject is of special interest to me.) In recent years, Pope Francis and some bishops have advocated for much longer and more-stringent marriage-prep programs than most dioceses currently require.

This has divided Catholic opinion along unpredictable lines: some of the usual papal critics like it and some of the usual papal defenders are opposed—and everything in between.

Me? I see arguments for both sides, but I think I come down firmly on one of them.

The pro side for making marriage preparation longer and more involved boils down to one principle: more knowledge is better. Marriage is a “great mystery,” as St. Paul said, and great mysteries require deep and careful attention. How else are we going to reduce Catholic divorce rates and promote marital happiness, if not by a thorough and even demanding pre-marriage boot camp that gets couples truly ready for what lies ahead? (Read more.)

Making a homestead. From Matriarch Goals:

Women creative enough to successfully run a farm and business while raising multiple children do not care about respectability because they are too busy creating. They are oddballs in that they willingly forgo what most people find admirable or respectable in order to pursue their creative compulsion.
I think life separates the creatives from the followers early on, and followers mostly stick to well-worn paths and acceptable avenues because they want to be considered a success. They are creative in their purchasing and in their leisure time, perhaps, but their actual working lives are more or less what everyone else is doing. There isn’t anything wrong with that, but listening to poor Jackie talk fills me with a suspicion that she thinks “the homestead” or “the life of many children and animals and plants” is something “the economy” should provide for young women. That’s not how this goes. The economy provides a lot of expected, usual paths for average people to achieve a modicum of success. But by its very nature, the economy doesn’t really provide unusual, artistic lifestyles to painfully average people who prioritize respectability. (Read more.)