Sword between the Sexes? , livre ebook

This magisterial and constructive critique of C. S. Lewis reveals him as a sensitive commentator on some centrally important areas of human interaction. Lewis came to embody and think through multiple perspectives on human beings of all ages in their extraordinary complexity. The very social sciences of which he was so suspicious may both confirm his intuitions whilst correcting his mistakes. This valuable book breaks out of some of the Lewis-reading straightjackets and encourages us to see why he is still well worth our careful attention.
- Ann Loades , St. Chad s College and University of Durham
In a fascinating chapter about her own relationship to C. S. Lewis, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen lays all her cards on the table. Then she traces Lewis s changing views of gender step by step through his prodigious output of books and letters until the end of his life, considering not only his work, but the man himself, and the way he has been viewed by others. Van Leeuwen s spirit is generous; her prose, wonderfully clear; her arguments, powerful; and her insight, remarkable. Whether you re a scholar, a Lewis fan, or a general reader, you will find yourself turning pages with pleasure.
- Jeanne Murray Walker , University of Delaware
Van Leeuwen s work is a valuable addition to the various books on C. S. Lewis. Respecting but not romanticizing him, Van Leeuwen explores Lewis s strengths, influences, and weaknesses, particularly as his writing deals with the relationships between women and men. This adds another excellent volume to Van Leeuwen s own work, taking Scripture seriously in conjunction with her own academic discipline, pressing us to affirm the love of God, and rejecting distorted views of gender.
- Debra K. Block Clark , InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
A Sword between the Sexes?
C. S. Lewis and the Gender Debates
Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen
2010 by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen
Published by Brazos Press a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.brazospress.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Van Leeuwen, Mary Stewart, 1943- A sword between the sexes? : C. S. Lewis and the gender debates / Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-58743-208-8 (pbk.) 1. Lewis, C. S. (Clive Staples), 1898-1963. 2. Sex role-Religious aspects-Christianity. I. Title. BX4827.L44V36 2010 305.3092-dc22 2009032091
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled NASB are from the New American Standard Bible , copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
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For Ken and Susan Stewart: family by formation, family by faith
Contents
Introduction
1. Surprised by Jack: An Ambivalent Journey
2. A More Fundamental Reality than Sex? C. S. Lewis s Views on Gender
3. Mere Christianity? Sources and Results of Lewis s Views on Gender
4. Not the Only Fundamental Difference : The Edwardian World of C. S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers
5. A Better Man than His Theories: C. S. Lewis as a Mentor and Colleague to Women
6. You Can Only Get to Know Them : C. S. Lewis and the Social Sciences
7. Men Are from Earth, Women Are from Earth: The Psychology of Gender Since C. S. Lewis
8. Nature Speaks Chiefly in Answer to Our Questions : C. S. Lewis and Some Neglected Issues in the Psychology of Gender
9. True to the Kind of Things We Are : C. S. Lewis and Family Life
10. Suppressed by Jack : The Two Sides of C. S. Lewis
Introduction
C . S. Lewis has been alternately lionized and demonized for a view of men and women that was both essentialist and hierarchical. Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex, he wrote in 1943, in defense of gender essentialism. Masculine and feminine meet us on a plane of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine attenuated female. On the contrary, the male and female of organic creatures are rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. 1 Two years later he wrote, in defense of gender hierarchy: I do not believe God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child, husband over wife, learned over simple, to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast. I believe that if we had not fallen, patriarchal monarchy would be the sole lawful form of government. 2
But by 1960 Lewis had begun to equivocate, and to acknowledge that gendered behavior is in many ways a social construction. In most societies at most periods, he wrote in The Four Loves , Friendships will be between men and men and women and women . . . Where men are educated and women are not . . . or where they do totally different work, they will usually have nothing to be friends about. But we can easily see that it is this lack, rather than anything in their natures, which excludes Friendship: for where they can be companions they can also become Friends . . . The necessary common ground exists between the sexes is some groups but not in others. It is notably lacking in many residential suburbs. 3 And in one of his last but least-read books, A Grief Observed , he concluded that there is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. As he reflected on his own short, late-life marriage to a woman who had recently died of cancer, he described the relationship in ways that show a pointed rejection of both gender essentialism and gender hierarchy. A good wife contains so many persons in herself, he wrote. What was [Joy] not to me? She was my daughter and my mother, my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign, and always, holding all these in solution, my trusty comrade, friend, shipmate, fellow soldier. My mistress, but at the same time all that any man friend (and I have had good ones) has ever been to me. Solomon calls his bride Sister. Could a woman be a complete wife unless, for a moment, in one particular mood, a man felt almost inclined to call her Brother? 4
The purpose of this book is to trace the route by which Lewis moved slowly from the former to the latter position-from an often-polemical defense of gender essentialism and gender hierarchy to a much more gender-egalitarian view. In the process, I have neither lionized nor demonized him, so those who are hoping for one or the other stance (and there are legions of both hero-worshipers and scoffers among readers of Lewis s work) will certainly be disappointed. On the other hand, I hope that readers will not be disappointed if they are interested in learning more about Lewis s ambiguous relationship with his historical era, and his work s continuing relevance-both negative and positive-for the psychology of gender. Lewis the Belfast-born Edwardian, Lewis the prodigal who re-embraced Christianity as a young adult, Lewis the Oxbridge rationalist-cum-romantic writer of stories, essays, and literary criticism-all these aspects of his person help us to understand better Lewis s theory and practice (often inconsistent with each other) with regard to gender. Delving into them has taken me on a very stimulating journey.
As always happens in the course of writing a book, I have incurred many debts along the way. To begin with, I join (I m sure) many other C. S. Lewis scholars in expressing gratitude to Walter Hooper, Lewis s literary executor, for the massive work he has done to bring virtually all of Lewis s correspondence into published form in three thick volumes. Lewis was one of the last of the great (and graceful) English letter-writers, and his lifelong stream of correspondence helps to show how he developed, defended, qualified, and revised his views on gender in ways that may surprise those who have read only his formally published works. I am particularly grateful to the staff of the Marion Wade Center at Wheaton College for access to copies of Lewis s letters that had not yet been published as I began writing, and to Michael Maudlin of HarperSanFrancisco for a prepublication peek at the third volume of the letters at a later stage. In London I profited from staff help at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Marylebone Library. Much of my travel research, and most of my writing, was made possible by sabbatical and faculty development funding from my home institution, Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. I am also grateful to Grace Tazelaar for hosting me during a week of research at the Wade Center in Wheaton, Illinois. And Terry Morrison, of the Graduate Christian Fellowship, is to be thanked (or chided) for launching the entire project with his invitation to me to give the 2004 C. S. Lewis lecture at the University of Tennessee.
I had the opportunity to present various chapters to a range of