Traditional values in comeback shock?

Jonathan Isaby spotted Labour MP Tom Harris' wisdom first yesterday and highlighted it on CentreRight.com:

Teenage girls shouldn’t be having underage sex...

Teenage girls shouldn’t choose to have babies as an alternative to getting an education and a career...

Parents shouldn’t teach their children that a lifetime on benefits is attractive or even acceptable...

The Daily Mail applauds Mr Harris' thinking this morning.

This reminds me of recent contributions from 'Crunchy Con' Rod Dreher and Janet Daley that we may be seeing a return to traditional values - or, in this green age, what might more sensibly be called sustainable values.  In recessionary times it's certainly true that debt-free, addiction-free, reasonably-educated and intact families are a lot more affordable than the alternatives.  At the heart of Iain Duncan Smith's social justice analysis is that poverty can be avoided if the right choices are made on family, schooling, debt and drugs.

Are there other traditional values that we need to relearn?

Don't buy a financial product you don't understand...

Always put some money aside for a rainy day...

Eat when you're hungry...

Your ideas welcome in the thread below.

Tim Montgomerie

Comments

[Sally Roberts]

Don't spend money you don't have.....

Wear enough warm clothes and have an umbrella handy when you go out canvassing as you are bound to get caught out by the weather....

And probably especially in my case - Count to 10 before opening mouth.....

[TRG Tory]

Don't overfill your kettle.

Turn the thermostat down 2'C.

[ToryBlog.com (ex GB£.com)]

"Always put some money aside for a rainy day...

Revised Green Book version:
Always tuck some taxpayer funded expenses aside for a rainy day

[JP Floru]

Don't spend more than you earn.

[JP Floru]

Another traditional value: Don't trust the state.

[Jessica Salter]

Stale bread can make a great bread and butter pudding if you add the right ingredients!

[grumpy old man]

Don't buy it until you've got the money to pay for it.

A house is a home, not an investment.

If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

If it is broken, make sure you know how to fix it.

Anything that can go wrong - will. Allow for contingencies.

Plan a
h
e
a
d

A child is for life, not just for benefits.

[grumpy old man]

Sally. Sometimes 10 is not enough. :)

How about "revenge is a dish best eaten cold"?

[M Sharp]

How about "Stand up for what you believe to be right".

[Mark]

Be polite to and about people you dislike (even when commenting on blogs).

[Malcolm Dunn]

Treat others as you would be treated. I fail at that far too often!
But don't spend more than you earn seems to me an excellent principle.

[Joan Stanley]

If the GM controversy did no other good, at least it reminded us to think about the food we put in our stomachs and its effect on our long-term physical well-being. More’s the pity we don’t demonstrate an equal interest in what we put in our minds.
When an intimate act of physical and emotional union is reduced to casual sex, and marriage becomes a contractual nuisance, family life is devalued. When characters are seen to carry knives and guns, to use violence to sort out problems and settle scores, is it surprising that street crime rises?
It can be argued that violent and sexual storylines show what is going on in isolated areas, but these images are themselves reflected back into our lives enforcing and confirming the message until they are seen to be the norm not the exception. Characters shape our thoughts and those of our families and very quickly their standards of behaviour become society’s norm, and in the absence of other stronger influences they have a disproportionate effect on our lives.
It is in Man’s nature to kick against moral and legal boundaries, historically laid down by religion, even if therein is found our security. To where do the majority look for guidance in determining their boundaries? Consciously or not, real or fictional characters determine the nation’s moral yardstick.
Those who prefer racy material will always find it. But those of us who like a strong story without superfluous titillation have considerably more difficulty in selecting suitable entertainment.
The power of the pen has been recognised for millennia. Writers, editors, publishers… have the power to affect the way we think. And since the way we think decides the way we act, they should look seriously at their responsibility to society.

[Annabel Herriott]

For every action, there is a reaction.
For every act, there is a consequence.
I drummed this into my kids, and its stood them in good stead. Its a pity Nulab has never studied the Law of Unintended Consequences.
I also lined them up in early teens, and asked them - " who suffers? the boy, the girl, or the baby?" We had a very interesting discussion, but they came to realise it was the baby who potentially suffered.

[Anthony Ozimic]

I agree with Tom Harris MP on (1) and (3) but would qualify (2) by saying that once a young woman has finished her school studies, that choosing to be a full-time wife/mother with several children in fact represents a greater contribution to society than obtaining university degrees or a career. The problem of teenage pregnancy stems from the rejection and/or delay of married family life. So I would add to Mr Harris's list:

Never destroy unborn children.
Never deliberately close sex to the transmission of life.

[ToryBlog.com]

A gentleman comes second?

[Sally Roberts]

ToryBlog.com LOL!!!!!!

[Marjorie Baylis]

Lending institutions should not lend to people who can not repay the loan and should never lend more than 3.5 times a person's salary for mortgage purposes.

I think Joan Stanley makes an excellent point about the media and it's influence on youngsters. I remember Esther McVeigh saying that she once stood in for Esther Rantzen on her afternoon show and they were interviewing 13 and 14 year old mothers. Once the show was over she realised that just by talking about the subject on TV she gave validation to the fact that it is OK to be a mother at that age.

Too many of the soaps allow violence and pregnancy outside of grown up relationships to prevail, thus validating them. Perhaps the soaps should show the misery of raising children in single parent households, with no income, a bit more realistically?

But hey - what would I know about these things, growing up in the free wheeling seventies when I thought Mary Whitehouse should have been taken outside and shot? Maybe she had a point?

[Marjorie Baylis]

I couldn't agree less with Anthony Ozimic. Girls who get pregnant whilst still at school are still children themselves and in no position to offer practical mothering to babies or to influence them for the good in the future. A very nasty circle is set up with these girls with teenage mothers becoming teenage mothers themselves.

Remember the old adage, educate a man and you educate a man but, educate a woman and you educate a family.

[steve foley]

1 There is no such thing as a "An Ideal World" , there is however a REAL World.

2 Forget the theory, deal with the practical.

3 Food? if you like it eat it, if you don't like it, ignore it.

4 Greens? Like watermelons Green outside Red inside. Treat them with contempt.

5 If it can go wrong it probably will, have a backup plan, an alternative option or an escape route.

6 You can't please all of the people all of the time , don't try to be all things to all men.

7 Alcohol? A good friend in moderation but a very bad master in excess.

8 Come off when you are winning, don't overplay your hand or go for the next card and lose it all.

9 Fashion? Why be a clone or one of the herd? Be an Individual, be yourself.

10 "Take but the cash in hand and waive the rest, oh the brave music of a distant drum." (Omar Khayyam/ Edward Fitzgerald)

These are ten points I have found to be very useful in life.

[Graeme Pirie]

However - one "tradition" we really need ...

Don't vote Labour

[steve foley]

Back on topic, I am glad to see this sea change. We have tried the "liberal progressive" approach in Law and Order, Education etc since October 1964 the middle of the sleazy sixties. Look where it has got us.

Didn't someone say "Back to Basics" and call for a return to "Family Values"? Perhaps they were ahead of their time? Let us make this call again but this time stick with it and see it through.

[Sally Roberts]

Some good advice there, Steve! Number 8 in your list reminds me very much of my father who adored Racing and the occasional flutter at the roulette table but always taught me "Never Gamble What You Cannot Afford to Lose"!

[YMT]

Look after your Grandparents

[Steve Tierney]

Be responsible for the consequences of your chosen actions and decisions.

[Anthony Ozimic]

Dear Marjorie Baylis,

I never said or implied that schoolgirls should be mothers. In fact, I said that I agreed with Tom Harris that teenage girls shouldn't be having sex. Nor did I imply that women shouldn't be educated. In fact, I said that young women should complete their school studies. But the incidence of teenage pregnancy and its consequences (e.g. disruption to school studies) will be reduced massively if young women are taught to value and to aspire to married family life. In contrast, encouraging women to obtain a university education and a career had tended to mitigates against the prevalence of married family life; and it has done little to supply the deficiencies of modern school education or to help girls mature into responsible women.

[oldrightie]

I think my handle implies what I think about this post! Respect for righties everywhere, especially older ones!

[asquith]

I think it is possible to hold "traditional values" on the left. In fact, I would describe myself as far more small-c conservative than many Tories, especially the "libertarians".

It isn't hard, is it?

Don't spend more than you earn.
If you can't afford it, don't have it (this includes children most of all, unfortunately the state beneficiaries are ignoring this advice).
The world doesn't revolve around you.
Don't rely on the state unless it's bare subsistence that you need.
Accept the limits to growth in your own lifestyle, the global economy & the environment.
Be involved in your local community & society. Also buy as locally as possible.
Anything you can do for yourself, do it without relying on others & wasting money.

[Hugh Oxford]

Nulab has never studied the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Most consequences of the welfare state, along with mass immigration, hyper statism and social liberalism are blindingly obvious, even at the time of their innovation.

Labour politicians, in my experience, are impermeable to reason. Every year the figures get worse, every year they propose more of the same to remedy the problems, every year the figures get worse...

You write to them and they just tell you they disagree with you without saying how or why. Very Kafkaesque.

But when the Conservatives get in and we rewind a decade of destructive legislation - the SOR acts and Civil Partnerships for starters, we take the state out of the provision of education, we make it a crime to aid and abet underage sex, we bring back capital punishment and meaningful punitive measures for crime, we abolish all but the most emergency welfare provision, we remove child benefit from unmarried mothers then we can start rebuilding this broken nation from the individual and the family upwards.

[Sally Roberts]

" In contrast, encouraging women to obtain a university education and a career had tended to mitigates against the prevalence of married family life; and it has done little to supply the deficiencies of modern school education or to help girls mature into responsible women."

Anthony Ozimic, are you arguing against University education for women? I cannot believe you would like us to revert to the Victorian Era where a women who was intelligent had to hide her cleverness in case she was not able to "marry well"! Perhaps you would like female education to consist of needlework, French, music and the skills The Lady of the House might need - for example letting Cook know the weekly menu?

[asquith]

The old world is discredited. If we wake up to it now & permanently change our lives we won't suffer so badly in the years to come.

We might be happier if we focus on meeting our needs rather than wants created by the advertising industry.

Our lives won't be, & needn't be as hard as our grandparents' were because capitalism & technological progress have loosened the burdens on us. But we don't have to discard their values like we discard the packaging on an imported vegetable that we could have grown ourselves.

I wonder how much of the Tory party is conservative.

[Phyllis Crash]

Single parenthood is the hardest job in the world which is why two parents are better than one.

[asquith]

Personally I value intelligence in a woman. Of course, university doesn't make people intelligent & the lack of such "education" doesn't make them stupid.

I prefer autodidacts myself. They are more likely to be thinkers. Too many graduates I've known who were spoonfed by professors & wouldn't pick up a book if it wasn't on their reading list.

Shameful lack of intellectual curiosity on the part of some.

The ideal woman would be one who has been enterprising enough to set up her own business or other enterprise & is interested in developing her mind & that in her spare time.

[Rod Sellers]

Only the fittest will survive.

In line with Parkinson's Law - 'The number of claimants will always expand to exceed the handouts available'

And Burke's great dictum ' Nobody makes a bigger mistake than the man who does nothing because he thinks he can do nothing'

[Social conservative]

I agree there's a problem with the traditional values term.
What about timeless values?

[Ed West]

It is the duty of the noble man to give employment to the artisan.

[Rod Sellers]

OOPS ! Post at 11.01 should read 'thinks he can do little'

[Captain Planet]

Steve Foley: "Greens? Like watermelons Green outside Red inside. Treat them with contempt."

How about being a good steward of God's creation, Steve?

[Hugh Oxford]

Anthony Ozimic, are you arguing against University education for women?

I think what Anthony is saying (hi Anthony), is that our society places the vocation of marriage and the family, which ultimately satisfy the human heart, lower on the list for young women than a career and materialism.

What ends up happening - and I know countless women in this position - is they end up creeping through their twenties and into their thirties unmarried, and end up either childless or extremely compromised in their choice of husband.

The vast majority of normal women want to have children and be married, even if they do not know it at nineteen or twenty. We betray them by deceiving them that money and a career can be a substitute for marriage.

The one regret many people have, especially women, is that they did not start their families earlier.

There's also a social and economic cost to the anti-marriage, anti-child mentality, chiefly demographic collapse - the indigenous population of this country is set to halve every thirty five years. If you factor the underclass into the equation and their birth rates, as well as those of unassimilated immigrants, that's a frightening thing to think about.

[Anthony Ozimic]

Dear Sally Roberts,

For a more than ample defence of the superiority of the Victorian era over our own, I suggest reading "The demoralization of society: from Victorian virtues to modern values", Getrude Himmelfarb, IEA, London, 1995. Even top female professors like Himmelfarb have recognised the superiority of the Victorian model over today's feminist model.

[RichardJ]

Don't fund those who misbehave.

[Sally Roberts]

Thank you for your recommendations Messrs Ozimic and Oxford - I look forward to examining more closely the works of Professor Himmelfarb, a female intellectual who was clearly able to enjoy the fruits of an education that perhaps you would seek to deny to others?

[Anthony Ozimic]

Hugh Oxford (hi Hugh) explains my comments very well.

[Malcolm Stevas]

Anthony Ozimic:
”…teenage girls shouldn't be having sex… the incidence of teenage pregnancy and its consequences (e.g. disruption to school studies) will be reduced massively if young women are taught to value and to aspire to married family life….”
Well, your nostrums are at least no more prescriptive than some of the other oddball suggestions from the Daily Mail contingent. I do find it odd that so many here seem no less obsessed with State indoctrination & control over individuals’ life choices than the Labour types whom they profess to disparage – still further support for my longstanding contention that remarkably little separates Conservative from Labour bar a few trivial percentage points. Look, people – that’s anyone beyond puberty – have chosen unsuitable partners, and produced children at unsuitable ages, since time immemorial, and nothing you can say or do will prevent this: agonise endlessly, throw vast amounts of money at the “problem”, recruit armies of social workers, generate reams of State propaganda (“Too many of the soaps allow violence and pregnancy outside of grown up relationships to prevail, thus validating them. Perhaps the soaps should show the misery of raising children in single parent households, with no income, a bit more realistically?” suggests Marjorie Baylis) and you’ll barely make a blind bit of difference. The trouble is that in the attempt you increase hugely the power of the State, diminish the wealth and the political liberty of its citizens, and through “benefits” establish a permanent client community of puling, childlike dependents – a group that is of course always going to vote for more of the same…
All this moral panic is a foolish waste of time: reproduction is a matter for the individual. People are responsible for their own actions. Children are the responsibility of their parents. No-one should be compelled to pay (charity is another matter) for others’ feckless lifestyles. Full stop.

[Marjorie Baylis]

Good grief which planet have Messres Oxford and Ozimic come from? Are we bound for the middle ages? Do get with it for heaven's sake - you are like something out of the ark with your views on women.

The sexes are equal but different - nature has intended that the female bares the baby, but there is nothing that says that within a two parent family the father can't stay at home and look after the children.. it just needs one parent.

But, in Africa in particular and in India and other under developed nations they are finding that educating the women causes a decline in unwanted pregnancies, better care for the existing children and a belief in education for her brood. Educate the men and they still leave all the work to the women.

I sometimes despair at the extremity of the views of some of the people on this site.

[Anthony Ozimic]

Malcolm Stevas, I didn't say or imply anything about the role of the state, so your criticism is wide of the mark. Marjorie Baylis, I would indeed rather be in the Middle Ages and on the Ark than in today's society; and the world needs more, not fewer, pregnancies, though within wedlock.

[Hugh Oxford]

Dear Sally,

My wife is infinitely better educated than I will ever be, which we hope to leverage in the eventuality that we have no choice but to home school our children, should education reform be off the cards.

But it is a mistake to imagine that education and a career is the be all and end all to life, which is what people are misled into believing. I went through the state education system and then onto one of Britain's finest universities, where the culture was far from family and marriage orientated.

I would suggest that part of education reform might include the ability to do undergraduate degrees after getting married and having children, rather than before.

[Mark Fulford]

You remind me of a very old tale:

Two bulls, father and son, were on top of a hill, looking down at a herd of cows. The son says "Dad, how about we run down this hill and shag one of those cows." His Dad looks at him with a smile and says, "Son, why don’t we walk down and shag them all."

Good advice.

[david]

A nation such as Britain should make its own laws.

[Malcolm Stevas]

Anthony Ozimic insists "I didn't say or imply anything about the role of the state," but of course you did, or what is the point of your prescriptions for moral behaviour, otherwise? Unless you suggest some private moral crusade, or parading in the High Street with placards..? When people say "We/They should" do this or that, this sort of urgent bossiness practically always means some sort of prescriptive role for the State. If you mean something quite different perhaps you would elucidate.

[Sally Roberts]

Dear Hugh Oxford,

"I would suggest that part of education reform might include the ability to do undergraduate degrees after getting married and having children, rather than before."

It is perfectly possible to take an undergraduate degree at any time of life. I am currently taking a BA in Business Management at the age of 51. I expect to graduate next year.

[Sally Roberts]

Dear Mark Fulford,

Excellent study in time management. Are you a management consultant or possibly a very succesful farmer? Lol!

[Jack Stone]

Don`t vote Conservative as they only know the price of everything and the value of nothing!!

[Mara MacSeoinin]

Perhaps the cry of my youth that has faded away into the wilderness over the past twelve years should be revived: 'Mind your own business'. Privacy and dignity used to fundamentally underpin English society. Morality was a matter of personal responsibility inculcated by parents into children, parents who were allowed to *be* parents and raise their children rather than handing them over to the State a la Plato's Republic. Rather than advocating a 'transparent' 'share all' 'hello, my name is X and I'm going to share my life story with you today', why not keep the intimate details of your life to yourself? The so-called meaningless 'celebrity' lifestyle which seems to involve everything from drunken fornication in public places to talking 'frankly' about 'personal intimate operations for my hubby' (retch) has taken the emphasis away from the mother passing on wisdom and acting as a role model for her daughter and placed in the hands whose intelligence is comparable to mould.
So: dignity, modesty, privacy.
Anthony Ozimic: I take it you're a Catholic of the pre-Vatican II persuasion who would seek to recast women in 'traditional' roles in which they are defined in terms of their relation - and subordination to - a patriarchy. You would seek to return us to a world of corsets, vapours and deference to the male - who would, naturally, be better educated and therefore better placed to dispense advice to women. In effect you would consider me a biological failure for, my two Cambridge degrees notwithstanding, I have no desire at present to 'find a husband' and wish to make an intellectual, rather than physical contribution to society. I would suggest that you read Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex to gain perhaps just a little perspective outside the antediluvian model you seek to reinstate. -Incidentally, there have been no studies into how a lack of change in male attitudes to parental roles has affected society, in that the majority would not admit of a 'choice' between parenthood and work, the latter always taking precedence.

[Anthony Ozimic]

Malcolm Stevas, The role and responsibility of educating and forming children is primarily that of parents. The role of the State, the Church, schools, campaigning organisations etc is to support that primary role of parents. Any legal, economic or policy changes required to support that primary role and responsible of parents would not and should not be prescriptive but would simply be restoring the natural ordering of society.

[RichardJ]

"Do get with it for heaven's sake - you are like something out of the ark with your views on women."

It doesn't help when women perpetuate such views by refusing to marry "below" themselves.

[John Anslow]

This, from two-and-a-half millennia ago, often comes to mind as I get older:

Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly….

[Malcolm Stevas]

Anthony Ozimic:
"Any legal, economic or policy changes required to support that primary role and responsible of parents would not and should not be prescriptive but would simply be restoring the natural ordering of society."
Nonsense. This is simply the groundless assertion of someone with a subservient attitude to the State, and an authoritarian axe to grind.

[Anthony Ozimic]

Malcolm Stevas, I believe in the State and in authority but Catholic social teaching, which I espouse, is in no way a subservient attitude to the State nor authoritarian in a statist sense. I am all in favour of taking back from the State any of the natural rights and responsibilities which it has stolen from the family. I sense that you may be a libertarian and have therefore confused (a) the implementation of objective moral principles by everyone with (b) undue interference by the State.

[Anthony Ozimic]

Mara, as a pre-Vatican II Catholic, I actually believe in deference of the female (in particular to the Mother of God.) I believe in pro-woman sentiments such as "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world", "the mother is the priest of the domestic church" etc. Simone de Beauvoir and her ilk are anti-woman because they believe in the Communist-like idea that the what we know to be female nature is actually just a social construct. (Mara, do you really want to end your days as a lonely, childless Communist?!) Whereas I and the Catholic Church believe that female nature is wonderful, equal in dignity to the male character and an absolutely essential complement in supplying its defects.

[Sally Roberts]

" I actually believe in deference of the female (in particular to the Mother of God.)"

Anthony Ozimic - I think you may have meant to say "deference TO the female (in particular to the Mother of God.)" - or was that a kind of Freudian slip?

I am afraid the argument you use is one used by many upholders of religious patriarchy.

The patriarchal Christian will use the same argument that you have used above.

The patriarchal Ultra-Orthodox Jew will say "Ah but the Woman is Queen of the Home" to justify the fact that his wife has to keep her head covered at all times and wear a long skirt (amongst other restrictions).

The patriarchal Muslim will say "Ah, but our women are so precious..." to justify the fact that his wife has to wear a hijab or niqab...

and so it goes on.

It seems that for all these Patriarchs women are so precious, so powerful and so wonderful that they must be repressed and kept out of sight, denied a full education and the freedoms to which as an adult human being they are entitled.

[Mara MacSeoinin]

I seem to remember a film entitled 'The hand that rocks the cradle'. It was not all sweetness and light.
As I'm a Jewish libertarian leaning towards the political Right, the idea of Communism doesn't come into my worldview. And I don't see how fulfilling your obnoxious belief that the proper place for a woman is in the home, reduced to a state of imbecility by constant drudgery and childbirth, can make *my* existence more fulfilling; it may work for some and not for others. But you do not appear to admit that others may simply not want to have children or get married. Herein lies the fundamental problem with misogyny in general and Catholicism in particular: that today's women do not perceive themselves solely as incubators, but as the other half of the human race with all the intellectual and moral capacity to lead nations if they so choose. De Beauvoir was not anti-woman; she was anti- your idea of what womanhood consists, and stated that women lacked even a basic language in which they could define themselves or even what 'woman' meant because historically such definitions had been the province of the male.
-Were the Catholic church so embracing and so insistent on upholding the equality of the sexes, incidentally, those women who had/have completed the BTh would be offered a much more rewarding career than that of 'pastoral assistant' (glorified secretary), as a chaplain or eucharistic minister which they can only fulfill as a lay person, or a career outside the Church entirely. There is no place for women within the body of the Church: not as deaconesses, and certainly not priests; no role in which they are treated as 'equals'. How munificent your decree that the male hierarchy considers that we possess as much dignity as the 'male' character. Good God.

[Sally Roberts]

Very well said, Mara - you and I see eye to eye on this and not only because we are Jewish social libertarians!

I forgot in my long post to mention the Jewish tradition about Lilith - Adam's first wife! It is said that Adam divorced her and married Eve because Lilith would not lie beneath him during sexual intercourse...

[Malcolm Stevas]

Anthony Ozimic:
"Catholic social teaching, which I espouse.."
Ah, well, this explains a lot, and we're unlikely to agree about much. I reject the tyranny of religion almost as strongly as that of the State...
For me, "the implementation of objective moral principles by everyone" (though "objective" is pretty contentious) has to be on an individual basis, and predicated on absolute respect for others' liberty, and not some arcane set of rules derived from religious dogma. But libertarianism is thoroughly moral - unlike, I suggest, a slavish reliance on either the State or religious teachings.

[Mara MacSeoinin]

Oh, I'd forgotten about Lilith. 'Hell hath no fury' should be taken entirely literally in her case. Definitely a case of 'marry in haste...'
Tho' some readers may think this line of enquiry is getting off the subject, it is very pertinent indeed; traditional values have cast women in the prototypical wife-and-mother role, and have condemned them for attempting to escape them and have an intellectual as well as a biological existence. And James Purnells' recent pledge to help immigrants, women and other 'minorities' with cash handouts during the recession/depression because they have historically been the most 'vulnerable' only serves to highlight the extreme imbalance between the sexes, despite Harman's go-getting pro-women attitude. How can the Conservative party reconcile women's wishes to forge a successful career, have a decent education and realise their potential with the 'traditional' (that which has used elements of Jewish and Christian patriarchal dominance to inform social and political values), therefore?

[Sam Ashby]

Mara, Sally, I quite agree that a return to dignity, modesty, privacy is quite in order, and long long overdue! That said, I disagree with you on your understanding of the Catholic view of women. The Church affirms that men and women are equal in dignity, but are not identical. A woman is a man's equal, she is not his replacement. You only have to look at the physical differences to see that it is true. However I would not agree that denying women education was part of the Catholic Church's aims at all. Education is essential. What is not essential is a driven career of "intelectual contribution" to the exclusion of a "physical contribution" to society. Indeed, the Catholic Church recently cannonised St Gianna, a mother and doctor from Italy. If the church were striving to keep women opressed and ignorant, she would not present St Gianna as a role model. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianna_Beretta_Molla
I would argue that the church seeks to promote women, as it strives to promote men, encouraging each to fulfilment of their true potential, both in this world and the next.
Oh, and for the record, I am a woman, I am a Catholic, I have a degree (from a fairly prestigious university) and I have a husband and 3 beautiful children.

[Mara MacSeoinin]

Yet women are barred from the priesthood and from being deaconesses (the latter being particularly contentious, as there are many examples of deaconesses in the NT). How does that speak of equality? And why is a driven career of intellectual contribution seen as essential for men and not for women? -I read Theology for my first degree so know quite a bit of Catholic doctrine/dogma (and am not instinctively reacting from a wordly anti-Catholic perspective): I'm v. interested in your opinion on this matter and how a doctrine of equality can be reconciled with an emphasis on gender distinctions.

[Sam Ashby]

"reduced to a state of imbecility by constant drudgery and childbirth"

no, sorry, don't recognise this description. I use my brain far more to manage my life as it is now than I ever did when I was studying for my degree.

[Sam Ashby]

Sorry Mara, think we cross posted.

Women are "barred" from the priesthood in the same way that men are "barred" from being mothers. it is not whether they can be competent in the role, it is whether they should be doing that job. A woman's position in the church is not on the altar. It doesn't denigrate women, it is simply saying that that is not their job. The best analagy I can think of is from the bible:

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (1 Corithians Ch12 vs 14-26)

To me, that explains it perfectly.

[Mara MacSeoinin]

Men can't be mothers because they lack the biological capability. It's a huge leap of logic to state that women can't be priests by the same token. Your quote from Corinthians doesn't explain why a woman's place is not at the altar. There is simply no reason why a woman should not be able to commune with God and lead others in worship - indeed, one of the women I respect the most is a rabbi and foremost Jewish scholars in the country, as well as being an exemplary mother and member of her community. To say that it's 'just not right' is the kind of vague response that characterised, for example, male responses to women's call for the vote. It just wasn't 'fitting' or 'seemly', just as it wasn't fitting or seemly for a woman to study history, ride astride, play the cello, study the sciences or present papers on them (cf Beatrice Potter, one of the greatest botanists of the C19th, being prevented from presenting a pioneering paper to the Royal Society - because she wasn't a man). Inferring an 'is' from an 'ought' has been one of the greatest bars to progress of the healthiest, kind: not for its own sake, but to break down those petty ideas that have been turned from myths into morals by repetition.

[David Lindsay]

Massively increased benefit dependency and general moral chaos go back to which decade, do you think?

I'm sorry, but I really cannot see how "Labour MP Condemns Thatcherism" is any sort of story.

[Sam Ashby]

Mara, forgive me, I failed to explain clearly. The union of Christ and the Church is clearly defined as being the union of a man and a woman. Christ gave his life for his "bride" the church, and St Paul exhorts all Christian Men to reverence their wives in the same way. In the Eucharist, the priest stands in for Christ, offering the sacrifice of the Cross, which seals the union of Christ and his Bride. Same Sex Marriage is a new thing! The role of the priest cannot be taken by a woman, as a woman cannot in fact be a bridegroom. Does this seem like less of a leap to you now?

[Mara MacSeoinin]

Less of a leap??
The example you have given above is called 'allegory' and 'analogy'; it is not de facto. Such depictions arose many centuries after the death of Jesus of Nazareth, often the result of an amalgam of gnostic, Manicheeistic, Hellenistic, Platonic, Middle Platonic, Neoplatonic and Neo-Aristotelian ideas, far removed from that which was preached in the thousands of gospels written/orally transmitted after ca 30-35 CE which were finally redacted to four. (The mere concept of a 'church' was, you recall, unknown in what are referred to as Biblical times; also r)ecall that St Paul had deaconesses.)

[Adrian]

children benefit from both parents and 80% of the Prison population come from single parent families therefore the state shouldn't undermine familes, or the Christian traditions of this country and people.

Don't teach sex to 5yr olds in school.

Don't promote 24 hr drinking.

Don't undermine the authority of teachers and parents in school.

Don't subvert western civilisation with Frankfurt Subversion techniques.

The Deliberate Destruction of Great Britain

[Super Blue]

Draper-Stone exposes his real self - a Labour supporter who usually claims otherwise.

[Cllr Alexa Michael]

Tom Harris is absolutely right to say this, but wasn't it Tony Blair some years ago who said that young single mothers were 'piling up' problems for the future?

Some more sound advice:

Don't spend more than you earn.

Save for a rainy day.

Don't give mortgages to those who can't repay the money.

Don't pay the feckless and those who could work.

Don't legalise illegal drugs.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. (How much happier we would be if we stopped seeing offence in everything).

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

[steve foley]

As Christian of the High Anglican type I have happily assisted at Mass with a woman Celebrant and taken Communion at her hands. I have no problem whatsoever with a woman Priest and avidly await the day when the C of E here in England consecrates women as Bishops. I am also a Co-Freemason and am delighted to salute a woman as my Right Worship Master when in a Lodge Meeting. Whether the person has a penis or a vagina is totally irrelevant in these contexts as far as I am concerned.

To compare the biological fact that only a woman can bear a child with the notion that only a man can be a priest is utter nonsense as far as I am concerned.

[Archie Wedderspoon]

I suspect that when a socialist like Harris espouses sensible views, it is time to be afraid, very afraid. He obviously has something in mind quite different from anything which a conservative would approve of.

[Super Blue]

Whatever Stoll-Trone advises, do the opposite!