The lost art of being ladies, and gentlemen
“To a great extent the level of any civilization is the level of its womanhood. When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women.”
Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Where are all the gentlemen? Tell me, where have they gone? And the ladies?
Whose guilt is it? Who is responsible for it? It feels like an epidemic in my generation: rarely, at least way too rarely, do a good man and a good woman find one other, marry, and have children, though this should be the most natural course of things there is – something people of all sizes and of all classes are capable of. Or is it that there are no good men and no good women left, as all the celebrated vices and underrated addictions of our culture have already thoroughly spoiled most of us?
I do know some great married couples of my generation. But then again I do know a lot of single men and women whose life mainly consists of just working really hard at their jobs, not because they love this strange and barely satisfying career thing so much, but because they have to, and who have long given up on romance. But romance was the thing that excited Adam and Eve long before Adam had to work the cursed ground in hard labor and toil, fighting with thorns and thistles. The great “emancipatory progress“ of our day and age is that Eve has left the penance assigned to her by God after the very first couple’s fall from grace, childbearing, in order to compete with Adam in his field of penances. Yet, romance worthy of that name, there is none between the contesting rivals. Most people do not even fall in love any more. It is like a disease of hearts grown cold. Of course, the flames of charity – and yes even of the good kind of eros, of desire in its best sense and form, aspiring higher, not only muddling through shallow waters – sooner or later always expire, whenever they are not nourished and fueled by the sacred fire of divine love.
The quote from Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen seems to make the point that women are to blame for the lack of gentlemen, who are man enough to seek, find, and keep a wife. Before your inner feminist policewoman goes off like crazy, let me tell you, that, if this should be a conclusion that could be drawn from Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen‘s saying, I, as a woman, agree with him 100 percent. If we do not demand of men to act as gentlemen and to treat us like ladies, and most importantly, if we do not demand of ourselves to act like ladies and do not do our part of esteeming, honoring and respecting men in all the ways in which they deserve to be esteemed, honored and respected, especially responding favorably and graciously to each and every gentleman-like action any man ever performs torwards ourselves or others, we should not be surprised at the outcome of men feeling belittled and despised by women and having thoroughly internalized the message that women, who have missed to be mindful of being ladies and keeping their royalty, have subconsciously been sending them: no woman‘s worth the fight, because one is as cheap (and as ungrateful) as the next one.
It should be clear for anyone, who takes Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen‘s words at face value, that he, like every good Catholic man, had a very high view of women and that nothing in what he says is meant to take women down. He explicitly states that women by their behavior set the standard of the culturedness of any civilization. If that is not granting that women have a lot of (soft) “power“, it‘s hard to know what is. And he summons men to “become worthy“ of women, which simply means the old chivalry of a man refining his character, doing his homework and coming back as a fully equipped knight, and then fighting for the woman of his heart, may he even have to battle the most fierce dragons. And this is how it works according to our emotional makeup as women and men: Women need a man who can fight for them, and men need a woman they can fight for. In my humble opinion, this is how women and men fall in love with each other – both in ancient times and still today.
Dale Ahlquist, in his foreword to the new book of Catholic blogger Sam Guzman, The Catholic Gentleman. Living Authentic Manhood Today, presents to us his own thesis on how we got here. If you already start wondering why I read a book addressed to men, let me tell you that I am always willing to study the peculiarities of men in the hope to one day understand them better. Men are mysterious and fascinating creatures to me, kind of like unicorns. One never really gets over them. One always hopes they return to save the day.
“The word gentleman has fallen into disrepute, along with the word man. There is a connection. Gentlemen have become ungentlemanly in direct correlation with men becoming unmanly. It started, however, with gentlemen not doing their bit. It is a paradox that the word gentleman was traditionally applied to a man not immediately associated with gentleness, as it were. It was a word given to a knight. (…) The knight knew how to plant and build as well as how to fight. He also knew how to entertain, to put on a feast, to sing, and to recite poetry. And he knew how to pray. He always set an example – when he stood, when he walked, when he sat, when he talked, and when he knelt, before his lady, and before his God. Putting on armor was a rare event but a necessary one. The knight‘s greatest strength was in his restraint. He won love and respect without having to brandish his power. He followed an established set of rules. He knew that freedom existed within those rules – freedom for himself and for everyone who depended on him. He was civilized; he was not a barbarian. He was gentle because he was polite. (…) Along with politeness, which is about keeping order, the other characteristic of a gentleman is courtesy, which, as Chesterton says, means courtly behavior, the way a person acts in the presence of royalty. To show courtesy, as a gentleman would do, means to treat every man as if he were a king and every woman as if she were a queen. Courtesy is sublime humility and charity. (…) When men stopped behaving like gentlemen, women stopped behaving like ladies. Women started asserting their rights because men had stopped recognizing them. Women started doing manly chores because men had stopped doing them. Women became detached from the home because men had become detached from the home. The corruption of knighthood led to the rise of feminism. (…) A man who regards a woman as no more than a soulless erotic image existing only for his gratification has become a barbarian, the very thing the good and gentle knight had to fight against. We need to bring back these knights. We need to bring back true gentlemen.“
Dale Ahlquist‘s Foreword to Sam Guzman, The Catholic Gentleman. Living Authentic Manhood Today, Ignatius Press, p. 9-12
Ahlquist, obviously a true Catholic gentleman himself, lets the predominantly male readers of Sam Guzman‘s guide to authentic manhood know that it‘s their fault, and their responsibility to change the situation. He reminds them of their leadership role. As if he wanted to say – certainly not contradicting Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen, but rather supplementing and supporting his argument with the other side of the coin: where men lead, there the culture goes. And whatever task men do – for whatever reason – not fulfill though it is their task, women, as their natural helpmates and as the only ones left to do anything about it, try to immediately compensate for, just like in post-World-War-II Germany all the widowed women, bereft of men, had to step into the breach, gather up the ruins and rebuild the houses.
The point of it all seems to be: Every man should consider telling all of his consexuals, “it is our fault, and we are responsible to man up and do better“. And every woman needs to tell everyone of her female friends, “it is our fault, and we should lady up and do better“. Because both is true. It‘s like with the hen and the egg. And it is a vicious cycle for that matter. Because in many situations there truly might be no gentleman around, who is showing some common courtesy, and therefore, one could indeed lament men‘s general laziness and lack of considerateness nowadays, which, taking their natural bodily strength into account, makes it even more of a vice than it already is in and of itself. But we all know that if ever a man does set out to do one of those tiny little chivalrous acts our comfortable 21st century lives still do leave some tiny little space for, like carrying something heavy for one of us women for instance, women in most cases are not able to receive it well, to at least give him an appreciative smile for it, which is why we can also fairly say: taking women‘s natural emotional responsiveness into account, we need to admit that such brusque and cold behavior is even more of a vice than it already is in and of itself.
Finally, let us not forget that everyone of us at every given moment contributes to the cultural air we all breathe and to the waters we all swim in. The way men treat women and vice versa is not just relevant in any given one-on-one-scenario of a man and woman dating one another. It is relevant and influential in each and every instance of men and women dealing with one another, even if there is no romantic interest between them – or even especially there and then.
It is an old and maybe wise saying, that women should watch closely how a man treats his mother, if they would like to find out whether he is one of the good guys. But then again, most men cherish their mothers and one might not really be able to deduce from that, whether he is truly able and willing to exhibit noble and self-sacrificing behavior beyond the realms of the original symbiosis he enjoyed as her beloved son. We could then maybe say, that women should watch closely how a man treats each and every woman he encounters, whether it is his mother, his sister, an unnerving co-worker, a mere stranger serving him food in a restaurant, one of your female friends or you, his romantic interest. And vice versa, that men should watch closely how a woman treats every man she knows and encounters: with respect or with (loud or silent) contempt?
In any case, each and every encounter between men and women and the ways in which they respond to one another shapes our culture, shapes the collective surroundings in which our individual romantic relationships flourish – or perish.
Bringing back the gentleman-ness and the lady-ness
Therefore our whole society would endlessly benefit if men were to bring back their gentleman-ness, tapping into the capacity of developing and cultivating manhood to its true heights that lies dormant in each one of them from boyhood. And if women, if me and all my female friends, were to bring back their lady-ness.
As a woman, I have, unlike Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen or laymen like Dale Ahlquist and Sam Guzman, not the least bit of authority to tell any man what to do. Fortunately, there is probably not one man among my two or three faithful readers, which makes me sigh in relief. But just in case: I am the entirely wrong source of advice for any man – because I am not one of them, and because women have no authority over men and should never seek to exert one. Adam was created first, naming all the animals long before Eve was fashioned as his helpmate – and every woman‘s mission towards a man is to support, not to usurp his natural authority – to participate in love in his authority. Women should not speak with men commandingly, but in the spirit of friendly suggestions.
Yet in following Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen, Dale Ahlquist, Sam Guzman and countless other men among the ranks of the clergy and the laity, I am quite convinced that the best way for men to bring back their gentleman-ness, and frankly probably the only way to bring back a genuine and bulletproof version of it, is to become an ardent disciple of the Ultimate Gentleman, of Jesus Christ, who at the same time, as the Great Physician, alone is able to heal all our wounds and mend all our scars we might have received in the trenches of our current post-“sexual revolution“ warzone out there… The “new Adam“ Yeshua, “God saves“, the King, who came down from heaven and laid down His life for His Bride, the Church, is the one true gentleman, a noble knight for real, “who, though existing in the form of God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be grasped“ (Philippians 2: 6). Unlike Adam and his wife, if you remember the Genesis 3 story… Unlike the first Adam of old, Christ, the new Adam,
emptied Himself – taking on the form of a slave, becoming the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled Himself – becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted Him and give Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Yeshua every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue profess that Yeshua the Messiah is Lord – to the glory of God the Father“
Philippians 2: 7-11
Men, who have resolved to learn from Him, who made the Ultimate Sacrifice on behalf of all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, who have resolved to follow after Him, who is the Ultimate Alpha-Male, the Ultimate Leader, the Ultimate Warrior, the Lion of Judah casting out Satan and all his vile demons, could start their pathway back to manhood worthy of its name by reading Sam Guzman‘s book, and his Catholic Gentleman blog (https://www.catholicgentleman.net), and then maybe just start putting the hints they find there into practice. They could start to seek out the right kind of male mentors that no woman can ever replace or level up to.
And me and my female friends? Well, that will be for a whole spate of separate articles…
First, concluding here, let us bring back to our minds the natural and good and healthy complementarity that exists between men and women – because when all the stars in the skies have long burned out, all we can do is gaze at the reflection of their past original image.
In the beginning… man and woman were a perfect fit
If we go back to the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, before they mess it all up together like a true Bonnie and Clyde couple going off the rails, we see the original design.
When we watch Adam, “the man“, as he is called, meet Eve, “the mother of all the living“, as she is called, for the first time, we could certainly think of him as a gentleman and of her as a lady – in the beginning. ADONAI Elohim presented to Adam, whom he had formed “out of the dust“, inspired with breath from His breath and endowed with the high calling of cultivating His creation, the suitable helpmate tailored out of his ribs, so that he may not be alone, and we hear Adam exclaim in poetic terms the first praise of a woman ever:
“This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh“
Genesis 2: 23
Like a real gentleman, he comprehends and appreciates Eve’s beauty and supreme value and confirms her identity as a good and beautiful gift from God with a couple of emphatic love lines, which become the very first words she ever hears from him. And Eve, like a real lady, receives his appraisal and her identity as being the one belonging to him – “she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man“ (Genesis 2: 23) – in silence and simplicity and finds no fault in it – at least we do not read anything about her barking back at him “How dare you think I am yours?“…
“Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.“
Genesis 2: 24
When God weds Adam and Eve, we hear how things are supposed to be in this matter henceforth for all generations: marriage as an unbreakable “one flesh“ bond. The lady is such a delight to the gentleman that she is worth leaving one’s own family to start a new family with her in the context of a lifelong covenant of both body and soul. Believe it or not: she is in a certain sense more valuable to him than even his own mother…
Sam Guzman captures the natural complementarity between men and women and their unique and different vocations as husband and wife in very compelling terms:
„So what makes a man unique? There are many facets of men‘s uniqueness, but I want to examine just one: Men are unique in that they generate. They bring forth the raw, unformed materials that are then refined and shaped by women. They plant the seeds that women nurture. A simple example is a traditional farming couple of the past. The husband would rise early and hitch the horses to a plow and, for hours on end, perform the backbreaking labor of clearing, plowing, and planting the fields. At harvest time, he would sweat under hot sun, collecting the fruits of his labors. (…) When the husband would bring home the harvest, it was up to the wife to make something useful out of it. She would grind the grain into flour and make it into bread for the family to eat. The husband generated the raw materials, and the wife made something beautiful and nutritious out of them. (…) The same principle can be seen in the generation of human life. In the sexual act, men ‘plant‘ the seed, but it is up to the woman to nurture it and form it over nine months into a beautiful little person. Men generate the raw materials, while women fruitfully receive and nurture them. Both roles are essential to mankind‘s well-being.“
Sam Guzman, The Catholic Gentleman. Living Authentic Manhood Today, Ignatius Press, p. 32-34
Men and women depend on one another and need one another. They are not contesting rivals, but meant to be companions, friends, the perfect team.
Dry bones and bright stars
There is one thing that would surely block every man‘s pathway back to becoming a gentleman and every woman‘s pathway back to becoming a lady: cynicism, one of the plagues of the cultural air we breathe. There is today a spirit of mockery impregnating our minds. We are wounded dogs who bark and bite. We are abandoned children who mistrust everyone and command ourselves in light of our own fancies. Truth and sincerity are feared and despised. We all fall into the vice of making degrading comments or cynical jokes about men, or about women, and of giving up on romance altogether, the vice of despairing at the sight of evil and of obstacles, and we are justifying it to ourselves and others with our painfully gathered life experience. We live in a world beyond Eden, after all… But in doing so, we follow a wisdom from below – right from the cursed serpent crawling on the ground – and not a wisdom from above.
If there really are no gentleman around, it does not matter: we are still called to be ladies. If there really are no ladies around, it does not matter: men are still called to be gentlemen. It is a call upward to the heights of our being as creatures made in the image of God that pertains to all of us, no matter what. That is why the Star of Jacob, the Messiah (“a star shall rise out of Jacob and a sceptre shall spring up from Israel“ (Numbers 24: 17)), and the Morning Star, his Mother (“who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun“ (Canticles 6: 9)), are so important for us to behold: there we see true humanity remade and forever alive, nobility shining brightly in the midst of boorish darkness.
If one of us women were to have the wish to bring back the lady-ness, she should never forget that this includes bringing back a spirit of motherhood in the best sense and form, a spirit of graciously and generously nurturing others – and believing in them and in their chance for growth into maturity.
Just like God can make Adam out of dust, and Eve out of his side, and just like He can make dry bones in the desert rise and live by His word – He can, by the power of His grace, turn all men into true gentlemen again. If we believe in Him and His Word, we are ready to also believe in them.
“Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will send spirit into you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to grow over you, and will cover you with skin: and I will give you spirit and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.“
Ezechiel 37: 4-6
