But this summary ignores the important sexual asymmetry of courtship, well represented in this colloquy. The roles are sexually distinct: the man woos, the woman is wooed, and each quite self-consciously takes up the appropriate part. Initiative apparently belongs to the man, and, at least superficially, he takes the more active role. Pamphilus is in love, not just in lust, and while this makes him vulnerable to poetical exaggeration and prone to fantastical excess, his love indicates his capacity to look beyond himself, to be moved by more than selfish calculation, to risk ridicule, rejection, and failure. A lover – unlike a significant other – is fit for the adventure of marriage; he is not a fellow who plays it safe. In contrast to the calculating contractual partner, having given himself to the tempests of eros, he is much more likely to be able to promise “in sickness and in health,” “for better and for worse.” In the lover, sexual desire is sublimated and attached to an idealized beloved; eros is focused upon a particular woman, whom the lover wants to possess and enjoy exclusively. Because she resists, his eros is enhanced by being linked to his pride. He desires a victory gained through her willing submission, granted only when he has won her esteem. As Allan Bloom remarks (in commenting on Rousseau’s treatment of the same subject in Emile):
Even the most independent-minded erotic man becomes dependent on the judgment of a woman, and a serious woman, one who is looking not only for an attractive man but for one who will love her and protect her, may be the best possible judge of a man’s virtues and thus be regarded even by the most serious man as the supreme tribunal of his worth.4
The correlative of manly ardor is womanly modesty, her reticence, her sexual self-restraint. This is the sine qua non of courtship and, we submit, the key to sound manners and mores concerning manhood and womanhood. It is this that makes manly wooing necessary; that makes woman appear more desirable and worth winning; that spurs a man’s ardor and inspires his winning speech and conduct. It is feminine modesty that turns men into lovers, not mere sex partners, and that gives the physically weaker sex the more commanding power of judgment and selection. To the extent that she can keep him somewhat unsure of her return of his affection, and hence more eager for it, she helps form on his side the exclusive attachment that she seeks and that is implied in her modestly “saving herself for marriage.” No man would truly give his heart permanently to a woman of easy virtue or to one whose submissiveness he can take for granted.
Modesty not only spurs a man to love; equally important, it defends a woman against the hazards of her own considerable erotic desires. She has more at stake in sex than does the man. Even in our age of female contraception and easy abortion, pregnancy remains a concern mainly for women – arguably more so than ever, albeit for different reasons than before: the law now lodges responsibility and choice regarding pregnancy and childbirth entirely with her, and in consequence, men are no longer under social pressure to marry a woman should she become pregnant with or give birth to his child. But female chastity in the past – contrary to popular prejudice – was not mainly contraceptive in intent, rooted only in fear of unwanted pregnancy. Rather, it was intended to serve the woman’s positive procreative interest in the well-being of her prospective children by securing for them in advance a devoted and dependable father to protect and provide for them. The “reproductive strategy” (to use the term of sociobiologists) is to attach the man exclusively and permanently to the woman through erotic love and to make him thereby also love and care for her – their – children. Women who think of themselves as potential wives and mothers, and who act accordingly, are much more likely to get men to think and act as prospective husbands and fathers. Sexual self-restraint enables a woman to find, hold, and win a man who is not only attractive but who is serious about life, serious enough to bind himself freely to the risk-filled adventure of marriage – and, implicitly, fatherhood – as the price for satisfying his erotic desires for her. In addition, her chastity before marriage gives the man confidence that she too is serious about sexual loyalty and fidelity, and, therefore, that the children she will bear for him to rear will be only his own.
But sexual modesty and chastity awaiting marriage are not just strategically sound and psychologically important. They are also an emblem of the unique friendship that is the union of husband and wife, in which the giving of the heart is enacted in the giving of the body, and in which the procreative fruit of their one-flesh bodily union celebrates their loving embrace not only of one another but also of their mortal condition and their capacity self-consciously to transcend it.
Courtship is centrally a matter for the courting couple, for the young man and his maid. But as Erasmus’s “Colloquy on Courtship” makes clear, it takes place in cultural and social settings that – when they are sound – give it shape, support its goals, and even provide larger horizons for the fulfillment of the couple’s erotic longings. Larger family ties provide enriching links with ancestors and social networks of belonging. The married pair defines itself as a node joining separate lineages and as a link between generations. The establishment of a home for the rearing of decent children also gives man and woman a growing stake in matters political and a deeper interest in and greater openness to matters religious. Others speak of a need to impose top-down religiously based duties on man and woman to make the marriage work. We would rather point out the bottom-up ways in which marriage and especially parenthood may lead people toward the divine. The miraculous gift of new life, the astonishing power of parental love for children, the humility one painfully learns in trying to rear them, and (especially) the desire to give them not only life but also a good way of life open husband and wife to our most serious concern for the true, the good, and the holy.
Two final comments. We are aware that many readers will find this talk about courtship and female chastity quaint at best. People will insist, perhaps rightly, that most women will never wish to return to the mores of an age that knew not female contraception, late marriage, and careers for women. Our critics would like to believe that female chastity, or at least marked sexual self-restraint, is not necessary for sensible manners and mores regarding sex, marriage, and family. We suggest that the burden of proof lies with them to show how the important functions that courtship and modesty once performed can be accomplished in their absence: not only “getting him to commit,” but finding out whether you really want him to; learning whether the fellow who is hanging around is someone to make a life with, someone to rear children with, someone who will fly wing to wing on sunny days and also row faithfully oar to oar in rough waters.
Classical courtship was, in fact, a manifestation of the true power of women as women, residing in their modesty. Men were the visible actors, but the serious woman was in command. This implies that the possibility of restoring sensible sexual mores, pointing toward marriage, lies mainly with women – to be sure, only if enough women reassert the powerful virtue of self-restraint. Their willingness to exercise their power of reform depends, of course, on whether they think that a fulfilling marriage and motherhood are of primary importance in their life. Everything depends on whether modern young women will see things this way.
* This chapter is largely based on an essay written with my wife of blessed memory, Amy A. Kass.
† In canon law, the exchange of a three-word pledge, “I am yours,” was regarded as binding and accepted as a valid marriage, whether spoken publicly or privately.
‡ “I am yours,” again, constituting a binding vow of marriage.
§ Of the twenty-seven students in the class, two married each other, a third (along with his wife) credits the class for enabling him to propose marriage, and a fourth, the woman who extolled the virtues of casual sex with men, is now happily married, a mother of several children, and herself a teacher of great texts. About the rest, we have no information.