tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6786565.post3305349286543307786..comments2023-12-17T16:13:06.670-05:00Comments on In a Godward direction: 4. True Union (2)Tobias Stanislas Haller BSGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047429477181560685noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6786565.post-65254068397561222102007-10-09T17:36:00.000-05:002007-10-09T17:36:00.000-05:00Thank you, Mary Clara. I've responded to your comm...Thank you, Mary Clara. I've <A HREF="http://jintoku.blogspot.com/2007/10/true-union-3.html#comment-6909064054769533208" REL="nofollow">responded</A> to your comment in conjunction with a similar note from Grandmere Mimi as part of the next post. Thanks for your thoughts on this.Tobias Stanislas Haller BSGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08047429477181560685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6786565.post-15369142356480174572007-10-08T17:37:00.000-05:002007-10-08T17:37:00.000-05:00Tobias, I am glad you are taking this on. As an lo...Tobias, I am glad you are taking this on. As an long-married person and a psychotherapist who has worked with many married people, I feel that the view of male and female as complementary to each other should be seriously questioned. The two sexes do not neatly mirror and complete each other. They are not built to satisfy each other fully, either biologically, spiritually or psychologically. Though some couples do feel "made for each other", and nearly everyone clings to the notion that somewhere there would have been (or might still be) that perfect partner, in reality women have needs that men don't seem designed to fulfill, and women have to sacrifice some of what they are in order to give men what they want. Men have historically been in a better position to induce women to meet their needs (even if means turning from a wife to other, often younger, women), but if they are honest they also know that the fit is imperfect. Marriage in any culture therefore requires major adjustments on the part of each individual. Gender mythologies (such as the notion of complementarity) are mobilized in this cause. Being enchanted by the myth (and powered by hormones) helps keep couples together. Beyond that, they just have to grow up, develop character and cultivate the art and craft of relationship, which begins with the acceptance of reality and all its rough edges and gaps.<BR/><BR/>The gaps are of course not a bad thing! Not getting what we want from another person is all part of the plan . . .Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6786565.post-41361521164978084962007-10-08T09:22:00.000-05:002007-10-08T09:22:00.000-05:00Dear Rick,Although you may never have heard of the...Dear Rick,<BR/>Although you may never have heard of the assertion that a "man is incomplete without a woman" I offered the evidence in this and the preceding article: it is a Talmudic teaching, among other things. I understand you find the idea incredible -- so do I, for that matter -- but it is a matter of Jewish teaching. There is, of course, conflicting opinion even within Judaism, but the opinion remains enshrined in Rabbinic understanding of the importance and mandate to marriage.<BR/><BR/>This is hardly a straw man. Surely you are aware of the pressures, even in our culture, against singleness and towards marriage? It may not have the force of law, but many societies exert significant pressure towards marriage -- ironically often while denying the same privilege to same-sex couples. Some years ago the Anglican Franciscans had to shut down an effort at starting a community in Africa because the social pressure against celibacy was so high; they were told that a man who is not married is not a real man. I join you in finding this incredible, but it is the reality in much of the world.<BR/><BR/>I will be addressing the assertion that there is "obviously a natural, biological 'complementarity'" involved in procreation in the next section of this reflection. The short version: there isn't, in any meaningful sense of the word "complementary." I will elaborate further in the next section. But I have already shown in previous sections that too great a fixation on the procreative function will not fly: since marriage is not forbidden to those who are incapable of procreation. Even if I were to grant (which I don't) that some kind of complementarity was involved in procreation, that would still leave unaddressed the normalcy of mixed-sex relationships in which procreation either does not or cannot take place -- and how, in actual fact, this differs then from a same-sex relationship that is identical in all other respects (leaving aside the "slippery" problems of incest, consent, impermanence, and plurality).<BR/><BR/>And yes, there are many myths in human cultures, such as the Navajo story you cite. What I am saying is that Genesis 1 and 2 are just as "mythological" -- that is, they should no more be looked to as literally true on the subject of the relationship of the sexes than they are for cosmology or physics.Tobias Stanislas Haller BSGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08047429477181560685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6786565.post-68179006895976494342007-10-07T22:08:00.000-05:002007-10-07T22:08:00.000-05:00"It is sometimes asserted that one is not a comple..."It is sometimes asserted that one is not a complete human being unless coupled."<BR/><BR/>That's certainly a new one on me.<BR/><BR/>But, in fact, I am at a loss to understand why the undenied notion that an individual is a complete human being negates the idea of sexual complementarity.<BR/><BR/>That we are individually fully human surely doesn't mean that we don't need relationships in a very fundamental way. I won't throw Buber at you. It seems obvious enough to me that only the most radical sort of individualism would deny that human beings need each other, in friendship, in undertaking common tasks, in mutual help, in the organization of our societies. <BR/><BR/>Not everyone participates in all of these relationships. But in the one relationship that includes the bringing of new life into the world, there is obviously a natural, biological "complementarity."<BR/><BR/>It's a funny word, I'll admit, a two-dollar word presumably made necessary by the sudden mass incomprehension of the idea that some particular ways of doing some things together require a man and a woman. It was never meant to mean, as far as I can tell, that those who don't enter into a sexual relationship with a member of the opposite sex are less than human. That would leave Jesus and Paul out, to begin with.<BR/><BR/>It really does little more that assert, in a nice six-syllable word, that "male and female created he them." It is a state of potential relationship that existed from the beginning. But I know of no one who concludes from that that either Adam or Eve were thought "defective" or less than human from the absence of the other. This seems to be beginning with a straw man. <BR/><BR/>Certainly humanity, the collective of individuals, is incomplete without both male and female. But that's not quite the same thing.<BR/><BR/>I may have mentioned before that the Navajos tell the story, in one of the prior worlds, how the men and women quarrelled, and things go so bad that they just totally separated, and lived separately. It was a state of affairs that couldn't last, of course. But such a story is such a better thing than an arid term like "complementarity."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6786565.post-77640482575034985642007-10-05T17:58:00.000-05:002007-10-05T17:58:00.000-05:00Thank you Allen. Math was never my strong suit. I'...Thank you Allen. Math was never my strong suit. I've corrected the essay...Tobias Stanislas Haller BSGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08047429477181560685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6786565.post-37339880490019235992007-10-05T17:42:00.000-05:002007-10-05T17:42:00.000-05:00Thank you - this is a very helpful response to the...Thank you - this is a very helpful response to the argument of complementarity, an argument that doesn't do much for single, divorced, or widowed Christians either.Erinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04851261237969264984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6786565.post-87078701015725112252007-10-05T17:03:00.000-05:002007-10-05T17:03:00.000-05:00Tobias,I hate to do this to you again, but you hav...Tobias,<BR/>I hate to do this to you again, but you have made another math blunder. A 60-degree angle is <B>supplementary</B> to a 120-degree angle. The <B>complementary</B> angle to 60 degrees is a 30-degree angle.<BR/><BR/>Now I'll go back and continue reading the substance of your post.Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04082981127553205332noreply@blogger.com