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Today is the feast of St Alfred the Great the first King of the English, a fitting occasion methinks to celebrate having won first prize in the lottery of life. One of the most splendid things about Mary’s Dowry is the fact that, thanks to the exploits of Simon de Montfort, England’s constitution is fashioned in the image of the constitutions of the Order of Preachers. A few weeks back Cordatus wrote a post arguing against women’s suffrage on the principle that the family and not the individual is the basic unit of society. “The family is the cell of the State; that is, it is the only natural society that exists beneath the level of the State. So it is a disorder to give some authority over the State to a private citizen while denying any authority over the State, in principle, to the family.” Giving the vote to women, he argued, atomizes society into hermaphrodite slaves of Leviathan (my expression not his). I responded that this would mean we should have household suffrage not male suffrage, because male suffrage still atomizes society into slaves of Leviathan but also implicitly dehumanizes women. Under male suffrage all male individuals vote but female individuals do not. This implies woman are inferior to men while still granting no recognition to the family per se. Of course, this was not a disagreement of principle because household suffrage was precisely what Cordatus was arguing for. I was simply rejecting the idea that male suffrage would genuinely achieve this. However, I also squirmed because the number of widows who would be exercising household suffrage would still be very few and …
…man is fallen and he abuses every form of power he enjoys. One of the most fundamental forms of power enjoyed by men in human society is that of a husband over his wife. With grim inevitability this has therefore been one of the most abused forms of power. This power has been greatly weakened in the recent past as much I think by technology (which has eliminated the vital role of brute strength in providing for a family) as by ideological shifts. Women quite reasonably do not want to expose themselves to the kind of servitude too often imposed upon them by bad or morally weak men in past eras. Any new social/political form proposed on the basis of Catholic doctrine and sound philosophy needs to take account of this or (whatever the reality of the situation) it will be perceived to be a mere disingenuous apologia for oppression.
Accordingly, I have been worrying about how to have household suffrage and yet avoid these perils. I have now arrived at a proposed solution. St Paul tells us that the authority of a man over his wife is like the power of the head over the body. Not the power of the soul over the body but the power of the head over the body. The head and the rest of the body are of the same nature it is just that the head is seat of the senses and the imagination. The rest of the body does not always blindly obey the head. In some respects it does (the hand or the foot), but in other respects (the irascible and concupicable appetites) the head must persuade the rest of the body to do its will. Sometimes it cannot and the body recoils from what the head rightly commands. Sometimes the head is wrong and the body rightly recoils from what the head 
commands. Unity is this regard comes through the ordering of both head and body to reason (a principle which surpasses them both). In the individual this ordering is embodied in the Cardinal Virtues of Temperance and Fortitude. In the household it is embodied in domestic prudence. Reason, revelation and living faith animate the Christian household as the soul animates the body. Giving life to the family as the soul gives life to the composite and preserves the unity of head and body. St Thomas considers the question of the soul’s government of the body in Ia, 81, 3 “Do the irascible and concupiscible powers obey reason?”. St Thomas teaches that they do. The second objection is that “what obeys a certain thing does not resist it. But the irascible and concupiscible appetites resist reason: according to the Apostle (Romans 7:23): ‘I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind.’ Therefore the irascible and concupiscible appetites do not obey reason.”. St Thomas answers:
As the Philosopher says (Polit. i, 2): “We observe in an animal a despotic and a politic principle: for the soul dominates the body by a despotic power; but the intellect dominates the appetite by a politic and royal power.” For a power is called despotic whereby a man rules his slaves, who have not the right to resist in any way the orders of the one that commands them, since they have nothing of their own. But that power is called politic and royal by which a man rules over free subjects, who, though subject to the government of the ruler, have nevertheless something of their own, by reason of which they can resist the orders of him who commands. And so, the soul is said to rule the body by a despotic power, because the members of the body cannot in any way resist the sway of the soul, but at the soul’s command both hand and foot, and whatever member is naturally moved by voluntary movement, are moved at once. But the intellect or reason is said to rule the irascible and concupiscible by a politic power: because the sensitive appetite has something of its own, by virtue whereof it can resist the commands of reason. For the sensitive appetite is naturally moved, not only by the estimative power in other animals, and in man by the cogitative power which the universal reason guides, but also by the imagination and sense. Whence it is that we experience that the irascible and concupiscible powers do resist reason, inasmuch as we sense or imagine something pleasant, which reason forbids, or unpleasant, which reason commands. And so from the fact that the irascible and concupiscible resist reason in something, we must not conclude that they do not obey.
The imagination and sense reside in the head (where the brain is located and all five of the senses). Reason operates through imagination because the human mind cannot operate in the composite without recourse to phantasms. Reason commands the body through the head but is not to be identified with it. Applied to marriage this means that the husband governs the household as the viceroy of eternal reason not as eternal reason. The same terms as St Thomas uses to explain his anthropological point are used by the great Thomist Lord Chief Justice of England, Sir John Fortescue (1394 – 1480) in his defence of the English Constitution as the realization of Thomistic political theory: In Praise of the Laws of England. The King of France, Fortescue explains, rules his unfortunate people with dominium tantum regale able to tax and legislate without their consent. The King of England in contrast as Rex Thomisticus rules his people with dominium politicum et regale and can neither enact statutes nor raise taxes without their consent manifested through their elected representatives in parliament. This is in accord with St Thomas’s description of the perfect polity in IaIIae, 105, 1. Given St Paul’s doctrine concerning the relations of spouses it would seem therefore that the husband should rule his wif
e as the just man rules his own body and as the successors of Alfred rule England. Executive power is his but no settled norm or major financial decision should be made without her consent and counsel.
It would seem therefore that the most appropriate form of household suffrage would be one in which the vote cast by the pater familias would have to be countersigned by his wife. The easiest way to ensure this would seem to be that only a ballot signed by husband would be admitted but the polling station will only accept the ballot paper when cast by the wife. This would ensure agreement and prevent coercion. Thus the principle of household suffrage would be preserved but the dignity of woman vindicated. Furthermore the subjection of both head and body to reason would be facilitated because unanimity requires discussion and discussion requires consideration and ratiocination strengthening the acquired political prudence of both husband and wife.
November 13, 2015 at 6:48 am
excellent post I enjoy playing the spanish lotto
June 30, 2016 at 12:25 pm
[…] solemnly warns us that elections can be the enemy of democracy. Here at Laodicea we have supported suffrage by household rather than by individual; but given that the youth vote was in favour of […]
December 10, 2017 at 2:25 am
Interesting thoughts. I’ve been pondering casually the relation of the sexes myself for a while. I do not think that men and women are equal, to the point of affirming, against the author, that women are indeed inferior to men, or at the very least subordinate (if there’s a difference between the terms). But I want to state first that my own disposition has always been disgust for the disrespectful treatment of women, and have always felt that the natural relationship of man and woman is one of friendship. However, as friendship implies a certain equality, according to Aristotle, this friendship between man and woman cannot be as whole or as perfect as can exist between two men or two women, even if a husband and wife may share a greater love due to the greater good (the family) arising from their less perfect friendship.
That women are indeed inferior or subordinate to men is a truth clearly seen in sacred scripture, and is attested to almost universally in human societies. The problem is the one referred to in Genesis that man tends to “lord it [his superiority] over” the woman; that is, the tendency of man to now exaggerate and abuse what is his natural superiority over the woman. This arrogant lordship is not the natural relation of the sexes, but is a result of the fall; and we see it sadly reproduced in most societies throughout history. The natural relation of friendship is restored in Christ, but as we can see in St. Paul it is still a subordinate one.
St. Thomas explains the superiority of man as due to a greater predominance of reason in his constitution: women are more emotional, more subject to flights of passion. I think I read elsewhere Aelianus referring to the intellectual equality of man and woman; this is a real equality in one sense, but not in another: men and woman both do have intellectual natures endowing each of them with a certain godlike dignity, but these natures are expressed differently through their different bodily constitutions with men having the one more easily governed by reason (although let it be said that the more emotional nature of women has its own advantages, particularly for the nurturing of children). Yes, there are women of superior intelligence and men of very coarse mind, but even the genius woman has a certain intellectual inferiority to the average man. It was Elizabeth Barrett Browning or some other highly gifted woman that said she felt she always had a certain intellectual inferiority to men; I would argue that this would not be an expression of Victorian mores or whatever but of genuine feminine sensibility. It’s not that women cannot be wittier or more academically talented than men, but that their thought generally has a different quality; I would try to put it that men tend to think more assertively for acquiring understanding of things, whereas women think more reactively in assessing how they are perceived by others. To put it another way, men are more likely to trust their own conclusions, whereas women are tentative and seek more to have their conclusions affirmed by others (especially men). This is what gives to the thought of even the average man a certain gravity, authority, or finality that the thought of the highly intelligent woman does not generally have, even if it is more rich and complex.
Feminism is not a movement that started off right but got out of control: it’s fundamental principle (equality of the sexes) is a profound error. (That said, Feminism may follow quite logically from Liberalism with its primacy of the individual, yet that is a more profound error still). Feminist equality is unnatural and leads to women harbouring a certain hidden contempt for men who treat them as equals rather than naturally as subordinates; this in turn generates a reaction where men, fed up of being spurned by the woman after approaching her as a “nice guy” (as an equal), go from one extreme to the other and now treat women as little better than beasts or slaves, reproducing the fallen state of arrogant lordship we see for example in pagan or muslim societies. Thus, Feminism will end up generating its opposite: in arrogantly trying to assert her supposed equality to the man, she incites a violent reaction against herself so that the man reminds her of her subordination, but in a way that degrades rather than truly empowers her as a woman.
The subordination of woman to man is not the subordination of a servant to a master. Neither is it the subordination of a child to a parent. They are more close to being equals, yet still subordinate. To give an idea of this subordination let’s take an extreme example of its exercise. St. Thomas says that it is permitted for a man to hit a woman in extreme circumstances (he gives the example of fornication, http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5062.htm#article2). Why would it be permitted for a man to hit an unfaithful wife, but not permitted for a wife to hit an unfaithful husband? Modern films depict wife-beating as an awful injustice (and in most cases it may well be), but will often depict women slapping or hitting men as a legitimate expression of passion or outrage. However, for a woman to hit a man is profoundly unnatural, similar to a child hitting a parent. In fact, if we use St. Paul’s analogy with God being the head of man, and man being the head of woman: a woman hitting a man is like a man rising up to strike God. It is something like a blasphemy. It is permitted for a man to hit a woman in certain situations only because the man is the head of the household and so is permitted to physically coerce the woman to submit to the good of the household when no other means avail; for a woman to do the same would be for her to assert her own headship and authority over the man, contrary to nature and reason. The woman owes a certain superior reverence for the man which would prevent her from ever asserting any dominance, quite in the way that a pious son could never pretend to dominate his father even in a circumstance where he was in the right and the father in the wrong. If a woman is being mistreated by the man (e.g. in the case of infidelity) she must bear with it patiently if he will not answer her appeal: though that would not make the man any less reprobate than the woman or less subject to divine punishment.
The best expression of female subordination or inferiority is perhaps in the old code of chivalry, or in the attitudes which built up around it. That is something similar to the noblesse oblige where the man wield his superiority gracefully and for the good of the woman rather than for her mere subordination.
From the above, I therefore disagree with the idea of the woman having the right to cast the vote. I think all right should be given to the man acting as head of the household, thus household suffrage is observed. A prudent man who has a prudent wife will of course hear his wife’s advice beforehand, but giving the woman the right to vote would actually be an (I think intolerable) opportunity for the woman to rebel against the man’s authority.
I think an excellent example of female excellence and subordination in the scriptures is when the faithful and prudent Judith, after the men of Israel fail in their own faithfulness to the Lord, rather than denouncing them publicly instead goes in private and speaks to two of the elders to rebuke them all. For her to speak in the congregation would have been insubordination, but for the elders not to hear her rebuke in private would have been imprudent on their part.
December 10, 2017 at 5:06 am
But matter is the principle of individuation, men and women are of the same species, the intellect does not operate through a material organ and the most fitting realisation of human nature is one in which the soul perfectly dominates the body. It seems to me therefore that while man might have a more perfect aptitude for political prudence (and therefore for rule) men and women are fundamentally intellectually equal. Furthermore the propensity for sympathy which obstructs political prudence in women makes them more inclined to the acquired cardinal virtues.
December 10, 2017 at 2:27 pm
Yet some very good Thomistic manualists hold that human souls, while being of one nature, differ intrinsically from each other (e.g. one having a stronger agent intellect). They infer this from the fact that soul is perfectly proportioned to the body.
December 10, 2017 at 4:56 pm
This is still something caused by the failings of the body themselves caused by the soul imperfect domination of the body. I would say therefore that these variances of strength relate only the the ability of the Intellect to operate not of its intrinsic strength were preternatural immortality restored or beatitude given.
December 10, 2017 at 7:02 pm
I’m not sure how one would prove that. Presumably Adam would have been stronger in body than Eve before the fall, so there seems no reason why he might not also have had a stronger agent intellect.
December 11, 2017 at 3:06 pm
But the intellect does not operate through a bodily organ and it is matter which individuates. It is only the interior senses which ought to vary in power (through the imperfect grip of the fallen soul upon the body) not the intellect per se.
December 10, 2017 at 2:30 pm
Does a greater propensity for sympathy by itself ensure a greater propensity to personal prudence; or just ceteris paribus?
December 10, 2017 at 4:51 pm
ceteris paribus
December 10, 2017 at 2:29 pm
It is true that Aristotle classifies the friendship of husband and wife as an unequal one, but the supernatural friendship of husband and wife (or of any other man and woman) in a state of grace is not an intrinsically unequal one.
December 10, 2017 at 4:04 pm
Certainly, which is why I think this inequality between man and woman will pass away with this world. Then the hierarchy will be ordered according to sanctity alone.