I’m Keeping Company Now

!

By

Rev. Fulgence Meyer, O.F.M.

THE PAULIST PRESS
401 West 59th Street

New York 19, N. Y.



Imprimi Potest:

Very Rev. Maurice Rippenger, O.F.M.,

Nihil Obstat:

Provincial, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Arthur J. Scanlan, S.T.D.,

Censor Librorum.

Imprimatur:

© Patrick Cardinal Hayes,
Archbishop of New York.

New York, January 24, 1934.

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED IN THE U. S. A.

BY THE PAULIST PRESS. NEW YORK 19. N. Y.



I’mKeeping CompanyNow

!

I

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF KEEPING COMPANY

T
hey say that in the Chinese language one
and the same word has different meanings

according to the tone and inflection of voice

which are used in uttering it. The same is
true, in a way, in regard to sentences spoken

in any language. Thus the pronouncement

used as the title of this pamphlet, ‘T*m Keep-

ing Company Now,” may have, when spoken
by a Catholic, one of several different mean-

ings.

In the mouth of one person it may be but
a casual remark, stating something that is

taken as a matter of course, without any par-

ticular significance being attached to it either

by speaker or listener, perhaps because com-
pany keeping is by no means a novel experi-
ence in the life of the speaker.

From the lips of another, however, the same
declaration may come with an accent of Chris-
tian sobriety, begot by the apprehension of

the likely natural consequences and superven-

ing sacred duties of the new adventure. It is
in this sense, free from any tinge of frivolity
and any mere quest for amorous flirtations,
that we are considering the momentous decla-
ration in the present essay.

The person says, as it were: “I am now
growing serious in my contemplation of and
status toward marriage. I intend to test my
call to it in a practical and concrete way. I

am through being variable in my love addic-
tions, flitting freely from swain to swain or,
relatively, from lassie to lassie, getting no-
where in particular on the road to matri-

mony. I am definitely limiting my relations
to one special lover or sweetheart to learn if

marriage with this person is desirable, feasi-

ble, and advisable.”
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In the Sacred Halls of the Seminary

For the Catholic interested party, who is
fully aware of its meaning, such a statement

is similar to the one made by the seminarian
who, with a tone of moderate and becoming
gravity, says: “I have entered upon my last
year of theology now and, please God, within
a year or so, I count on being ordained a

priest of the Most High.” His earnestness in
saying this springs from his concept of the
sublimity of the Sacrament of Sacred Orders

he is proximately getting ready to receive,

and of the tremendous obligations its reception

will lay upon him in his own and others* be-
half. What impresses and awes him most in
the matter is the conviction, that once he be-

comes a priest, he will be a priest forever, for

better or for worse, without any possibility of

ever again becoming free from the vow by
which he intends to bind himself to God and
His exclusive service.

"A Great Sacrament"

In like manner the judicious Catholic who
says: “I’m keeping company now” realizes
that company keeping is ordinarily the proxi-
mate and immediate preparation for the re-

ception of the sacred rite of which St. Paul

says: “This is a great sacrament: but I speak

in Christ and in the Church” (Ephes. v. 32).

The same Apostle compares it, because of its
holiness and potential results, to the divine

union of Christ and the Church, saying: “The

husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is

the head of the Church. . . . Therefore as the

Church is subject to Christ: so also let the

wives be to their husbands in all things. Hus-

bands, love your wives, as Christ also loved

the Church and delivered Himself up for it”

{Ibid., xxiii. 25).

What impresses the candidate for marriage
most vividly is the sense of the great obliga-

tions the holy contract involves and of the

awful responsibilities it may eventually bring

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!

with respect to beings that are yet unborn.

Moreover the thought: “Once I marry this
person, I am married to him or her until
death parts us, come what will” is of a nature
to lend a weight of seriousness to the brief an-

nouncement: “I’m keeping company now.”

A Serious Contract

To marry someone means to decide once
for all to love this particular person, to the

exclusion of all others; to live with this per-

son in the most intimate manner and closest
possible human relations; to love this person
as long as life lasts, whatever may betide one
or the other, or both parties. It is evident to

everyone, who is at all versed in human psy-
chology, that to make such a contract requires
mature deliberation and close observation and

examination of oneself and the other party to

the contract. Company keeping is to give
the occasion for this important process.

To marriage apply the words which the
prophet Simeon said to Mary in the temple
as he held the divine Infant in his arms: “Be-

hold this child is set for the fall and for the

resurrection of many in Israel” (Luke ii. 34).
In every case marriage is either the source of

salvation or damnation to the parties contract-

ing it, depending, respectively, on their proper

or improper qualifications for and attitude to-

wards it. Many, very many of our Catholic
people become great saints, while others be-
come great sinners, through marriage.

A Hundred Per Cent

It is said that, to make a success of mar-
riage, one must be qualified to be a hundred
per cent spouse, a hundred per cent lover, and

a hundred per cent parent. Any one of these
three offices requires a large amount of ster-
ling virtues and noble character. All three of

them together exact all the goodness and
common sense with which ordinary mortals
are or can be endowed. Nor is it sufficient if

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one has all these qualities in the abstract. He
or she must have and be able to use them with
reference to the particular person to whom
he or she is to be united in marriage. To test
the relative acceptability and adaptability of

both parties to the reasonable satisfaction of

either party is the object and duty of com-
pany keeping.

In view of all this, since happiness for life

and eternity depends very much on the wise
choice of a marriage partner, no sensible can-

didate for marriage can escape a feeling of in-

tense virtuous seriousness in saying: “I’m

keeping company now.”

II

WITH WHOM ARE YOU KEEPING COMPANY?

To keep company in a Christian way means
that two persons, man and woman, meet per-
sonally at frequent intervals, with the inten-

tion of becoming better acquainted and judg-
ing whether they are fit and desirable mutual

partners for a prospective marriage in Christ

and in the Church.

From this definition of Christian company
keeping it is evident above all, that when there
is absolutely no prospect of marriage between

them, a man and a woman, young or old, may
not keep regular company. To do so is im-
moral. Such frequent proximity with one of

the other sex is warranted only by the prob-

able or, at least, possible marriage it should

lead up to. If this probability or possibility

of marriage is definitely out of the question,

such a close social relation between the sexes

is unjustifiable.

Hypocrisy and Duplicity

Such frivolous and unwarranted company
keeping is also likely to be deceitful and gross-

ly misleading to the innocent party. The
guilty party in our supposition is fully aware

and morally certain that the actual company

keeping will not end in marriage. Yet often

[ Page 6

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he or she allows the partner to believe, that

there is or might be some chance of the mar-

riage taking place sooner or later. The inno-
cent party is decoyed into wasting time,

money, and what not, that could be most

profitably employed towards the pursuit of a

worthwhile marriage possibility, not to men-

tion the unnamable heartaches such hypocrisy

and selfish duplicity usually bring in their

train. In a matter of such vast importance

the golden rule of Jesus: “All things therefore

whatsoever you would that men should do to
you, do you also to them” (Matt. vii. 12) must

be the guide of every respectable Christian

person.

The Danger of Adultery

It is furthermore obvious from what has

been said that one may not keep company with
a person who is already married, whether di-
vorced by the secular court or not. Such com-

pany keeping is of an adulterous savor and

often leads to the detestable crime of down-

right adultery.

Only God knows how frequent is the sad
lot of injudicious young Catholics who start
a love affair with a divorced person, hoping

against hope, that some way to an honorable
Christian marriage with this person may be
found. They defy the laws of the Church and
the voice of conscience by attempting mar-

riage outside of the Church, thereby starting

fiercely on the way which almost invariably
leads to apostasy from the Faith. The only
way to forestall so dire a step is to fight shy
of all amorous feelings towards a divorced
person, and of all the occasions that might en-
gender them not only proximately, but also
remotely. The matter is too perilous to be
trifled with ever so little.

To keep company with a married person,
whether divorced or not, is of itself sinful,

and as was stated above, of a distinctly adul-
terous odor. The question now arises: “Since

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the Church prohibits mixed marriages, is it
sinful for a Catholic to keep company with a
non-married person not of the Faith?”

How About Mixed Marriages?

There are cases in which Catholics sin mor-

tally by keeping company with a non-Catholic.
I have in mind a Catholic who is already weak
in the Faith. Lightly, flippantly, and rather

defiantly this person keeps company with one
who is not only not a member of our holy
Church, but makes no secret of harboring
gross prejudices and hostile sentiments against

our Faith, and expresses them openly and
sneeringly. By associating so closely and
planning a prospective marriage with so bit-

ter a non-Catholic, the Catholic party often

sins grievously against the Faith. This sin

is usually followed up, multiplied, and in-

creased by the Catholic party’s gradual or

abrupt outright defection from the Faith,

either before or after the marriage is con-

tracted or attempted.

Since the Church, for certain grave reasons,

tolerates a mixed marriage on given condi-

tions, it is not always sinful for a Catholic to

keep company with a non-Catholic. Yet, since
the possible nuptial alliance with a non-Cath-

olic, grand, noble, and honorable though he or

she be, presents so many, and such strong and

insidious dangers to the faith and happiness

of the Catholic party, this person, for his or

her own safety and welfare, must be careful
to tell the confessor at once of the hazardous

courtship. This should be done in order to

obtain advice and, if necessary, be corrected

before the affair proceeds to a pass, where ad-

vice and correction no longer serve a purpose,

or can avert disaster.

No one can begin to count all the Catholics
in our country today, who are miserable be-
yond words because of a mixed marriage, and

the unspeakable aches resulting from it to

them and their children. They would have

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avoided all this misery and woe,, had they but

taken their confessor into their confidence

before or as soon as they started to keep com-

pany with a non-Catholic. As persistently as

they then tried to hide the secret of it from

those who would have counselled them well
and saved them from a catastrophe, so furi-

ously they now blame themselves for their
short-sighted folly and suicidal stupidity.

A Long Priestly and Missionary Experience

Without presumption I believe I can state

that I know about all that can be said in favor
of mixed marriages generally and individually.

I am willing to allow the objective value of
every such favorable argument. But my long
experience of thirty-four years in the priest-

hood and fifteen years in missionary work has
very much confirmed me in the belief that, as
statistics prove, nine out of every ten Cath-

olics who contract a mixed marriage do it to
their own and their prospective children’s
serious detriment; that for every well-minded

Catholic who, for having been and being per-

sonally fortunate in his or her mixed mar-
riage, inveighs against the priests and mis-

sionaries who scathingly decry mixed mar-
riages in theory, or before they are contract-

ed, there are nine other Catholics, who are
unspeakably wretched as a result of a mixed

marriage, and who inveigh much more vio-
lently against the Church for tolerating mixed
marriages at all and in any case

;
and that

therefore almost every Catholic, who is pru-
dent and hungry for peace and happiness, will

be very wise by resolutely preferring the single

life to any kind of a mixed marriage.

It must be admitted that many also, who are
of the Faith, are very undesirable marriage

mates on account of various handicaps and

defects of a prohibitive and repellant charac-

ter. Again, a person may be too choicy and
demanding in the selection of a partner in

marriage. If God Himself is satisfied to have

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men, not angels, as the dispensers of His di-

vine mysteries and the channels of salvation

unto men, people contemplating marriage, who
are edive to their own natural deficiencies,
should not desire an angel, but be willing to

put up with a mere human being, like them-
selves, disclosing human fallibilities, as their
life’s companion.

Ill

WHEN AND HOW LONG ARE YOU KEEPING
COMPANY?

Close and mature observation and sound
common sense seem to sponsor the advice
that, as a rule, the best time for a young man
to marry in our country is at the age of
twenty-three to twenty-six years, and for a

girl at the age of twenty-one to twenty-four.

Ordinarily regular company keeping should
not be protracted much beyond a period of
about a year.

Unduly long courtships, aside from the ob-
vious moral dangers involved, often end in no

marriage or in an unhappy marriage. Their

endless duration is too great a tax on the

glow of idealistic romance and too much of a
menace to the mellow down of tender friend-
ship. They are an unnatural emotional alli-
ance, commendable from no point of view
whatever.

It is hardly a source of honorable pride for

a young man or woman to be known as a per-
petual prospective bridegroom or bride. In

the way of their contemplated marriage they
appear to be in the position of the unfortu-

nate man of whom Jesus says: “Which of you,
having a mind to build a tower, doth not first

sit down and reckon the charges that are nec-
essary, whether he have wherewithal to fin-

ish it: lest, after he hath laid the foundation

and is not able to finish it, all that see it be-

gin to mock him, saying: This man began to
build and was not able to finish” (Luke xiv.

28 -30 ).
[ Page 10 ]



The Dangerous Teen Age

From this it follows that Catholic young
people must beware of starting to keep regu-

lar company too soon, say when they are but
sixteen or seventeen years old. They expose
themselves either to the danger of a prema-

ture marriage, with its frequent mistakes of

an injudicious and ill-starred choice of a mate,

as well as a reckless and ominous economic

risk. They doom their marriage to an early
and complete wreck. Or, if they do not marry

hastily, they court the hardly lesser evil of an

immoderately long regular courtship with the

attendant disadvantages mentioned above.

It is said that by nature woman has more of
a gambling or venturesome spirit than man.

If this is so, it seems to assert itself espe-

cially in the domain of marriage, which is just-

ly called life’s biggest gamble and most haz-

ardous venture. Woman does not appear to
be nearly so deliberative, calculating, and

fearful of possible results in taking the chance

of a given marriage opportunity as man. May-
be it is better thus. If in this vital matter

women were proportionally as careful and shy
as men, there would likely be fewer marriages

than now, in distinct jeopardy of nature’s urge

for a continuation of the human race.

A Strong Gambling Spirit

Sensible women, especially very young
women of sixteen or seventeen years, in whom
this gambling spirit likes to be particularly

self-assertive and heedless, will therefore be

on their guard against too early an enterprise

of an amorous and nuptial character that
bodes to them much more evil than good,
much more pain than pleasure, and much more
woe than joy.
Odd as it seems, there are a number of Cath-

olic young people, notably girls, who are so
eager to be married now and here, to someone
and somehow, without delay, that they are
willing to take a risk with one of whom they

[ Page 11 ]



practically know nothing. Falling in love, or
imagining they are falling in love, at first

sight, after one casual meeting not in a church,

but in a dance hall, or road house, or at the

beach, or at some other resort, or on a train,

they are ready to marry the person forthwith,

trusting ill their luck to take care of the fu-

ture. They prefer to be sorry to being cer-
tain. Marrying in haste, they nearly always

repent bitterly at leisure. Even a normally
happy life does not ordinarily speed along too

fast. An unhappy life, rendered so through
a wilfully premature and ill-fated marriage,

no matter how short it is, seems never to end.
A girl wljo, being indisposed, would go into

a drugstore, and without examination and con-

sultation would take the first bottle of medi-
cine that struck her fancy because of its looks

or label, and swallow the contents, confiding

in her good fortune to see to it that it was
the medicine she needed to build her up and

restore her health, would hardly be more
guilty of criminal temerity against her own
good, than is the girl or youth who marries a
person without having made reasonable ef-
forts to ascertain the relative acceptability

of this person.

Although the period of regular courtship is

intended to give the parties to it the occa-

sion of gauging their mutual desirability or

non-desirability as marriage mates, a prudent

Catholic, contemplating marriage, wants to

know as much as reasonably can be known of
his or her prospective partner in courtship,

before the courtship actually begins. It is

much easier and less disagreeable not to start
keeping company with a person whom one
has learned beforehand from reliable sources

to look upon as a non-acceptable marriage

prospect, than to begin to keep company with

a person, before gathering any advance infor-

mation regarding this person’s character and

social, family and individual status, and then

to withdraw from the close relations of court-

[ Page 12 ]



ship upon becoming aware of things that could

and should have been known before the court-
ship had ever started.

IV

IN WHAT MANNER ARE YOU KEEPING
COMPANY?

From the conduct Catholics observe in com-
pany keeping may be inferred, first, their con-
ception of the holy Sacrament of Marriage,

for the worthy and blessed reception of which

company keeping is to serve as the proximate
preparation; and second, how they will likely
conduct themselves towards the holy Sacra-

ment during their wedded life : in brief
whether it will be to them their resurrection

or their fall. This most momentous decision
is really made in the period of courtship.

In a previous chapter I used a seminarian’s

immediate preparation for the sacred priest-

hood as an illustration for worthy company
keeping. There is a close analogy between

the Sacrament of Holy Orders and the Sacra-
ment of Matrimony. Both are not only indi-

vidual but social sacraments. Holy Orders
perpetuates the spiritual generations, Matri-

mony continues the carnal procreations of
men. Both are of supreme importance not
only to the recipients, but also to society as

such. Hence we must not be surprised at the
analogy between them.

Rectors of seminaries often observe that

what a young man is in the seminary, espe-
cially in theology, he usually is and remains

all the days of his subsequent priesthood.

Similarly, as was said before, what Catholics
are in courtship they usually are in their en-

tire subsequent married life.

He Aims at Three Things

The earnest seminarian who stands on the
threshold of the Sacrament of Holy Orders
aims at three things: at being upright with

himself; upright with the Church to whom,
as a priest, he will be mystically wedded; and

[ Page 13 ]



upright with God, for Whose glory and work
he becomes a priest.

In like manner the Catholic person in court-
ship pursues the identical three aims. He

—

the same is true of a woman—is first of all
true to himself. He tests himself to find out
if he is really called to married life with this

definite person. As soon as he realizes that
this particular union does not and cannot ap-

peal to him in any tolerable way, he at once,
however gently and diplomatically, discon-
tinues the courtship, regardless of the conse-

quences.

It is better to part as friends voluntarily in

good time than to be compelled either to live

together very unhappily for life, or to sepa-

rate as enemies later on. After all, it is the

purpose of courtship to learn this very thing:

the ultimate desirability of perpetuating the

contemplated union by the sacred contract of

marriage. If the issue is decidedly negative

to one of the parties, the other cannot take

the discontinuance of the relations amiss, pro-

vided everything is done and said above board,

with candor, fairness, and equity.

He Tells Her Everything

In the second place, the Catholic in court-

ship is honest and honorable towards his part-

ner. He reveals himself and his family and
personal status to her in sincerity and truth,

in the degree in which she has the rig:ht to

this revelation inasmuch as he intends, if the

courtship proceeds in a satisfactory manner,

to ask her some day to be his wife. He with-
holds from her knowledge nothing that she,

as his prospective wife, has a claim to know.

Of course, he will be cautious in imparting
this knowledge, and he will not reveal family

or personal secrets to her until he is quite

sure that the marriage will take place.

There are certain things of a family or per-

sonal character he need not and must not tell

her, since she has no right whatever to learn

[ Page 14 ]



them on the one hand, and the revelation of

them would do her, and him, as well as others,

much more harm than good. Of such a na-

ture, for example, are his personal repented

sins, of which there is no trace left to em-

barrass or discomfit her in any way. They

are best left buried and forgotten to everyone,

himself included.

A Wise Caution for the Girl

This caution applies particularly to the girl

in courtship and also after marriage. Ordi-

narily she will be guilty of the greatest folly,

if she manifests to her lover or husband her

personal moral lapses and irregularities of a

remote or recent date, which she has duly con-

fessed, and of which not a vestige is left to

harass her partner in any way. It is sufficient

that these were admitted to God, and to His

representative in the confessional. No one
else should ever know of them or even sus-
pect them. They must be buried in everlast-
ing oblivion, as though they had never been.

She Has More Than One Lover

Of itself it is not unethical for a girl, who
is not engaged to be married, to keep com-
pany simultaneously with more than one
suitor. She may or may not apprise her
suitors that there is another, or there are

others, making a bid for her hand. Of course,
if she is earnestly asked by one of them,

whether he is her only suitor or not, espe-

cially if he is to be guided as to his continu-

ance of the courtship by the knowledge of the
facts in the case, she must impart this knowl-
edge to him. And as soon as the girl knows
that one of her competitive suitors has no
prospect whatever of marrying her, she is in

duty bound to discontinue receiving his atten-
tions. After she is engaged to be married she

can no longer keep company honorably with
others, as long as this engagement holds.
What has been said of a girl in courtship, is
relatively true for the young man.

[ Page 15 ]



/

/ God's Love Must Be Cultivated

Above all. Catholics who keep company
must be upright with God, Who is not only
willing, if the courtship’s course is favorable,

to confer upon them “a great sacrament,” but
Who will likely in due time, if it so pleases
Him, bless them in holy marriage, saying:
“Increase and multiply” (Gen. i. 28), thus

making them sharers in His own greatest
power, that of creation, and in His own grand-
est title, that of Father, or Parent. Inspired

by the mere thought of such sublime favors
that are in the offing for them, their attitude

is patterned on the conduct of Tobias and his

bride. Of them we read:
“Tobias exhorted the virgin, and said to

her: Sara, arise, and let us pray to God. . . .

For we are the children of saints: and we
must not be joined together like heathens that

know not God. So they both arose, and
prayed earnestly both together that health

might be given them. And Tobias said: Lord
God of our fathers, . . . Thou madest Adam
of the slime of the earth, and gavest him Eve
as a helper. And now. Lord, Thou knowest,
that not for fleshly lust do I take my sister
to wife, but only for the love of posterity, in

which Thy Name may be blessed forever and
ever” (Tobias viii. 4-9).

V

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COURTSHIP

A secular non-Catholic speaker at a Rotary
Club meeting, speaking with much good sense
on courtship, said among other things that,
after two persons keep company for a month,
they no longer are what they were before they

started seeing one another regularly. They
are either much better, or much worse. If
better, it is the girl’s credit. If worse, it is

her fault.

Every psychologist admits the first part of

this contention. Company keeping, when

[ Page 16 ]



earnestly pursued, is a strong and conclusive

test of virtue, goodness, and character, either

disclosing and increasing weakness, or reveal-

ing and augmenting strength. Usually the

very first month of company keeping stamps

it as a courtship either of self-control or self-

indulgence; of the dominion of the spirit over

the flesh, or of the flesh over the spirit; of

sublime spiritual and pure emotional enjoy-

ment, or of low sensuous pleasures and illicit

carnal gratifications; of a heartening and fos-

tering of one another in the pursuit of high

ideals and noble aspirations, of personal good-

ness and social integrity, or of a reciprocal

degrading and dragging one another down in-
to the slough of ugly sin, moral turpitude, and

personal and social ignominy; of animating

one another unto the grandest love of God and
the complete immolation of self in His honor,

or of seducing one another to defy God’s holy

laws at first through weakness, then with pre-

sumption, and finally with defiance, in the

blind and mad worship of the idol of lust; of
striving together, in a word, after an enviable

place in the kingdom of heaven, to be united
there in the holiest love and joy forevermore,

or of following the line of least resistance,

and forfeiting paradise for something much
viler than a mess of pottage, and of hazard-

ing to be cast forever “into the exterior dark-

ness. There shall be weeping and gnashing

of teeth” (Matt. viii. 12), to the final exclusion

of everything that savors or is at all reminis-

cent of love in any manner or form.

One Standard of Morality

To the other part of the Rotary speaker’s
statement, however, we Catholics must take
exception. We hold firm to the single stand-
ard of morality for the sexes. Man is as much
bound to the observance of personal chastity
as is woman. When, then, a courtship main-
tains a high Christian level of modesty and in-

nocence, the man ordinarily deserves as much

[ Page 17 ]



credit for it as the girl; and when it degen-
erates into obscenity and viciousness, he usu-

ally is as much to blame as the girl.
Society at large, however, does not accept

this sane and equitable view of the problem

we are considering. Whenever a courtship
defaults grossly against morality, the woman
is usually made to pay the greater part if not
all of the social penalty. In view of this quite

universal and perennial custom we naturally
become curious and seek for the cause of it.
This cause is not hard to find.

Woman's Native Instinct for Modesty

By nature, for biological and social reasons,
woman is endowed with a much stronger in-
stinct for modesty than man. She loves,

prizes, and is proud of her gift of purity and

innocence as her most precious personal pos-

session. Her native ambition is to preserve
it untarnished at any price. She prefers to

forfeit anything else she has, even life itself,

rather than compromise her virtue and honor

ever so little. If through some untoward
event in a moment of weakness she loses her
purity through an indiscretion with one of the

other sex, she collapses entirely, is morally

undone, and filled with unutterable remorse

and self-detestation, and an irresistible desire

to fling the ugly stain of vice from her as soon

as possible, and recover her pristine luster

and vigor of chastity.

Nature emphasizes and protects woman’s

natural dowry of modesty by instilling in her
a general shyness, timidity, and reserve in re-

gard to all men. Not that she suspects any
one particular man of entertaining question-
able designs upon her, or of being all in all

viciously inclined; but instinctively she feels

safer when she is not alone with or too close
to a man. Nature bids her, in all her asso-

ciations with men, to follow and firmly, al-

though graciously, to enforce the wise canon

[ Page 18 ]



of virtue and good sense expressed by the

words: “Hands off!” and “Touch me not!”
Finally the instinct of modesty renders

woman naturally revelatory respecting her per-
sonal love life with one of the other sex. As

long as a girl is unspoiled she wants to tell

her mother everything that transpires in her

courtship between herself and her lover. And
if she is a Catholic, she tells her confessor

from the start everything that somehow
threatens to weaken or mar in her the virtue

of purity. As long as she yields freely, yet
reasonably, to this inclination, she is safe, and

her modesty is in no serious danger. But

once she becomes furtive and secretive in

reference to these vital matters of personal

rectitude, there is reason to fear lest her

purity has fled or is slipping from her.

A Girl's Saddest Moments

It is one of the saddest moments in a girl's
life when, in her courtship, for the first time,

as she kneels for her night prayers before the

crucifix or the picture of the Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus over her bed, she does not dare

to look our divine Lord in the face. She feels
terribly abashed, emotionally crushed, and

completely unworthy to be prostrate before
our Saviour’s image at all. Something hor-

rid, in the way of a sinful erotic indulgence
with her suitor, had entered forever the his-

tory of her life that dreadful night. The stain
of it wiped out by one fatal sweep all the
previous beauty and glamour of her virtue.

She feels she will never be her former self

again, and the lovely relations she nursed with

her divine Redeemer in the days of her purity
and innocence will never more be restored to
their previous tenderness and deliciousness.

The vicious deed was like the angry thrust of
a mailed fist into a precious and very artistic

mirror that dashed it by one ferocious blow
into a thousand sorry looking pieces.

Another moment of immense sadness, sec-

[ Page 19 ]



ond only to the one we have just considered,
occurs in a girl’s life the following morning
when, because of the same dastardly lapse,
she has not the heart to meet her mother’s
loving glance by looking her fondly in the eye,

and heartily returning her morning greeting,
as she had been wont to do. Before this sor-
rowful event she felt she was always starting
the day right if, after saying her morning
prayers, she tendered her sentiments of love

and gratitude to her dear mother. But on
this particular morning she dreads to meet
her mother at all. She casts her eyes down
slinkingly and, as it were, self-accusingly.

She appears to feel that her good mother is
aware of everything that happened that ter-

rible night in her home, or in the automobile,

or elsewhere, and that, pure as her mother is,

she intuitively sees her daughter’s conscience

and realizes the glowering cloud of sin and

God’s anger hanging over it. In the girl’s

eyes her mother is a replica of the Blessed

Mother herself, so immaculately chaste and

pure: by contrast, she feels painfully un-

worthy to be in her presence.

When Unhappiness Is Complete

The unhappiness of the unfortunate girl is
complete, if the gloomy and self-denunciatory
expression on her face is rooted not only in a

sense of personal guilt, but also in a fear of

possible consequences that menace her and

her family with untold infamy and shame,

thus verifying the words of the Apostle : “The

wages of sin is death” (Rom. vi. 23) : death

of the soul through the loss of sanctifying

grace
;

death of the peace of conscience

through the crushing remorse for sin; death

of the delighted consciousness of the posses-

sion of unsoiled purity and untarnished chas-

tity; death of the high plane and ideal stand-

ard attained and maintained by their previous

courtship; death of the lofty esteem and sa-

cred reverence they formerly had for one

[ Page 20 ]



another, because of their virtue and self-con-

trol, practiced for the love of God. And—

O

horror of all horrors—sometimes the hideous
sin of mutual incontinency leads to the crime

of the murder of the illegitimate, unborn

child: the most gruesome homicide imagin-

able. Indeed, “the wages of sin is death.”

After the murder of his brother, “the Lord

set a mark upon Cain” (Gen. iv. 15). What
decent girl can tolerate the idea of ever being

similarly marked by God because of the mur-
der of an unborn child? The best way to
forestall so horrid an eventuality, is to steer

clear of every leniency in the scrupulous ob-

servance of the Christian proprieties of sacred

courtship.

Although, as was said above, the woman
pays most, if not all of this burden of sin in as

far as it is inflicted by society, the man in the
case is fully as guilty and as deserving of pun-

ishment in the eyes of God. Nor will he es-
cape this punishment, for “it is a fearful thing

to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb.
X. 31).

The Spirit of Christian GaElantry and Chivalry

The same instinct nature gives woman for
the scrupulous preservation of her modesty
she gives man for the maintenance of manly
honor, gallantry, and chivalry. She prompts
him to earn the respect, attachment, and love
of a pure woman by the exhibition of genuine
honor in her eyes, urging him to achieve the
greatest and most glorious possible conquest,
namely the conquest of himself, and the sub-
jection of his inferior to his higher self. Na-
ture, moreover, inclined him to manifest him-
self to the girl he loves as the gallant and
chivalrous protector of her virtue and honor,

challenging all her enemies with intrepidity,

and willing to suffer any hardship and make
any sacrifice in order to keep her innocence
from every harm and every appearance of
harm. When, instead of protecting the

I Page 21 ]



maiden’s virtue against others, he himself

turns traitor and, in order to satisfy his low
carnal desires, does what he can to wreck it,
regardless of the sad and tragic consequences

that may and often do ensue, he disgraces his
manhood, plays false to his title as a Christian,

and renders himself an object of deserved

scorn, shame and disgust to the girl he
seduces.

When "Gentleman Friend" Is a Misnomer

Few expressions have a more ironical, sar-
castic and Satanic sound in the ears of one

who understands than the admission of a girl,
saying: "I have been guilty of indiscretions

with my gentleman friend.” Who is less en-
titled to the honorable name of a gentleman
than he, who has misled an erstwhile pure
and innocent virgin to forfeit her most price-

less possession for the shameful indulgence

in carnal pleasures, the memory of which will
be bitter as wormwood to her all the days of
her life? Did it take a gentleman to detour
her, for the first time in her experience, from
the path of virginal righteousness and happi-

ness into the slimy abyss of lechery and dis-

grace? Is it the part of the gentleman to de-

grade and ruin, instead of elevating and en-

nobling the girl who has confided her good-
ness and honor to him?

What claim has he to the title of friend
who, under the cover and with the hypocrit-

ical pretense of sacred love, deprives a girl

forever of her greatest treasure? He is much
more the girl’s deadly enemy than would be
the robber, who held a gun in her face on the
public highway, and despoiled her of all her

money and jewels. Money and jewels can
eventually be replaced: the record of untar-

nished virtue and unsullied innocence, never.

Yea, the meanest criminal and rapist would

not be able to harm the girl in question as she

has been harmed by her so-called friend, who
has taken undue personal liberties with her.

[ Page 22 ]



The rapist might overpower her by force.

Yet, because of her positive and utmost aver-

sion to the unmentionable outrage, her purity

and innocence, far from suffering the least

harm, would merely be greatly increased in

merit and luster through the formidable mis-

adventure.

But her so-called friend, somehow, on the

pretext of love, has urged and swayed her to

surrender voluntarily the glory of personal

chastity, that she has spent all her previous

years in accumulating by dint of heroic self-

conquest, and that has made her as like to the
angels of God as it is possible for a sojourner
on this earth to become. Oh, the “abomina-

tion of desolation in the temple” (Dan. ix. 27),

just recently inhabited by God Who, because
of its appealing splendor exclaimed respect-

ing it: “This is My beloved daughter, in whom
I am well pleased!” (C/. Matt. iii. 17.) At
the sight of the ghoulish fiend who desecrated
and devastated it, and demon-like seduced the

girl herself to yield to and endorse its dese-

cration and devastation, we can hardly refrain
from crying out: “What a gentleman! And
what a friend!”

In truth, “a man’s enemies shall be they

of his own household” (Matt. xi. 36). In like
manner a girl’s worst enemy is often her mis-
named gentleman friend. To him, then, our
Lord’s words apply with peculiar force when
He says to the girl: “She that loveth her
friend more than Me, is not worthy of Me”
(C/. Matt. X. 37).

Very wisely the victimized girl will draw
the rational inference, in case her lover per-

sists in importuning her to permit him to in-
dulge in mutual improprieties in courtship,
that if he cannot master himself in the period
immediately preparatory to marriage, when
this mastery is comparatively easy, she can-
not expect him to control himself later on
after marriage, when control is likely to be
more difficult. And what chance would she
have for salvation in a marriage in which her

[ Page 23 ]



partner would be a constant proximate occa-
sion of sin to her?

While making these timely, albeit most dis-
agreeable, observations, we are not by any
means losing sight of the fact, that when there
is moral irregularity in courtship, ordinarily

neither party is entirely to blame, but both

are equally at fault. Hence the young man is
often as much as, or more justified than the
girl in making the aforesaid deduction regard-
ing the danger of marriage with an incontinent

partner.

VI

THE AUTOMOBILE A VEHICLE OF SPIRITUAL

DESTRUCTION

For reasons that need not be discussed here,
perhaps nowhere so much so as by the auto-
mobile are loving couples decoyed into gross

improprieties and lascivious liberties with

one another. It may safely be asserted, that
if a couple rises above this danger, and prac-

tices unswerving self-control agaist every lure

of transgression offered them by and through

the automobile, their company keeping is high
and pure throughout: “A spectacle to the
world and to angels and to men” (1 Cor. iv. 9).
Sad statistics report that in our country

about thirty thousand people are killed out-

right, and about a million persons are more

or less seriously injured each year through

the automobile. Staggering as these figures

are, the havoc they indicate is as nothing when
compared with the infinitely more deplorable

ravages of a moral character consummated

by the automobile in our country every year.

Alas, we have every reason to fear, that in our
nation, which uses more automobiles than all

other nations together, many more than thirty
thousand souls a year lose their innocence

and grace, and die spiritually and morally,

possibly forever, while countless others com-

promise themselves in a greater or lesser de-

gree, in detriment of their prior high ideals

[ Page 24 ]



and lofty sentiments, through the unguarded

and frivolous use of the automobile. The

best way to avoid such dire results in a given

case is the precaution of having reliable chap-

eronage on every automobile tour that be-

cause of its duration or other possibly seduc-

tive circumstances is or threatens to be a

moral menace.

The Deadly Moral Effects of Alcoholic Beverages

Next to the automobile perhaps the most

formidable factor of immorality in courtship

is the use of intoxicating liquors. There was

a strong foundation both in psychology and

experience that induced the ancient pagans in

their wild orgies to associate the cult of Bac-

chus with that of Venus, as the one almost in-

variably brings on and very much fosters the
other. The first serious mutual transgression
of lovers against Christian decency is in most

cases directly or indirectly reducible to in-

dulgence in alcoholic beverages, which are

known to stimulate evil desires, in the same
proportion, in which they befog the mind in
its appraisal of the beauty of virtue and the

hideousness of vice, and weaken the will’s at-
tachment to what is creditable and its repug-
nance to what is ignominious. The wisest
procedure to avoid the vile dissipation and

foul debauchery that seem to follow in the
wake of a free indulgence in spiritous drinks
—there are no words in the language capable
of expressing all the woe that can be and
often is caused to young couples sooner or
later by this indulgence—is for both parties
to refrain religiously, if not from every mod-
erate, at least from every immoderate use of
intoxicating beverages. There are not many
better ways than this to render their forth-
coming marriage happy.

What About Kisses in Courtship?

According to the teaching of theologians

modest and moderate demonstrations and ex-

[ Page 25 ]



changes of affection, esteem, and love on the
part of lovers are of themselves not sinful.

Among these legitimate tokens of love is in-
cluded the modest kiss.

A modest kiss is inspired and accompanied
by a feeling of genuine reverence, tender de-

votion, and respectful attachment. It is and

remains completely foreign to any quest or

enjoyment of a sexual adventure or a lustful

sensation of any kind. Such is the kiss, for

instance, a dutiful son gives his mother whom
he venerates with all his heart, or a fond

brother gives his sister of whose virtue he is
supremely proud. If a lover kisses his be-

loved in the same manner, no sin or approach

to sin need be feared.

Yet, as human nature is actually constituted,
particularly in reference to sex life and the

urge for procreation, what is sinless and hon-
orable between devoted and ardent lovers, if

it is not conscientiously guarded and duly

controlled, easily and swiftly passes over to

what is sinful and dishonorable. Owing to
the intimacy of its very nature, this is espe-

cially true of the kiss between persons who
are in love with one another. It clamors for

repetition and a continuous increase in its

frequency as well as of its ardor. When this
clamor is not ignored, the end is often dis-

astrous and fatal, usually much more for the
girl than for the man.

A virtuous and sensible girl, therefore,
from her instinct of modesty and her practical

knowledge of the psychology of love, is never

easy and promiscuous in giving and receiving

kisses. She is minded to reserve all her kisses

for the man God designed to be her husband
some day. In fact, she demurs kissing even

her lover before she is engaged to be married

to him.

In the period of engagement, while she ap-

preciates and reciprocates a modest welcome

or goodby kiss, she fights shy, for the sake of

her virtue, peace of mind, and general per-

sonal well-being, of much and fervent kissing

[ Page 26 ]



between herself and her prospective husband.

She wants never to be guilty of and bound to

confess passionate or lustful kisses, which are

declared by theologians to be a twofold mor-

tal sin, since they violate not only holy pu-

rity, but also the virtue of charity, because of

the grievous scandal they involve.

It is fatuous beyond words for a momen-
tary emotional gratification of a shady and

disreputable character to become an enemy
of God and to forfeit His grace and love and
the right to heaven; to invite self-detestation

and remorse of conscience; to incur, perhaps,

forever, the loss of the respect of the very

lover whom the kiss was planned to gratify;
and to expose oneself to the danger of ruining

the courtship entirely, or of bringing on the

much worse evils of which mention has been
made on a preceding page.
The best way for God-loving fiances to in-

sure unto themselves the prospect of a sacred,

entrancing, and permanent mutual love in mar-

riage is to abstain carefully from all ques-
tionable, harmful, and rueful love before mar-

riage.

When Marriages Are Delayed

One reason many marriages are delayed so
long a time that they threaten to end in non-
marriages is the economic depression. An-
other frequent reason of this deplorable delay

is the folly of couples who under the screen
of courtship, more or less honorably affected,
usurp the privileges of married life without
assuming the burdens of it. Often, in conse-
quence of their mutual looseness and lewd-
ness, they separate definitely without ever
contracting a legitimate marriage. Had they
abstained from illicit love-making in their
courtship, God would have blessed them with
the sacred and lasting love of the Sacrament
of Matrimony and its subsequent inestimable
blessings.

Or, if they marry, their marriage, because

[ Page 27 ]



o£ the sinful and sacrilegious way in which
they entered into it—they either did not sin-
cerely confess their gross moral defections

or, if they confessed them, they were not truly
sorry for them—is not blessed but cursed by
God. Since they loved in an unholy way be-
fore they married, God consigns them to a
loveless life after their marriage. Whereas
by their insatiable carnal propensities and vi-

cious indulgences they drained their bodies of

much of their God-given vigor and vitality
before they married, in marriage they not in-

frequently bemoan in vain the nuptial fruit-
lessness visited upon them for their delin-
quencies in courtship.

Nature has its fixed purposes, limits, and

measures. Once these are wilfully perverted,
wantonly ignored, or ruthlessly exhausted by

immoral dissipation, no bitterness of regret,

no cry of despair, and no promise of better-

ment will ever restore the body’s forces or
the mind’s resources to their native verve

and productive power.

We must not suspect individuals. Many
childless couples spent their courtship in a

way highly pleasing to God. Their being and
remaining childless is not a punishment but

a trial sent them by God. But in a number of
other instances childlessness of couples has

been brought on by their being conscienceless

and loose in courtship. “Be not deceived:

God is not mocked. For what things a man
shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he

that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall

reap corruption. But he that soweth in the

spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlast-

ing” (Gal. vi. 7, 8).

A Rash and Unwarranted Inference

From what has been said above it would be
rash to infer that we take it for granted that
in the majority of cases courtships, also

among Catholics, sooner or later deteriorate
and degenerate into a greater or lesser state

[ Page 28 ]



o£ profligacy. Nothing could be farther from

the truth. Among practicing Catholics sala-
cious and godless courtships are, thanks be to

God, a rare exception, not the rule.

Most of our Catholic couples prepare for

the worthy reception of the great Sacrament

of Marriage by a courtship that is character-

ized from beginning to end by a high mutual

esteem and respect, ideal love and devotion,

angelic purity and unfailing self-restraint,

begotten by the fear of the Lord and a tender,

reverential regard for one another.

The Secret of Their Signal Success

They maintain this high standard through-
out by using the means of grace, especially

prayer and the frequent worthy reception of

the Sacraments, by carefully avoiding the oc-

casions of sin, and employing the safeguards

of virtue. They are as rarely and as little as
possible alone, either at the girFs home, or on

automobile rides, or in other places. They
believe in the adage, that there is safety—also
of a moral kind—in numbers.
The young man does not visit in the girl’s

home too frequently. Nor does he protract
his visits far into midnight or early morning,

to the discomfiture of the girl’s family, and

to the detriment of his and his fiancee’s health,

virtue, and reputation. He does not want
relatives, neighbors, and the community in
general to suspect that he and his lady love,

as seems to be apparent from their actions,
are already secretly married, or are trying out

a so-called companionate marriage.

He is also aware that in marriage, especially
the first years of it, the couple’s physical con-

dition is of paramount importance for its hap-
piness and success. Turning night into day

three or four times a week in courtship is not
a good recipe for the preservation and in-
crease of health and corporal fitness in gen-

eral; particularly not, if the long nocturnal

vigils are aligned with an emotional strair

[ Page 29 ]



and a temperamental enlistment of a high and

sustained degree, and with other excesses that

like to enter into immoderately prolonged

nightly diversions.

When they are together, wise and conscien-
tious lovers carefully follow the sensible cau-

tion of “Touch me not!” and “Hands off!”
They know that it is easier to start some-
thing that is dangerous than it is to quit it;

and that it is the part of discretion, as the old

Romans said, not to awaken the slumbering
lion: the lion of concupiscence. Nothing so

quickly awakens and so forcibly stirs this dan-
gerous moral lion as the wanton and unin-

hibited indulgence in the sense of touch.

They do not extend their courtship unduly
but, as soon as they have finally resolved to

accept one another as mates, and no insur-

mountable hindrance is in the way, they set

the date for their marriage, after having con-

sulted their pastor’s pleasure in the matter.

They have the banns of marriage published
according to form. They derive a certain
satisfaction from this publication, proud and

fond as they are of one another, and glad as

they are that in the announcement of their

marriage they have nothing to be ashamed

of. They arrange for a devotional and inspir-
ing church wedding, and aim at making it a

beautiful, soothing, and heartening memory
for life.

To CultiYote Virtuous Practices Means to Forestall

Blamable Pursuits

They evaluate properly and employ wis.ely
the psychological axiom, that the best way to
avoid maudlin diversions and dangerous oc-

cupations in courtship is by engrossment in

healthy, honorable and worthwhile hobbies

and pastimes which they find or learn to find

mutually delightful, and in which they can

indulge to their heart’s content without fear-

ing any diminution of their reciprocal esteem,

or of their virtue and good name. They like

[ Page 30 ]



sensible radio offerings and enjoy nice music.

They pursue arid discuss the reading of good

literature, the attendance at respectable dances

and social pastimes, preferably such as are

given under Catholic auspices and with due

supervision, the irequentation of unobjec-

tionable shows on the stage or on the screen.

They go on hikes with other young people
and take an active interest in various whole-

some sports. They are personally interested
in the activities of their parish church, and

feel privileged and honored in being able to

contribute by their presence and co-operation

towards their success. Couples contemplating

marriage, who are possessed by these and kin-
dred interests, are usually too busy and too

healthy-minded to be much tempted to trans-
gress seriously through morbid reciprocal

sentimentality and reprehensible emotional-

ism.

They pay close attention to the instruction
on marriage and its ethics, given them before
marriage by the priest in order to avoid seri-

ous mistakes after they are wedded. It is not

unprofitable for them, shortly before they are

married, to read a pertinent popular and prac-

tical treatise on this ‘‘great Sacrament.” A
reference to my book. Plain Talks on Mar-
riage (30 cents postpaid: St. Francis Book
Shop, 1615 Republic Street, Cincinnati, Ohio)

may not be inappropriate here. Father Scott’s
book. Marriage, published by The Paulist
Press, should be read.

The couple we are considering have always
been very frank in the sacred tribunal of pen-

ance, particularly during their courtship. In

their confession preceding marriage they are

more so than ever. Unless they have been ad-
vised against it by their confessor, they like

to make a general confession before entering
the holy state of marriage, even as the young
levite, preparing to receive Holy Orders,
cleanses his soul by making a life’s confes-
sion. Penance is a second baptism. It grati-

fies a Catholic candidate for Matrimony

[ Page 31 ]



know that he or she is beginning married life
with a soul entirely free froih every stain of

sin, and as immaculate as it was the moment
it was baptized. To enter marriage in holi-
ness is the best way to render it an enduring
spring of sanctity and well-being.

A Salutary Caution

Here the remark may be added, that if per-
sons have seriously and habitually compro-

mised themselves in their relations in court-

ship, and have been receiving the Sacraments

unworthily in consequence, they must not fail

to straighten out their conscience by making

a sincere and contrite general confession be-

fore marriage, to avoid receiving Matrimony
sacrilegiously and thus being bereft of all its

graces, of which they will be very much in
need when they are married.
As long as they are determined now and

henceforth to love God and to quit sin, this
general confession, whatever their life before

and in courtship has been, will be easy. If

they need help, the confessor will be glad to

assist them. Then, instead of starting and

continuing, who knows how long, married life
with the course of God and in alienation from
God, they will begin and progress in their

marriage with God’s special blessing and con-

tinued love and protection, that will not fail

to render their marriage, whatever else may
betide them, a source of holiness and a me-

dium of terrestrial and celestial happiness.

May all the couples who are keeping com-
pany, and who are reading or have read this
booklet, experience in their forthcoming mar-

riage the wholesome effect of these words of

the Bible:

“Blessed are all they that fear the Lord;

that walk in His ways. . . . Thy wife as a
fruitful vine, on the sides of thy house. Thy
children as olive plants, round about thy table.

And mayest thou see thy children’s children.
. . . Peace upon Israel” (Ps. cxxvii.).

[ Page 32 ]



,