MAX writes:

You seem to posit that all men, simply by virtue of existing, are obligated to seek a wife, marry, and have children, unless there is a real impediment to marriage (religious vocation, mental/physical illness, inability to financially support a family, etc.) Is this assertion correct? If so, why? I’ve never seen any doctrinal or legal obligations within the church’s tradition stating this, nor have I come across any rational argument for this in the (arguably limited) philosophy texts I’ve read. If I have your view on this incorrect, how am I incorrect?

If the above is NOT your position, and normal men are not obligated to seek marriage just by existing, how does this scenario work:

A normal, Christian man chooses not to seek a wife, and to stay single. Let’s say he has been perfectly chaste in thought, word, and deed his entire life, and keeps an appropriate emotional distance between members of the opposite sex so as not to have misunderstood intentions. He has never dated. He is of average income, average looks, average height, and in his mid twenties. He discerned, honestly, the priesthood and religious life, but felt no calling to higher vocation. He comes from a normal, healthy family. He has a healthy, normal physical attraction to women. There are no canonical, physical, spiritual, or mental impediments to marriage and child-rearing. He simply chooses not to seek a wife entirely because he is content with life the way it is, and does not feel the need to add intimate companionship with a wife and children to that mix. Is this acceptable, or is he a terrible person? Why?

If the above is, in fact, an acceptable path for a man, what if we very slightly change the parameters: he does desire a wife, but, through observing experience of other married male friends, and seeing that most of them chose poor wives, many of whom were abandoned and are prevented from having a real relationship with their own progeny, has excessively low confidence in his ability to judge the quality of a woman prior to marriage. In this light, due to (at least perceived) lack of ability to make such an important judgement, is it acceptable for him to live this way, or not? Why?

These aren’t unrealistic scenarios at all. I have two friends who fits into the first category — simple contentment with life — almost perfectly. I have quite a few in the second category of varying degrees — the non-Christian ones aren’t chaste, whereas the Christian ones are.

Laura writes:

Good question. Thank you for asking it. I may clear up some false things that have been said elsewhere about my comments on this issue.

Whenever I have discussed the marriage strikes that call on men not to marry, I have always said that men who are not “temperamentally suited to marriage” or who have a spiritual or intellectual vocation are under no obligation to try and find a wife and marry. Still, this has been distorted so that I have supposedly said there should be no single people on the face of the earth. All men should be rounded up and forced to marry. 

There always will be both men and women who are not meant for family life. They may be natural loners. Or they may have some important work that contributes to the common good. I would include in the religious or intellectual vocations I mentioned, strong artistic, teaching or missionary vocations. Those who prefer celibacy and fall into these categories not only are under no moral obligation to marry but often should not marry.

The point is, for those who do not have some psychological or mental limitations, it’s not enough to simply decline marriage out of personal preference. They must devote themselves in some way to the larger good. Why is this so?

“And not evil-doers alone are called idle,” said Aquinas, “but those who do not do good.” We do not live well by simply causing no harm. “It is a great sign of the divine goodness, that every creature is compelled to give itself,” said Augustine.

The good is everywhere, all around us, and we naturally long to conform to it. The person who lives for himself alone thwarts this desire and is half alive. The onus to protect and further civilization is not simply on those who are parents. All those who are healthy and normal and who do not labor for the future are selfish. I had several great-aunts who did not marry. They worked for others. Three of them lived together. One was the housekeeper and the other two had jobs. They put my grandfather through medical school and he was in turn able to have a large family of seven children.

I had a great-uncle who also did not marry. He was initially an alcoholic, but cured himself and became the director of an institition for alcoholics and drug addicts. He was successful in this work and could not have managed a family too. 

As for your first example, you said:

He has a healthy, normal physical attraction to women. There are no canonical, physical, spiritual, or mental impediments to marriage and child-rearing. He simply chooses not to seek a wife entirely because he is content with life the way it is, and does not feel the need to add intimate companionship with a wife and children to that mix. Is this acceptable, or is he a terrible person?

I would count a vocation of some kind as a “spiritual” impediment, including a vocation to achieve excellence that cannot be attained by those who are married. If you mean a person who does not have some positive reason of this nature or some psychological impediment, I would say no, it is not acceptable. Same thing with your second example.

The healthy person who pursues simple contentment in life while others exhaust themselves in the struggle for the future is a moral simpleton.

That includes those married people who proudly call themselves DINKs (for “double income, no kids”) and live for themselves alone, deliberately infertile and offering nothing to those who raise the next generation. They are nihilists, perhaps perfectly happy ones.

Please follow and like us: