Sex and the Human Person: Part IV – Complementarity
Up to this point we have said that the structure of all creation reflects its Source–the Trinitarian God. More to the point, the cosmos is structured in accordance with the cosmic principles of masculinity and femininity. These principles have their origin in Trinitarian love. As such, human sex differences must be understood in terms of these cosmic principles. Thus, there is one human nature that is comprised of two binary terms, man and woman. We showed that one’s sex affects almost everything about him. In fact, the psycho-physical evidence from the sciences corresponds to the understanding that sex differences go to the very depths of the human person, in part, constituting their personal identity.
John Paul the Great, in his theology of the body, explains that the body reveals the person. The body shows that there are two, and only two, ways of being a human person–as a male and female. These two ways complement each other and reach all the way to the dimensions of self-consciousness and self-determination.
Karol Wojtyla, in his book Love and Responsibility, notes that looking at sex from an external, scientific perspective one can see that each sex obviously has features the other does not. The anatomical features themselves suggest a mutual complementarity. In addition, sexual attraction, which is also an urge to mutual completion, shows that the opposite sex has a reciprocal value for the other. However, this complementarity goes much deeper than biology.
Wojtyla goes on to give an example by performing a phenomenological analysis of the complementarity found in the makeup of the human psyche:
The very structure of the male psyche and personality is such that it is more readily œcompelled to disclose and objectivize the hidden significance of love for a person of the other sex. This goes with the relatively more active role of the male in such love, and also imposes a responsibility on him. Whereas in the woman sensuality is as it were covert, and concealed by sentimentality. For this reason she is by nature more inclined to go on seeing as a manifestation of affection what a man already clearly realizes to be the effect of sensuality and the desire for enjoyment. There exists then, as we see, a certain psychological divergence between man and woman in the manner of their participation in love. The woman appears more passive, although in a different way she is more active. In any case, her role and her responsibility will be different from the role and responsibility of the male (Love and Responsibility, 111-12)
This analysis shows the differences between the way men and women experience and manifest love, but in their very differences, they complement one another. Wojtyla makes a significant point that both the man and woman are complementarily active, but in different modes such that one’s activeness complements the other. Their roles and responsibilities must differ or they would naturally conflict. Another example of this is that:
The sexual urge expresses itself in these life processes in such a way that the organism possessing male properties “requires” an organism possessing female characteristics, in conjunction with which it can attain its proper end “that end in which the sexual vitality of the body finds its natural consummation. For the sexual life process is naturally directed towards procreation, and the other sex serves this end. This orientation is not in itself a consumer orientation” nature does not have enjoyment for its own sake as its aim. It is, then, simply a natural orientation in which an objective requirement of existence finds expression (ibid., 106-07).
While the complementary relationship of love transcends procreation, intimate interpersonal love derives its very structure from procreative anthropology. One cannot ignore this truth of complementarity without exacting a physical and psychological price.
Woman and man are two complementary ways of being human and at the same time, two ways of being conscious of the meaning of the body. This complementarity is an important aspect of the man-woman relationship, a relationship, remember, which has its origins in the Trinity.
John Paul finds that these psycho-physical findings are supported by the biblical witness. In the biblical formulation of Genesis 2:23, the woman in her femininity and the man in his masculinity discover themselves in the presence of one another. The subsequent verse shows that this gift of sex difference allows them to become “one flesh” through their bodies. In marriage, they become a communio personarum (community of persons), in the image of the Trinitarian Communio Personarum, through the body. The marital communio is a reflection of the Trinitarian Communio, in whose image man “male and female” is made. The spouses most intimately and completely express this communio in marital intercourse which is open to fruitfulness.
John Paul indicates this when he says that “the unity of which Genesis 2:24 speaks “they become one flesh” is undoubtedly expressed and realized in the conjugal act. The biblical formulation, extremely concise and simple, indicates sex, femininity and masculinity, as that characteristic of man “male and female” which permits them, when they become “one flesh,” to submit their whole humanity to the blessing of fertility.” Again, this complementarity in the witness of the bodies is brought home:
The body which expresses femininity [through masculinity and vice versa masculinity through femininity,] manifests the reciprocity and communion of persons. It expresses it by means of the gift as the fundamental characteristic of personal existence. This is the body, a witness to creation as a fundamental gift, and so a witness to Love as the source from which this same giving springs. Masculinity and femininity namely, sex is the original sign of a creative donation and an awareness on the part of man, male-female, of a gift lived in an original way. Such is the meaning with which sex enters the theology of the body (John Paul II, Theology of the Body, 61-62 [January 9, 1980], the bracketed text above is missing from the English translation, so I have included a translation from the original Italian).
The meaning of the body in marriage reveals an even greater meaning of sex differences for the person. It is a witness of one person’s relation to another and the call to a sincere relationship based on a gift of the self, as a communion of persons imaging the Trinitarian Communio Personarum. Trinitarian Communion, as source and goal for man, has its most perfect corporeal witness through sex in marriage. The body, through its sex differences, becomes the substrate by which the husband and wife form their irrevocable communion. John Paul repeatedly makes it clear that it is the complementarity of the unique masculine and feminine anatomy which reveals sex’s deepest meaning. This view that the body, in both its structure and its actions, can reveal the deepest meaning of gender and its complementarity, is coherent only when one keeps in mind the Pope’s presupposition that the soul is the substantial form of the body.
John Paul II refers to the relationship among femininity, receptivity and love in a text I quoted earlier: “The Bride is loved: it is she who receives love, in order to love in return.” He states that this phrase has meaning that extends beyond marital spousal relationships. It has a universal meaning that applies to every woman in her relations with all other men and women, regardless of her race, nationality, creed, culture, age, education, spiritual or physical state, marital state, etc. This is because it has to do with her very femininity, which one can now begin to see is deeply rooted in the person’s being. In the context of Ephesians 5, he associates the feminine primacy in the receptivity of love with what he calls “a special kind of ‘prophetism’ that belongs to women in their femininity.” An analogous statement can be made about men. In other words, masculine primacy in an initiating love also marks his relationships with everyone else as his masculinity is rooted in the depths of his being.
In the end, it is the very complementarity of sex differences that establish the framework for interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, it is the telos, the purpose, of these sex differences which define the sole context for the most intimate communion of persons; namely, fruitful self-giving love. The series will end with the application of these findings to the problem of same-sex attraction.
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The also each have features that are the same. Women may have larger breasts than men, but they still both have breasts.
Exactly how does this happen? If, as is claimed, men and women are so completely different, then how do they communicate in the first place? How do they understand each other? What is the material and construction of the bridge they cross to one another?
This is a representation of the general principles involved, but it does not accurately describe men and women and their relations. A woman’s personality is not based just on her femininity, it is also based on her masculinity as well. The revers is also true for all men as well. Femininity is also present in the psyche of the man.
Consider what it would be like if that essential element of each of them did not exist. Masculinity and femininity as pure extremes.
A purely feminine woman would be receptive, passive. Completely passive. She would never rise out of bed in the morning and even leave her room, much less go out into the world where she might meet a man. She could not initiate friendships, alliances, relationship with other people.She could not communicate or do anything would change her world. But she must, at some point, initiate as a man does. If she did not possess this masculine quality, she would be unable to be fully functioning human being. A woman that is only feminine is a bowl of completely self-absorbed jello, not a person.
A purely masculine man could only initiate. He cannot be receptive, he cannot yield, ever. He could never be passive and listen to another point of view. He would never have the capacity to sacrifice his ego enough in order to cooperate with another human being. And how would such a pure alpha male exist in a world where only such other men existed? Could he coexist peacefully? Or would he compete, battle to the death with others because he cannot ever yield to them? Is such a man capable of tenderness, compassion, “self-giving”? No. Those are not male qualities, as you have defined them. Where do they come from? His feminine side.
I do not argue against the Christian idea of complementarity. The two made one-flesh. But you do seem to purposely make it out to be simpler than it actually is. The bond between men and women is not just the feminine in the woman uniting with the masculinity in the man. It’s also the feminine in the man reaching toward the masculinity in the woman.
It’s why men and woman can unite with each other in the first place, they each recognize something of themselves in each other. Its the bridge between them, the glue that keeps such different principles united as one.
If men and women truly are as you have described them in such absolutes, there can be no “problem” of same-sex attraction. Because there could be no homosexuals, only heterosexuals. There could never be a “wrong choice” to be homosexual, because in your worldview, the capacity to make such a choice could not exist in the first place.
Comment by Patrick (gryph) — March 31, 2006 @ 3:47 PM
Patrick,
This is the same argument that you first raised in the previous post. Please take a look there. In a nut shell, there is no claim as you seem to suggest there is, that there is a radical discontinuity between the sexes. Men and women both have all that is required to be human. Human masculinity means to have some of these human qualities as primary qualities and some as secondary qualities. Human femininity means to have the complement of these.
Thus your comments such as:
A purely feminine woman would be receptive, passive. Completely passive. …A purely masculine man could only initiate. He cannot be receptive, he cannot yield, ever. He could never be passive and listen to another point of view.
For some reason do not take into consideration the following statements in the post:
“The woman appears more passive, although in a different way she is more active.”
“John Paul II refers to the relationship among femininity, receptivity and love in a text I quoted earlier: ‘The Bride is loved: it is she who receives love, in order to love in return.’â€
“WojtyÅ‚a makes a significant point that both the man and woman are complementarily active, but in different modes such that one’s activeness complements the other. Their roles and responsibilities must differ or they would naturally conflict.”
“The very structure of the male psyche and personality is such that it is more readily ‘compelled’ to disclose and objectivize the hidden significance of love for a person of the other sex. This goes with the relatively more active role of the male in such love, and also imposes a responsibility on him.”
It is not a matter of either having the properties or not having them. Rather, it is a matter of possessing them in the proper hierarchy such that two persons can fulfill each other in a complementary and reciprocal fashion.
Comment by David — March 31, 2006 @ 8:54 PM