Dietrich von Hildebrand - Man, Woman, and the Meaning of Love: Gods Plan for Love, Marriage, Intimacy, and the Family

Manand Woman

Love& the Meaning of Intimacy

Dietrich vonHildebrand

SOPHIAINSTITUTE PRESS

Manchester, NewHampshire

Man and Woman was first published in 1966 by Franciscan Herald Press.Henry Regnery Company issued a paperback edition in1967. Although this 1992 edition preserves the essential content of thoseearlier editions (most of it word-for-word), it contains dozens of newsubheadings and a completely new order of topics. This edition is published bySophia Institute with permission of Alice von Hildebrand.

Copyright 1966Dietrich von Hildebrand; 1992 Alice von Hildebrand Printed in the United Statesof America All rights reserved Jacket design by Joan Baiger

No part of thisbook may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in anyform, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise,without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer,who may quote brief passages in a review.

Sophia InstitutePress Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108 1-800-888-9344

Nihil obstat : MarionA. Habig , O.F.M .

Imprimatur: MostRev. Cletus F. O'Donnell, D.D . December 9 ,1965

Library of CongressCataloging-in-Publication Data

Von Hildebrand,Dietrich, 1889-1977

Man and Woman : Love and the meaning of intimacy / Dietrich vonHildebrand. p . cm.

ISBN0-918477-14-X: $14.95

1. Man-womanrelationships. 2. Love Religious aspects Christianity. 3. Marriage. 4- Friendship.I. Title. HQ801.V66 1992 92-19822

305.3 dc20 CIP

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The laboratory approach to love

Love does not begin with self-love

Love responds to the value of the beloved

Love is not mere attachment

Love is not merely a means to happiness

Love affirms the person of the beloved

Love is not an appetite

Love is the voice of the heart

Love is different from other affective responses

Love yearns for union

Love desires happiness for the beloved

Love perfects the lover

Love sees the true self of the beloved

Love is never blind

Only love is truly objective

Love believes

Love is not a delusion

Love surrenders

Love must be learned

One who truly loves is filled with respect and gratitude

Religion does not overlook the grandeur of spousal loveSpousal love and differences between men and women

Men and women differ essentially

Man and woman are complementary

The characteristics of spousal love

The liberating power of spousal love

Spousal love aims at an irrevocable gift of self

Sacramental marriage transforms love

The extraordinary depth of sexuality

The profound intimacy of sexuality

Sex is not merely a biological action

The instinctual approach to sexuality destroys love

Conjugal love is not lust

Isolated sexuality threatens love

A neutral approach is as bad as a puritanical attitude

The error of Victorian prudery

Instrumental finality vs. superabundance

Conjugal union is not merely a means to procreation

Mere instincts and urges can be instrumental means

Spiritual acts have value in themselves

Procreation is the superabundant end of marriage

The irreverence of artificial contraception

How contraception differs from natural family planning

Marriage and the problem of overpopulation

The limits of governmental authority

Overpopulation in light of the meaning of marriage

Moral good and evil

True morality reflects the beauty of sexuality

Persons are not merely higher animals

Men and women share the same ultimate calling

The development of masculinity and femininity

The phony war between the sexes

There are many spiritual differences between the sexes

The mission of men and women to each other

Deep, mutual understanding between men andwomen Male/female spiritual relations are not sublimated desire Sexualtemptation calls for vigilance, not separation

Spiritual communion among the unmarried

Dangers for male/female relationships in groups

Chivalry is still necessary

INTRODUCTION

ALTHOUGHWE HEAR THAT sex is overemphasized today, this is not correct. Rather, we live in a time inwhich sexuality is no longer understood in its true nature. People today aregenerally as blind to its true meaning as are persons who completely lacksensuality.

Asterile approach to sexuality dominates our time. Out of boredom, people havegranted to casual, shallow, and neutralized sex a distorted role. Today'sblatant sexuality conceals a pathetic sensual emptiness.

Forsex is a mystery. It is a pity that so much writing on the subject deals withsex exclusively from the moral point of view, rather than attempting to probethis mystery of sex. For it is only when one has grasped the nature, meaning,and value of sex that one is equipped to understand the moral values and disvalues in this sphere.

Manypeople praise the free and objective approach to sex in our days as compared tothe Victorian age of prudery or to the puritanical horror of all things sexual.Certainly the prude and the Puritan are unfortunate, but notbecause they feel shame nor because they abstain from dealing with thissphere as if it were something neutral.

No,what is wrong with the Puritan approach is its despising of sexuality. It seessex as something base in itself, as morally negative, which precisely deniesthe high mission to which this sphere is destined to serve the ultimatemutual donation in spousal love.

Thisspousal love between man and woman is not a romantic invention of the poets buta tremendous factor in human life from the very beginning of the history ofmankind: the source of the deepest happiness in human earthly life. Of it, theSong of Solomon says: "If a man shall give all the substance of his housefor love he shall despise it as nothing." Indeed it is this love alonewhich is the key to an understanding of the true nature of sex, its value, andthe mystery which it embodies.

Tounderstand the nature of spousal love this glorious heritage of paradise and the God-willed valid aspect of the sexual sphere, we should read the Songof Solomon with an open mind. We should not think of the analogical meaning,but take it in its original literal sense. Then we can breathe the atmosphereof this love and see the sublimity of the bodily union when experienced as theultimate God-given mutual self-donation.

Andonce we have grasped the beauty of the literal sense, we should consider theimplications of the fact that the Liturgy uses it as an analogy for therelation of the soul to God.

Isit not obvious that only something which is noble on the human level can beused as an analogy for the supernatural relation ofthe soul to Christ? Why does the sacred author use this relation and not thatof friendship, such as the one uniting David and Jonathan?

Onlywhen we have corrected this wrong attitude toward the love between man andwoman and toward the bodily union in which this love, aspiring to anindissoluble union, finds its unique fulfillment can we do justice to themeaning and value of marriage as well as to the depth and beauty of itsconnection with the coming into being of a new human person.

THE NATURE OF LOVE

TOUNDERSTAND the true nature of love and sex, we must first free ourselves from a widespread general prejudice: the belief that the onlyvalid, authentic reality is the one which natural science presents to us. Therest is dismissed as romance.

Thelaboratory approach to love

Manybelieve that vibrations are more serious and real than colors or tunes, thatthe aspect of a human hand under the microscope is the authentic one, and thatthe aspect of a hand as we see it is a mere semblance. Many believe that it isin the laboratory alone that we touch the valid, authentic reality.