Case 1. Masculine and Feminine Virtues

Titius, a young Catholic who was devoting himself to medical studies, was accustomed to hear everything called into doubt by his companions. One among them openly asserted that pagan morals were preferable to Christian morals, and handed Titius—who defended the contrary with all his strength—a book by a celebrated author in which the following words are read: “In antiquity the virtues that were most admired were almost exclusively those which are distinctively masculine. Courage, self-assertion, magnanimity, and, above all, patriotism were the leading features of the ideal type; and chastity, modesty, and charity, the gentler and the domestic virtues, which are especially feminine, were greatly undervalued. . . . The change from the heroic to the saintly ideal, from the ideal of Paganism to the ideal of Christianity, was a change from a type which was essentially male, to one which was essentially feminine. . . . Pagan sentiment was chiefly a glorification of the masculine qualities of strength, and courage, and conscious virtue, while Christian sentiment is chiefly a glorification of the feminine qualities of gentleness, humility, and love.”¹ Since Titius had no answer to make, he approached a priest who was his friend and asked for help with the difficulties. Hence it is asked:

1 W. H. Lecky, European Morals, vol. ii, pp. 382–384.

1. Is self-assertion a virtue?

2. What is to be said about the pagan conception of magnanimity?

3. Can the distinction between masculine and feminine virtues be admitted, and can the Christian religion be said to favor the latter?

1. Is self-assertion a virtue?

Self-assertion may be understood merely in the sense of defence of one’s own rights and opinions, and in this sense it seems to belong to the virtue of fortitude. But like self-love, which generally implies excess, self-assertion ordinarily means the thrusting of oneself forward unduly, the tendency of a masterful and ambitious character. In this sense it is a vice, and belongs to pride, ambition, or vainglory.

2. What is to be said of the pagan idea of magnanimity ?

Aristotle describes the magnanimous man in a celebrated chapter of the Ethics.¹ The magnanimous man, according to Aristotle, has great gifts and great natural virtues, but these are all spoiled by pride. He is fully conscious of his merits, he considers them his own, without referring them to God, and claims for them great honor as due to himself from men. He knows how inferior other men are to himself, and despises them. Magnanimity has to be seasoned with the Christian doctrine about God and man’s relation to Him, the foundation of Christian humility, before it can become a Christian virtue. This is admirably done by St. Thomas.²

1 Book iv, chapter 3.

2 II-II, question 129.

3. Can the distinction between masculine and feminine virtues be admitted, and can it be said that the Christian religion favors the latter?³

3 Compare Catholic Encyclopedia, under the word “Honor.”

A virtue is nothing but a habit of well-doing, and as both men and women should have, and practise, all the virtues, no distinction can be admitted between masculine and feminine virtues. The type of Christian perfection is Christ Himself, in Whom all virtues are seen in their fullest development and luster, and as both men and women are bound to form themselves after the model which He set them, it cannot be said that Christianity favors the gentler at the expense of the robuster virtues. The Christian type is a harmonious blending of the gentle and robust virtues; a Christian hero, like St. Louis of France, shows the combination in all its perfection; he is gentle and humble, but he is also strong and high-minded; in a heroine like St. Teresa, we have the same harmonious blending in a female saint. This element of truth in Lecky’s observations may be conceded — the Christian religion insists on meekness, humility, chastity, and charity, and defends the weak; while Paganism was too indulgent and condescending to brute force and strength. But while insisting on the gentler virtues, Christianity by no means forgets the more virile. Perhaps it may be allowed, too, that as man still remains to a great extent a savage, the virtues of courage, fortitude, and others of the same kind do not need to be insisted on so much. Perhaps the tendency of unregenerate human nature is to admire them too highly, and so it is not advisable for Christian teaching to stress them as well.