Who is Setting the Tone at Home? 3 Suggestions

[Michie]

How I think about marriage and homelife is much affected by life with my wife. I must remind myself not to universalize too quickly or without nuance. Yet I think what I’ve seen with my eyes, and felt in my heart, does point to something that goes beyond the contingencies of my experience. Woman has a natural inclination, we could say ‘genius,’ in setting the tone of life in the home.

This ‘tone’ is anything but peripheral. It’s at the center of family life. It is its beating heart. Is home a place of peace, joy and refinement; or contention, gloom, and lack of refinement or even coarseness? Is home a place where people are welcome, life’s challenges are faced with confidence, and sorrow is met with compassion and care?

Here I will focus on one major feature of the tone of homelife—namely, what I’ll call ‘refinement,’ and through it briefly ponder the unique place of woman in setting tone. It is proverbial that woman has a kind of ‘civilizing’ and ‘domesticating’ effect on man. It is important to consider what truth is in this.

To say that men tend to be ‘uncivilized’ would, I think, miss the mark. A better angle onto this point is that women tend to be more attuned to persons and their concrete, particular needs, and so they likewise have a keener sense and feel for how human life is enacted in a multitude of concrete, material aspects. What we call ‘culture’—closely related to the term ‘civilized’—consists especially in a set of customs whereby a community practices and so passes on a truly human life.

Continued below.

Who is Setting the Tone at Home? 3 Suggestions - LifeCraft

How I think about marriage and homelife is much affected by life with my wife. I must remind myself not to universalize too quickly or without nuance. Yet I think what I’ve seen with my eyes, and felt in my heart, does point to something that goes beyond the contingencies of my experience. Woman...

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