Article III. Supplements to the Doctrine

520. The education of children ought not, as certain imprudent innovators contend, to be one and the same for both sexes; but rather, if we wish to provide for culture and progress, it will be different for each, so that it may be adapted to the special disposition of each sex.

521. That rationale of plural suffrage by which two or three votes fall to the father of a family and husband, while an unmarried man has only one per se, is per se very commendable. For in truth the father of a family sustains not only his own person but also that of his wife and children, and his vote is presumed to be per se the fruit of a deliberation common between himself and his wife. But if the man and woman are often separated by a diversity of sentiments in matters of greater importance, then we shall admit that the rationale of this vote perishes; and a second vote ought rather to be attributed to the wife, unless other reasons prove that it must generally be denied to her.

Observe also that the rationales of a double or triple vote can benefit an unmarried man, such as greater skill and the very virtue which, for example, is proved by the choice of a more perfect state.

522. Political suffrage is certainly less repugnant for unmarried women. Yet they too are touched by the argument.

523. God distinguished the two sexes by a moderate, not excessive, difference, so that, if occasion required it, the one could be supplied by the other. This happens more often in the private order, as when one of the parents is lacking; more rarely in the commonwealth.

Nevertheless, in order that the peaceful possession of the kingdom might be continued more certainly, it was not rarely introduced that queens could reign.

Apart from this peculiar cause of the common good, you will scarcely find another on account of which women should in a general manner be called to participate in the commonwealth even by suffrage. This could perhaps happen if a spurious rationale of universal suffrage had been introduced either by wicked force or by imprudent counsel, and every hope of a well-administered commonwealth had to be placed in the suffrage of the better sex. Nevertheless, even then the probable inconveniences of the suffrage of women can by no means be neglected.

But where suffrage has already been granted to women, it will often be better to sustain such an institution and to procure its wise use than to wish by an imprudent effort to correct an error which has gained strength in customs.

524. Municipal suffrage seems capable of being granted more usefully to women. For by municipal administration matters more private are determined; and in several matters, for example, in the education of children, which are accustomed to be ordered by municipalities, women themselves possess great authority, with nature herself as its author. Therefore, in England, the councils by which schools are governed are composed also by the votes of women (School Board).

Women are also less to be excluded from assemblies which deliberate concerning laborious occupations, especially since women are often already accustomed to exercise an occupation separately from men.

525. Is the distinction of occupations to be made by laws or permitted to customs? It is apparent that customs have much force in this matter, since several offices are seen to exclude women for reasons which are not immutable. Therefore, if anything seems to have to be established, only those things which are plainly proved certain are to be defined by laws, prudently and very cautiously.

Nor does this seem to be denied: that proletarian women have been permitted occupations most foreign to their sex, while by a stricter law more cultivated women were prohibited from several liberal arts.

To state what is to be held as desirable: a) Women ought per se to abstain from every occupation by which they are kept from marriage or from the diligent care of children. Of this kind are those which demand a great preparation of the intellect. b) On the contrary, those occupations are to be desired which can be exercised at home, and especially those by which they can be of assistance to a husband who is working. c) But if the husband himself supplies sustenance for his wife, this will contribute in no slight degree to conducting domestic affairs prosperously and happily. For then, from a grateful mind the affection of love and reverence grows in the wife; love grows in the man, who will consider something more his own in the quiet and happy life of his wife.

526. Is an inquiry concerning the uncertain father of a child to be introduced? Among the offenses which are customarily objected against present laws, this one is often adduced: that they have prohibited, as they say, the inquiry into and proof of paternity. Unless someone confesses in a special form that he is the father of an illegitimate child, he will never be regarded as the father or experience a father's burdens. It is easily established that this is sometimes not without grave odiousness. At the same time, however, the rationale of that prohibition is not to be so disregarded—a prohibition which looked to this, that a scandalous matter difficult of proof should rather be covered by a veil—it is not, I say, to be so disregarded that a forensic action and proof are permitted always and by every means. But the matter seems to have to be restricted to certain especially odious cases, and to those provisions or modes by which useless scandals and calumnies are cut off.

527. In Sacred Scripture, St. Paul pronounces the man the head of the woman in domestic society,¹ and adds rationales which seem to be perpetual. For he sees the authority of the man foreshadowed in the very origin by which the woman is from the man, not the man from the woman, and confirmed by the union of Christ and the Church. But apart from that, with which our first position accords, nothing certain can be had from Scripture, which, if it discloses the snares and dangers of the feminine mind, at the same time extols wise women with praises.²

¹ Cf. 1 Cor. 11; Eph. 5.

² Thus it is said in Ecclus. 25:17: “Every malice is the malice of a woman”; but in 26:19: “Grace upon grace is a holy and modest woman.”

And altogether, especially today, that rash use of Sacred Scripture must be avoided by which, from statements uttered for an entirely different end, support is sought to confirm private persuasions. I would say that this is theological imprudence rather than knowledge.

528. The Catholic Church has deserved exceedingly well of the female sex. For evidence of this fact, it suffices to recall the same supernatural dignity of all, handed down by her, by which in Christ there is neither male nor female;³ the inviolable sanctity of marriage, by which the body of the man has been made the woman's by surrender, just as the man is said to possess the woman's body,⁴ and by mutual reverence each ought to reproduce the image of Christ and the Church;⁵ the praises and honors of the martyrs, which were common to both sexes; the public praises granted to virgins by the Holy Fathers and their distinct place in the churches; but especially the cult of the Immaculate Virgin, whom, a woman, with Christ excepted, the Church professes to be the eternal queen of all men and angels.

³ Gal. 3:28.

⁴ 1 Cor. 7:3-4.

⁵ Eph. 5.

Nevertheless, since canon law is less favorable to feminism, there are not lacking among feminists those who accuse the Church of having been hostile to women. Indeed, they do not hesitate to confirm falsehood by unjust calumnies. Thus, in the work of D. Frank, whether this is to be attributed to gross ignorance or to an impious mind, we detect multiple kinds of fallacies. a) For either facts are adulterated, as when a bishop is adduced as though at the First Council of Mâcon (Mâcon, 581) he had doubted the rational soul of women, when he considered merely the use of the word homo to be ambiguous— whether it was proper to the masculine sex or common to both.⁶ b) Or wise precautions are distorted, even by exaggerating them in words, by which the Church wished not to decree something contrary to women, but to protect the chastity and reputation of priests and bishops. Thus the decrees by which cohabitation is prohibited, not indeed between a priest and every woman, but between a priest and a woman who is suspect.⁷ c) Or those things which favor women are passed over in silence, so that those which seem to oppose them alone are brought to light. Thus a passage is adduced from question 5 of Cause XXXIII of the Decree of Gratian in which, from St. Augustine, the obedience of women is confirmed by this rationale: that woman was not made in the image of the Creator;⁸ but what is established in the same chapter concerning the inviolable right of women is omitted, so that, against their will, their husbands can in no way enter religion. What of the fact that the very honor paid to virginity, by which the female sex has been especially honored, is presented as ignominious to women? Cf. Essai sur la condition politique de la femme, pp. 40-43.

⁶ This is easily established by one who reads the very passage of St. Gregory of Tours which the writer cites (History of the Franks, bk. 8, chap. 20): “There arose in this synod a certain one of the bishops who said that a woman could not be called homo [a human being]. But after accepting a rationale from the bishops, he became silent.” What rationale? That by which the use of the word was shown from the Scriptures to be common. But that the soul of women was considered doubtful may not be suspected from any word.

⁷ For it is most well known that by the universal law of the Church only this cohabitation is prohibited. But if the decree of the Council of Metz (888), canon 3, sounds more severe, this is a particular law, the rationale of which was nevertheless rendered in these words: “That they may lead an angelic life.” What follows from this against the female sex? Moreover, it seemed good to the writer whom we attack to exaggerate the words themselves. Thus, in canon 1 of the First Council of Mâcon (581), bishops, priests, and deacons are commanded “to flee the depravity of deeds and the reproaches of slanderers... so that blameworthy familiarity with unrelated women may be avoided by them, and they are to dwell only with a grandmother, mother, sister, or niece, if necessity requires it.” See how these things are now rendered in French by D. Frank: “The council ordered priests to flee their society (that of women), even that of their female relatives; it forbade bishops, priests, and deacons to live under the same roof as women, and permitted them to remain with their grandmother, their mother, their sisters, or their nieces only in case of absolute necessity.” Cf. work cited, pp. 40-42.

⁸ But in what manner was it denied that woman is in the image of God? Not as though destitute of a nature similar to that of man, or excluded from the same end, but because, since she was made from man, she lacks the dignity of a first principle. Let Augustine be heard—and indeed in that very place from which the occasion for the accusation was taken: “This image of God is in man: that one was made as lord from whom the others should arise, possessing the dominion of God as though his vicar, because every king has the image of God; and therefore woman was not made in the image of God.”