Catherine O'Hara's character in "Best in Show" comes to mind. She assured her husband that he was her future and all those other men were her past. But they kept running into her former lovers which inevitably made Eugene Levy extremely uncomfortable.
Romance and lust (often confused as love) are two sides of the same coin. Neither have anything to do with marriage or the purpose of sex.
Needless to say, the sentiment expressed in the quote seems to make the 40-year-old, whiskey-skinned woman at the end of the bar the most discriminating; she having foregone permanance with the others to find a man who will stick around. Or maybe it just makes the 40-year-old, long haired, mostly bald guy at the end of the bar the ideal catch; he being willing to stick with most anything.
The quote certainly speaks to the popular tendency of women to desire settling. It also speaks to a man's desire of homesteading, i.e. setting his stake on raw, untouched ground. I don't see how it could be used to justify premarital fooling around.
The quote only makes good sense if by "first love" we mean "first love" and not "first lover." It is clumsy vanity to be ruffled if your wife, fiancee, or girlfriend was ever in love with someone else. There's nothing wrong (and everything right, AFAIK), on the other hand, with wishing your hypothetical beloved to have lived a chaste life. Demanding that, i.e., making it a pre-condition for courtship, is a whole different story.
In keeping with JPII's theology of the body, what a woman should want, and settle for no less, is to be a man's only love and only romance and only husband and only father of any children she might bear and grandfather to any grandchildren she might have and on and on to his death and perhaps in the sentiments of St. Paul, even after his death to still be her only.
The quote probably comes from one of Wilde's plays. From what I know about Wilde, I doubt he would have meant it to be used to justify a life of promiscuity before settling down, even given his own sordid private life.
And to know all there is to know about Wilde from a proper perspective, I highly recommend Joseph Pearce's Unmasking Oscar Wilde.
My first thought about "counter-arguments to this woman's sentiments" is that there can be no arguments to sentiments.
Sentiments are like the weather. There really is no arguing with them, but any sane person should realize that all sentiments are not created equal... even a fool knows not to stand around in the rain.
Arguments and sentiments are like oil and water.
In short... arguments not withstanding - this woman will do what she likes, and will take refuge in any justification she can for it... Oscar Wilde is as good (or bad) as any.
I guess men DO tend more to go all a-quiver at the prospect of setting foot in The Undiscovered Country. I can't really say what women go a-quiver for. Maybe this "last romance" thing is that some women might take pleasure in spoiling whatever happiness a man might find in any woman that comes after her.
She might find some comfort (as she grows old) in the idea that there are men who, though now married and settled, still think of her twice a week.
Pretty small potatoes, though. Even if there are girls I remember fondly, I have thought of my wife fondly every day for a quarter century.
From "A Woman of No Importance" (1893), by Oscar Wilde
--
...
MRS. ALLONBY. When Ernest and I were engaged, he swore to me
positively on his knees that he had never loved any one before in
the whole course of his life. I was very young at the time, so I
didn't believe him, I needn't tell you. Unfortunately, however, I
made no enquiries of any kind till after I had been actually
married four or five months. I found out then that what he had
told me was perfectly true. And that sort of thing makes a man so
absolutely uninteresting.
LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear!
MRS. ALLONBY. Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is
their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about
things. What we like is to be a man's last romance.
LADY STUTFIELD. I see what you mean. It's very, very beautiful.
LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear child, you don't mean to tell me that you
won't forgive your husband because he never loved any one else?
Did you ever hear such a thing, Caroline? I am quite surprised.
LADY CAROLINE. Oh, women have become so highly educated, Jane,
that nothing should surprise us nowadays, except happy marriages.
They apparently are getting remarkably rare.
MRS. ALLONBY. Oh, they're quite out of date.
LADY STUTFIELD. Except amongst the middle classes, I have been
told.
MRS. ALLONBY. How like the middle classes!
LADY STUTFIELD. Yes - is it not? - very, very like them.
...
A less cynical view of the quote than what I offered would be:
Men desire a woman of innocence. They do not want a woman who has been spoiled by the vileness of other men.
Women desire constancy. They offer their love at great cost, and they do not want it frittered away by a lover who will not be there tomorrow.
Given Zhou's rendition, I go back to my cynical version.
with wishing your hypothetical beloved to have lived a chaste life
seems to be that the husband (simply) wants to know that the wife would have liked to do this in her earlier years if given the chance to do so.
Men are primarily interested in women.
Women are primarily interested in children.
- my husband
These two facts, taken together, create a great deal of misunderstanding.
I had no idea that JP II was against remarriage in widowhood. Did he mean both widows and widowers or is this his hyper-idealization of women speaking again?
We must remember that Wilde was a satirist. It's been a long while since I've read "A Woman of No Importance" but Zhou's post above makes it very clear, I think, that Wilde is satirizing the upper classes - something he was wont to do & did well. I think the quote in context makes Wilde's point quite clear.
Here's a plot synopsis I found on Wikipedia:
"The scene is set in an English country house - Hunstanton (Lady Hunstanton's property). The curtains open to the terrace where we are introduced to Lady Caroline who are engaging in conversation with their American Puritan guest Hester Worsley. The discussion is joined by the powerful, charming and charismatic gentleman, Lord Illingworth who has offered the post of secretary to the fortunate Gerald Arbuthnot. Gerald's mother is invited to join the party, after arrival she realises this offer is more complicated than it seems, as Illingworth is the father of her illegitimate son, Gerald, who refused marriage all those years ago. The tension mounts when Mrs. Arbuthnot is caught between telling her son the truth or allowing him to go with the man who spoilt her life. Gerald finds out about his mother's past in a spectacularly Wildean moment of melodrama - after trying to kill Lord Illingworth for kissing Hester Worsley - a woman with whom he is very much in love.
The play concludes with Gerald, Hester and Mrs. Arbuthnot leaving England for America to live in a society where she will not be judged so harshly."
So it would seem that Wilde's point was not to justify sexual partners in one's single life, as the woman the reader is in conversation is attempting to do. Rather, Wilde is satirizing the hypocrisy of the behavior of upper class. Which is totally in keeping with the very positive morality of Wilde's body of work, despite his own sexual foibles.
But then he did convert to Catholicism late in his life & renounced his previous life - something those who hold him up as a champion of their chosen lifestyle today would do very well to keep in mind.
With regard to Wilde's conversion I refer you to this brief essay at,
http://www.catholiceducation.org...rts/
al0093.html
It certainly places much of what is taken to be his flippancy in some greater context and reminds us of the paradox of Wilde, that while a sensualist himself, so much of his satire was grounded in rather traditional values.
It sounds like the second step following "boys sow wild oats, girls say no". If that's the belief system/common sense, then grown-up boys will want to marry virgins/be their bride's first and only, while grown-up girls will presume that their marriage partner has sown some oats and thus seek to be their groom's last-and-forever.......
Another less cynical version...
A woman would be a man's last romance because he would want no one else after her.
Who's read Ernest Hemmingway's biography of Wilde, The Importance of Being Oscar ?
He's saying that men get a rise out of infatuating silly girls, whereas women, being wiser, get satisfaction from catching, and keeping, a mature man. Doesn't have anything to do with justifying past behaviour.
Obviously a woman can be a man's last romance without ever having had any prior romances herself. Nor does being the man's last romance exclude also being his first romance. If the woman in question hasn't already noticed this simple logical point, though, I'm not sure that it will be of any use to point it out to her.
I also think that arguments won't work in this case. You can't force someone to feel sorry for something they don't think is wrong. This women simply lived her life the way many do today and does not seem aware of any level on which it was wrong. Fine. If her friend and her husband are serious about changing this then they have be sources of a grace that will reveal to her the real sources of beauty, meaning, and goodness in sexuality that are damaged by promiscuity. Beyond prayer I don't know what direction to go. I know that unless serious Christians manage to embody and radiate the joy, grace and goodness of sexuality and chastity (in all its various forms) then we won't convince anyone. We may as well pack it up and let the promiscuous get on with their fun. People aren't going to desire to be chaste unless they see its goodness and beauty in the lives of real people. That is the way I would move here.
Ingvar
I'm still interested in hearing any responses to this good question:
I had no idea that JP II was against remarriage in widowhood. Did he mean both widows and widowers or is this his hyper-idealization of women speaking again?
But if women are primarily interested in children, how come so many put their health and safety at risk to avoid them ?
Recently there was a divorce case in Singapore in which there was an unusual custody battle: neither one of the parents wanted the kids. "You take 'em !" "I don't wanna...you take 'em..."
Somehow, I'm afraid this may be an omen of things to come....
The problem with stating that the quote means a woman wants a man who is ready to settle down and was chaste is that this is the thing she is condemning in the play. Upon learning that her husband had only desired her and had wanted no one else, she states her line that leads to the thread. In fact such unadoring love makes the man "absolutely uninteresting."
Her husband is greatly bothered about this lack of remorse
The time for being bothered by this is before marriage, not after. Was this conversation had before marriage? If not, why not?
If not, the husband should accept his own responsibility for failure to inquire into an important subject, and move on.
If so, then the husband has made hsi decision and needs to move on, now.
I'd like to provide some good counter-arguments to this woman's sentiments
Best done after the two spouses have filed for divorce. If divorce is not in the cards, then the discussion is academic. As discussed above, there is no such thing as a counter-argument to a sentiment.
"The time for being bothered by this is before marriage, not after. Was this conversation had before marriage? If not, why not?"
You're not kidding. I can sympathize that it bothers him, but if it bothers him that much he shouldn't have married this woman in the first place.
Also, I too would like to hear some discussion on Sandra's question.
I did not live a particularly chaste early life. Okay, I was unchaste.
I have responses to this fact. The first is that I am perfectly away of the sinfulness of this, and that this was not a good way to live, was not pleasing to the Lord. The second is that this was part of my development as a human being, and that God drew good out of the evil. I am sorry that I sinned. But it is often difficult to regret something, even if it is bad, out of which so much good came. There is just no way that I would have met my wife, and been able to appreciate her special virtues, had I not followed such a circuitous path. (If you don't like my example, think of two people who have a child from sinful premarital sex. To separate out the sinfulness of the deed from the great good of the life of the child before one so that one can regret the past sin must be tremendously hard.)
My point is that it can be very uncharitable to assess people's moral character by their attitudes toward their past sin.
Hemingway above is perfectly correct: this line (as it is originally written) has nothing to do with justifying past promiscuous behavior.However, that said, the couple who are arguing about the woman's using this line to justify her own past behavior has some immaturity issues.
First, they should wisen up and not bring their arguments to others (the person writing this question, and now all of us); second, the husband is really saying that he is jealous of his wife's past lover(s) and he wants her to feel remorse about it, which he feels she does not.
My suggestion to them is that they pray for each other's conversions.
I say this because it is apparent that if his wife were truly a devout Catholic taking her faith seriously, she would have remorse and regrets for past sins and never try to justify them. It is pride which makes us justify ourselves. She needs humilty.
It is also apparent that the husband does not forgive his wife's past, and as a Catholic husband he is called to love his wife as Christ loves the Church, which means that he has to forgive her her past as Christ forgives us our past sins. It is pride which makes us overlook our own sinful nature to the point that we cannot forgive others their faults and sins. He also needs humility.
Additionally, the act of the wife praying for her husband and the husband praying for his wife will help not only the other one, but also each themselves, as it requires humilty to pray for one's own conversion.
Note also that we have one side of the exchange here. 'Basically justify' could mean anything from 'assert that it is perfectly fine' to 'refuse to relive it over and over again.'
Never base your entire philosophy of life on a work of fiction.
I think the quote refers to the thrill a man gets from being "the first" and, on the opposite end, the thrill a woman gets from finally "taming" the experienced man of the world. All moral issues aside, there is something wildly sexy about a man whose got a few battle scars from life and love as opposed to a the sweet boy whose never been in love. I think it could be summarized as boys like good girls and girls like bad boys.
Sounds like me and the guy I'm dating LOL
A girl -
That sounds pretty much right.
I think Theocoid and A Girl both hit the nail pretty squarely. When my paternal grandfather died, my father (who was about 1
encouraged his mother (who was in her 50s) to think about dating. His attitude was that her life didn't have to stop because her husband had died. My grandmother's response was "Why bother dating?" As my father tells it, her attitude was that she'd already had the best relationship she could ever have hoped for, and anything else would be second-best.
While I think it's imprudent to speculate too much about this couple's situation, I think I have to disagree with A Catholic Momma's assessment that if this woman were really taking her faith seriously, she would have remorse and regrets. Maybe she's been to Confession, been absolved, done her penance, and doesn't think it's necessary to continue beating herself up for things she can't change. Someone once told me that there's a particular kind of pride associated with thinking that my sins are too much for God to have forgiven; and if they're forgiven, why continue to live out regret and remorse? Rather, go forth and sin no more.
Just my thoughts...I could be wrong. 
Maybe she's been to Confession, been absolved, done her penance, and doesn't think it's necessary to continue beating herself up for things she can't change. Someone once told me that there's a particular kind of pride associated with thinking that my sins are too much for God to have forgiven; and if they're forgiven, why continue to live out regret and remorse? Rather, go forth and sin no more.
That could be, in which case the husband should definitely let it go lest he sin against his wife, but from the email it doesn't sound like that's the case. Of course the information in the email is second-hand, perhaps even third-hand, so we really don't know.
老周你是華人嗎？ 我猜你的“周“對了沒有？
That (Chinese) was for Old Zhou, if you or he needed to know.
I had no idea that JP II was against remarriage in widowhood. Did he mean both widows and widowers or is this his hyper-idealization of women speaking again?
I assume your question is in response to Ann’s comment: “In keeping with JPII's theology of the body, what a woman should want, and settle for no less, is to be a man's only love and only romance and only husband and only father of any children she might bear and grandfather to any grandchildren she might have and on and on to his death and perhaps in the sentiments of St. Paul, even after his death to still be her only.”
I’m still working on Theology of the Body (and will be for some time) but I’ve found absolutely nothing that indicates that JPII was against remarriage in widowhood. In fact, he states: “The administration of the sacrament [of marriage] consists in this: that in the moment of contracting marriage the man and the woman ...form a sign ...which has also a significance for the future: "all the days of my life," that is to say, until death. ...[T]he key for the understanding [the sacrament] of marriage is always the reality of the sign whereby marriage is constituted on the basis of the covenant of man with God in Christ and in the Church. ...As spouses, the man and woman bear this sign throughout the whole of their lives and they remain as that sign until death. (Theology of the Body, Language of the Body, the Substratum and Content of the Sacramental Sign of Spousal Communion, 6 and 7)
JPII does give an in-depth overview of Jesus’ teachings on continence and Paul’s on marriage but always includes their entire instruction which is essentially, continence/celibacy is a gift that is given to some but not to all (and Paul specifically includes widows in this).
Perhaps I’m missing something – I’m a fairly recent (2+ years) revert and I’ve learned, though I’ve always read an enormous amount of Catholic teaching, there’s so much I could not possibly understand from the outside. I’m sure others on this thread know more.
A husband and wife are preparing for sleep. The wife smacks the husband repeatedly with a slipper. He asks, "What was that for?" She replies, "That was for being a lousy lover," and rolls over. He picks up the slipper and smacks her repeatedly on the shoulder. She asks why he hit her. He replied, "That was for knowing the difference!".
It seems no one hear has pointed out that the male ego can be a fragile thing. For most men it is not the thrill of conquest that makes them dream of being a woman's only love.
here, not hear.
Good to know that, Drusilla. I certainly hadn't remembered the late Pope rejecting re-marriage. But in my opinion, he was way too hung up on women being "delicate and sensitive".
Wanting to be his last romance is also a 'clumsy vanity'. Has nothing to do with sentiments/arguments or oil/water. Its just the pot calling the kettle black, like my grandmother used to say.
Fair point, Michael. (Though I heard the story as a man at a lawyer's office, planning to divorce his wife because she said he was a GOOD lover - when pressed for clarification, it was because she knew the difference.)
Kassia,
It is true that it is wrong to hold onto one's regrets and remorse as a rejection of the forgiveness God has granted from Confession. But to justify past sins, as if to berate or even deny the fact that they are wrong, would be worse because it means that true sorrow for the sins is not there at all.
From my own experience, I have committed sins I am very ashamed of and I still regret them because they are sins! Sin hurts one's own soul.
Too many Catholics forget (or perhaps they were never taught) that even though the eternal effects of our sins are atoned for by Christ's Sacrifice and His Mercy bestowed upon us through Confession, we still retain the temporal effects of the sin, which means we must pay for them through penance either here or in Purgatory. When we will be suffering in Purgatory, will that not be something to regret our sins for?
What is more, when we sin, we offend the Good God. How can anyone who truly loves God not regret doing that? Grace teaches us we can be truly sorrowful for hurting Our Lord even while we have a deep appreciation of the forgiveness and mercy we receive from Him.
Sandra, the man was my grandfather's age and from a small town in Eastern Europe. Are you really surprised his view of women had its old-fashioned tinges? It's like you're telling me he thought the sky was blue.
Heck, considering how healthy and robust that Polish girls generally are, I think it's pretty chivalrous that he thought of women as delicate! Probably due to his mother's early death, I'd bet. It worked for the Victorians....
Of course, I can afford to be more blase about such things, since I grew up in a very different time than you or he did.
Dear Elliot B,
this thread is not about me.
If you want to know my race,
then come see my face,
'stead of writing here in Chinee.
Ann here with a clarification.
I did not mean to imply that JPII was against re-marriage in widowhood. What I tried to say was that St. Paul recommended it.
I will have to go searching for the passage. I think it is in a short letter.
My memory is that he said women can marry in widowhood, but that it is better that they do not and that he thinks he speaks for the Lord in that opinion.
I will look for it and post it if I can find it.
The verse is
I Corinthians 7:39-40
and
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/...then/
15617c.htm
Perhaps this literary wife who doesn't seem remorseful might consider these lines from Alexander Pope's "Eloisa to Abelard," instead of focusing on Wilde:
"Ev’n here, where frozen chastity retires,
Love finds an altar for forbidden fires.
I ought to grieve, but cannot what I ought;
I mourn the lover, not lament the fault;
I view my crime, but kindle at the view,
Repent old pleasures, and solicit new;
Now turn’d to Heav’n, I weep my past offence,
Now think of thee, and curse my innocence.
Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
’Tis sure the hardest science to forget!"
Well, Old Zhou, I'm sorry but I don't know your webpage or email, nor is it easy for me (in Taiwan) to do a face test of people in North America (I presume). I'll go back to my cave, though, I guess, and leave this combox unsoiled by curiosity. Maybe I could ask Mark to create a post just for us to chat in "Chinee"? I like using Chinese, that's about all; doing so with an informed Catholic would be that much better. Sheesh.
(I hope I'm overreacting by having missed the humor of your rhyme.)
Yes, Maureen, I realize why the JP II had the attitudes toward women that he did but they grate on me. Delicate and sensitive I ain't. Nor can I easily picture delicate and sensitive Polish peasant women. Women have always had to be strong and pragmatic for their families and themselves to survive.
The best of best is clearly this : to be be the first love and the last romance of each others !!! ;-D
Merry Christmas.
"Heck, considering how healthy and robust that Polish girls generally are, I think it's pretty chivalrous that he thought of women as delicate! Probably due to his mother's early death, I'd bet. It worked for the Victorians...."
He was making a generalization that, while generally true, will have its exceptions. Having lived most of my life surrounded by women (mother, sisters, no father), I wholeheartedly agree the women, for the most part, are more delicate and sensitive than men.
It has nothing to do with being strong and pragmatic. I do not get why such traits are mutually exclusive.
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