Catholic Social Teaching: Marriage

"The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says". 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man" 1 Timothy 2:12 

"Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (died for her)." Ephesians 5:22-25

In Catholic social teaching, the principle of subsidiarity means that decisions and actions should happen at the lowest, most local, and competent level possible. Since men carry authority over their wives, that makes men more competent than women.

Now, you might equivocate by replying "But Ephesians also says, 'Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ' so that means men have to submit to women, which makes women the authority." Incorrect. Both spouses have to submit to Christ, because God holds authority in all relationships. Men submit to women only in the sense that the woman instantiates Christ. 

"it is in her relationship with Christ—who is for both spouses the one and only Lord—that the wife can and should find the motivation for the relationship with her husband, which flows from the very essence of marriage and the family." John Paul II

That is, the woman submits to the God-man (Christ), and only in her submission to the ruler of both men and women does the man submit to her. Yet, since men are called to die for the marriage, while women are only called to submit, men are the Christological symbol in a way that women never can be.

"As children of God, man and woman have a dignity in which they are absolutely equal; and they are equal, too, in regard to the supreme end of human life, which is everlasting union with God in the happiness of Heaven. But man and woman cannot maintain or perfect this equal dignity of theirs unless they respect and make use of the distinctive qualities which nature has bestowed on each sex: physical and spiritual qualities which are indissoluble, and so coordinated that their mutual relation cannot be upset without nature itself intervening to re-establish it." Pope Pius XII

Equality of dignity, but not equality of authority or capability. Out of all of Scripture, Ephesians 5:25 is the only passage that implies men should submit to women, and that is only in reference to the reverence both spouses must have for Christ. Saying anything else is simply eisegesis, reading modern meanings into a text, forcing it to say what the reader wants it to say rather than what it actually says.

When we take the Catholic definition of subsidiarity (lowest level of competent authority) with the Scriptures (woman must submit to man), then the Church, through her God-breathed Scripture and her own commentary, recognizes men are the lowest level of competent authority. Women have equal human dignity, but are not a competent authority, whether in marriage or in any position of public authority. 

Since as "authority is understood as service, not domination", this means men excel at serving others while women are pretty crappy at serving other people. Pope John Paul II confirms this when he says: 

"He (Paul) expresses a different concept instead, namely, that it is in her relationship with Christ—who is for both spouses the one and only Lord—that the wife can and should find the motivation for the relationship with her husband, which flows from the very essence of marriage and the family."

That is, the woman has to find something which she doesn't have. Women have to be taught how to engage in service properly by a man - either Christ or her husband. The essence of marriage and the family is teaching the woman how to do what men already naturally understand how to do.

This may explain why women have historically been put in service roles, thus providing them with the necessary practice at serving that men have as an in-born trait. Or, to put it another way, there is truth in the old saying, "A man will sacrifice his happiness for his family, while a woman will sacrifice her family for her happiness." Women must train themselves, or be trained, into imitating the man (husband or Christ) instead of following her own inborn inclinations. In fact, women are so unsuited to taking care of anyone but themselves (and arguably, even that is at issue) that not only are women not the source of authority in the ordo of marriage, women cannot even be considered for ordination into divine orders of service: deacon, priest or bishop. 

TLDR: Men are competent in handling a marriage, women are not.

Most Western cultures used to reflect this understanding by forbidding women from initiating divorce. As Western culture stopped being Christian, this Christian wisdom disappeared from the culture. Thus, women can and do initiate 70% of intimate partner violence, and between 70% and 90% of divorces. Of the three different possible pairings, studies show lesbian couples have the highest level of divorce and strife. Not surprising, given the couple is composed of two completely incompetent people.

Scripture = science = Christian teaching.

This isn't hard for men to understand, but women find it impossible to grasp, thus demonstrating the principle.

Incommensurate Goals

Pope Leo recently argued "surrogacy reduces the child to a product, and of the mother, exploiting her body." This stance is so broadly based that even women who wish to adopt and rescue embryonic children abandoned to nitrogen freezers after IVF procedures are forbidden from doing so.

So, let's take the Pope's assertions and apply them to another source of social exploitation:

When a novice friar asked permission to own a psalter for study, Francis refused, warning: "When you have a psalter, you will want a breviary; and when you have a breviary, you will install yourself in a throne like a great prelate, and you will command your brother: 'Bring me my breviary!'"  ~ Speculum Perfectionis, St. Francis of Assisi 

If we wish to stop objectification that harms children and destroys families, then women's education arguably contributes to that result. After all, educating women violates and exploits women, reducing women to a product. That is, once women have been objectified by receiving education, they now become just a product of the marketplace.

Women, in turn, now treat their own future children as products. They weigh their possible future enjoyment of earnings from education against their possible future enjoyment of children, and generally choose the money over the child.

Once education turns a woman into a product, she turns her own children into a product. Statistics show that uneducated women have more children than educated women (1, 2). Each additional year of schooling drops women's fertility by up to 0.3 children, with college education dropping fertility by up to 40% (3, 4, 5).

"Let those who are illiterate not be anxious to learn to read, but let them pay attention to what they must desire above all else: to have the Spirit of the Lord and His holy manner of working, to pray to Him with a pure heart, to have humility..."

        ~Testament, St. Francis of Assisi

The evidence is quite clear: if we educate women (which the Catholic Church supports), then we destroy family formation and reduce the likelihood of women having children (which the Church opposes). It wants two diametrically opposed outcomes to result simultaneously from the same action. That is not possible.

If the Catholic Church truly wishes to stop the objectification of women and children at its source, then it should be pushing hard for everyone, everywhere to stop educating women.