PROTESTANTS have disagreed about many things, but they have joined together in deriding voluntary celibacy and the unmarried state. Dr. Marian Horvat writes:

By closing the convents and insisting that every woman should marry, Protestantism also stripped the high respect and honor the Catholic Church had always given to virgins. Some of this Protestant spirit certainly seeped into the American culture, from the Colonial Period to our times.

Following the English Protestant tradition, the lay celibate – women in particular – became an object of scorn. Single women, even Catholics who voluntarily chose to remain celibate to dedicate themselves more fully to acts of charity, family duties  and prayer, have been labeled “spinsters” or frustrated “old maids.” An example of this negative image of unmarried women: the unpopped kernels in a pot of popcorn are called “old maids,” worthless kernels that fail to reach their full and proper end.

This is an abhorrent position, opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church and denigrating to the women who choose to be celibate. I believe many women with vocations to the lay celibate life choose to marry just to avoid these offensive labels.

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