Double standard here? Absolutely! Femininity and Virility are distinct forms; they contrast and complement each other; they are equal in dignity and significance. Vive la difference!
Femininity is more richly endowed...naturally, hormonally, intutitively, biologically...with compassion, resiliency, generosity, fidelity, sensitivity and emotional intelligence. The full flowering of femininity in spousality and maternity builds upon a wholesome filialtiy as with virility. But the blooming of the girl's character and personality is more fluid, spontaneous, and organic in comparison to the maturing of the boy which is tortured, labored, deliberate, prolonged, complicated.
Femininity is like a sturdy plant that can thrive in different circumstances: resilient and fierce, it can survive in dry or wet, cold or hot, with little or much sun and rain, with or without rich nutrients in the soil. with very little cultivation. To be sure, if it has good conditions it flowers into a magnificence of beauty and fruitfulness. To attain its fullest expression it requires, of course, formation in virtue. But even in the worst conditions it has a mysterious interior dynamism of resiliency and gratuity.
By contrast, manliness has a fragility, brittleness and vulnerabity about it. Without the right cultivation, the boy becomes either a weakling or a thug. It is like a plant that if not cultivated over many years with the right recipe of sun, rain, temperature and nutrients either shrivels and dies or becomes a monstrosity. Fruitful, fragarent femininity (I speak as proud father of five daughters) is relatively low maintenance; a little love and care and it yields wonderful fruit. Masculinity is super-high maintenance: takes many years of mentoring, correcting, encouraging.
The purpose or end of virility is paternity: the giving of life, protection, education, and guidance. As such, there are three primary virtues (humility, chastity, courage) and two secondary (prudence, justice) which constitute virility as paternity.
Humility. Humility is first of all for two reasons. Most important: human paternity is representative of the Fatherhood of God. Of its very nature it points away from itself to God. The success of a father is not that his children love and respect him; it is that they have moved, with his help, beyond him into a filial relationship of trust and love for our heavenly father. By contrast, maternity is not represenational, it is its own distinct creaturely form which complements but does not represent the Fatherhood of God. Secondly, the masculine psyche or ego is (since the Fall) brittle, crude, self-centered, insensitive, defensive-aggressive, and isolated. It is exactly what it should not be to point beyond to our heavenly Father. Deflation of the masculine ego is the lifetime task of every man. Paradoxically, however, genuine humility is not self-deprecating or weak. Rather, it is a realistic acknowledgment of ones weaknesses but even moreso a grateful, trusting reception of all God's gifts including intelligence, fortitude, wholesome self esteem, and magnanimity of spirit.
Chastity. A father's love is wholesome and pure in that it seeks (indeed fights for and dies for) the well being of his child. The polar opposite of such love is predatory abuse of the vulnerable. Lust and covetousness, in all their ugly configuations, is sariligeous in that it defiles true paternity. Here again we see that "normal" or post-original-sin masculinity is violent, toxic, narcissistic and predatory. The fight for purity of heart is also a lifelong struggle for the man.
Courage.Virility is essentially strength or fortitude. Such is essential to paternity. Paradoxically, such is the inverse side of, not the contrary of humility. The child, the wife, the family, the community depend upon the stability, reliability, safety provided by the strong father. Cowardice or weakness are the contraries of virility. Growth in fortitude is the third of the great masculine life projects.
PrudenceA man who is growing in humility, chastity and courage is also advancing in prudence. This is practical wisdom or intelligence which issues from serenity of spirit, sobriety in the emotions, rational self-restrain, and an receptivity to the Real. The good man provides a stability, a steadiness, a sense of peace and safety which is desperately needed by the young, the vulnerable and by women with their heightened sensitivity.
JusticeThe prudent man (who is humble, chaste and strong) will see and do, spontaneously, the just thing. He has the interior peace to evaluate all the elements in a given situation and will intutively move to the right decision. His presence insures a sense of justice which brings safety and peace.
The attainment of virility is lifetime project which requires personal dedication and exertion, relationships of accountability-support-mentoring, and a life of prayer and trust in God's Holy Spirit.
St. Joseph, Pray for us!
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