Is Motherhood A Christian Duty For Women?

The crux of this question is whether motherhood is God's will for women, and thus a duty, or whether it is, at best, one option amongst many or at worst, an oppressive tool of a patriarchal society, which perpetuates gender inequality. The Roman Catholic Church would adopt the former view, whereas many liberal feminists, and some radical, would adopt the latter position. The question hinges upon the nature of a 'Christian duty' and in what sense this might be found in motherhood, which this essay will endeavour to discuss. It seems that the strongest argument lies in motherhood being a biological duty (to procreate) but it is much more difficult to see how this necessitates or entails a moral or religious duty. The idea of motherhood being a Christian duty is a powerful one, which has endured throughout Christian theology. It is most prevalent in the Catholic understanding of gender roles and status, on the basis of a complementarity model, which sees men and women as 'equal but different'. This might be seen to be analogous to the relationship between a lock and a key: both are required in order to open a door, but they have different roles in the process of so-doing. In this way, the Catholic Church holds the view that women have a different role to men in society, but that this does not mean that there is any inequality in their status. This primary role for women is, of course, motherhood, grounded in a Natural Law understanding of human nature and purpose. It is thus women's God-given duty to be a mother, because this is part of her essential, God-given femininity, which differentiates her from men in the natural order, and can be discovered through the employment of reason, alongside the divine laws contained within scri pture. This is the view taken by Pope John Paul II in Mulieris Dignitatem: motherhood is described as the central aspect in the 'fulfilment' of women, which is inherited an expression of the image of God which is specially hers. In other words, being a mother is not just a possibility for women but uniquely part of her God-given nature. He uses the example of Mary as 'theotokos' to illustrate the significance of the maternal vocation: Mary accepted her duty willingly and moreover, represents the perfection of 'what is characteristic of woman and femininity. This suggests that, by adopting her maternal vocation, a woman is not just obeying the biological imperative to procreate and further her genes, but obeying a divine command. Moreover, this duty not only extends to physical motherhood, but also to 'spiritual motherhood' for those who see their vocation as, for example, 'nuns'. Such is the importance of motherhood for John Paul II, he interprets virginity as a form of mothering which extends beyond the physical bonds of the familial relationship and into the wider community. We can see, then, that motherhood is uniquely and fundamentally the vocation for all Christian women and for their entire lives, according to the Catholic position, whether we interpret this in a literal or metaphorical sense. However, it is evident that this argument stands and falls upon the Natural Law foundation upon which it is premised. If we are able to reject the view that women have a God-given nature and/or that this dictates their lifelong vocation, then it is difficult to accept the view that motherhood is a Christian duty. To this end, it is important to consider whether God has established in the natural order particular purposes (telos) and furthermore, whether these purposes are self-evident through the application of reason. There are certainly evolutionary grounds to suggest that women's physiology and anatomy predispose her to motherhood, which would support the Pope's view that, "scientific analysis fully confirms that the very physical constitution of women is naturally disposed to motherhood." Basic evolutionary biology confirms that our main 'duty' is to survive and to ensure the survival of our genetic legacy by procreating. However, it is far more contentious to move from this claim, as John Paul II does, to the claim that women ought to be mothers. In other words, it is far from clear that the biological imperative guarantees the existence of a moral or religious imperative. This is known as the naturalistic fallacy: it is a leap of logic to move from a descri ption of the state of nature (that women are biologically set up to be mothers) to a prescri ption that this is their duty. The hidden premise that 'doing what is natural is right' only works if we do indeed have a God-given nature, which would be the obvious counter-argument to employ at this point, but this can be challenged on the Darwinian grounds that our 'nature' and 'purpose' has evolved, through adaptation. If this is the case, then Christian women would not have any obligation to be mothers, and whilst it might be possible to reformulate the title to mean that all women have a (biological) duty to be mothers, there is no special 'Christian' element to this. However, even if we accepted the Natural Law basis to the argument, it may still not survive a feminist critique. The issue for many feminists hinges upon whether or not motherhood is, by its very nature, divisive and perhaps even oppressive. One of the immediate problems with the Catholic view that motherhood is the 'fulfilment' of women is that it requires maternity to be a lifelong vocation, rather than just a single element of their lives. Whereas many animals obey the biological imperative to procreate but, once their offspring are able to, they no longer exist in the family unit, the Catholic position seems to entail women accepting this role, if they are to be fulfilled and live up to the ideal of being in God's image, for the entirety of their lives. Many feminists see inherent inequality within this model; firstly, the use of Mary as the ultimate example of a mother is unhelpful for other Christian women, because this is an ideal that no woman can live up to. It is simply impossible to be both 'Virgin' and 'Mother' and thus, any woman who has a child through the normal, sexual means has, in one sense 'failed' because she has lost her virginal status. If she remains a virgin, then she has 'failed' in her duty to be a mother (although the 'spiritual motherhood' response of John Paul II somewhat counteracts this). Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that it is unhelpful to see Mary as the perfect ideal of motherhood for Christian women today. Moreover, there may be structural inequality in motherhood because it effectively traps women in the domestic sphere (through breastfeeding and caring for young children), and renders any professional life, for instance, subordinate to their 'caring' duties. Indeed, even for 'spiritual mothers' who have chosen virginity, their lives are still to be dominated by nurturing and mothering, which can be seen to be inferior and rather base roles. This is the view of Shulamith Firestone, who used Marxist analysis to point out the oppressive nature of motherhood. Firestone underlined both the physical/emotional and socio-economic problems of motherhood being a duty. She used an hermeneutic of suspicion to point out the vested interest that men have in keeping women out of the social and professional sphere (in order to keep the best roles for themselves) and argued that motherhood made women physically, economically and socially dependent on men. For instance, a woman caring for her children at home has no independent 'means of production' to guarantee her own survival, which renders her dependent upon a man (typically her husband) to be the breadwinner for the family. Without economic independence, she has no value in a capitalist society, because she has nothing of value to 'sell'. Firestone thus adopted a radical approach to motherhood, suggesting that women needed to reclaim the 'means of (re)production) by transferring the physical process of gestation of artificial uteruses, and by ensuring that children were raised in a communal arrangement of six-eight adults. This, she hypothesised, would ensure that women could compete equally with men in all spheres of life, and would address the power imbalance that maternity perpetuates. One might then say that, if it is true that motherhood is a tool for oppressing women, then it could never be appropriate to describe it as a 'Christian duty' since an omnibenevolent Creator would not allow half of his creatures to be subjugated in this way. However, this rests upon the assumption that androgyny is desirable, and that men and women should avoid, rather than celebrate, their difference. Although a radical Christian feminist could argue that Firestone is right to point out the existing power structure inherent within the family model, on the basis that Jesus presented a radical challenge to the existing order in his teachings upon the Kingdom of God which Christians should try to uphold (for instance, 'let the dead bury their own dead' and 'the first will be last and the last first'), Firestone remains open to the charge that she simply tries to make women 'more like men' in her quest for equality, which perpetuates the view that maleness - and male values - are normative. In other words, women have to lose what is distinctive about them (such as motherhood) whilst men are able to maintain what is distinctive in their ontology. This merely transposes the problem rather than solving it. Moreover, whilst Firestone sees any female desire to be a mother as a product of false consciousness (she has been systematically beaten by patriarchy to believe that this is her destiny), it seems to be equally oppressive to prohibit women from doing something that many enjoy, and in a Christian context, goes against the basic principle of having free will. Thus, it seems more appropriate to conclude that motherhood is not a 'Christian duty' but may certainly be a 'Christian choice'. This is the view, by extension, of Harriet Taylor, an equality feminist who argued that it was wrong to restrict women to 'one animal function and its consequence', but neither should it be prohibited as a choice. Taylor betrays her association with the utilitarian philosophy of John Stuart Mill here, because her position rests upon the view that human happiness rests upon the pursuit of higher, intellectual ideals (pleasures of the mind, such as intellectual discourse) rather than lower, animalistic ones. It is evident, therefore, that Taylor viewed procreation, and by implication motherhood, as a 'base' occupation in itself that reduces women's status to that of an animal (since they too procreate and rear their young) rather than enabling them to flourish as human beings, by using their intelligence. In a Christian context, we might relate this to the Natural Law ideal of growing closer to God's perfection and if, indeed, our human rationality is a central part of our God-given nature, then it is reasonable to assume that motherhood could impede, rather than help, women. However, this again relies upon male values (such as intelligence) being normative, and thus, whilst Taylor is right to point out the problems with the vocational aspect of motherhood - and certainly its lifelong implications - this should not be taken as an outright rejection of any form of motherhood, which enables a mixed-culture ontology in which male values co-exist with female values, rather than gaining the ascendency.

Thus, in conclusion, it is difficult to uphold the view that motherhood should be a Christian duty for all women, and for their entire lives. As Firestone argued, there is a fundamental disparity in status, which does carry some oppressive overtones in some cases, created by the lifelong maternal duty, and this is, moreover, antithetical to the basic Christian ideal of equality and the belief in an omnibenevolent God. However, to bar women from being mothers is equally oppressive, as many see it as a powerful expression of their unique ontology, which prevents male values - perpetuated through androgyny - from becoming gaining superiority in society. Thus, it seems that motherhood should be a choice for Christian women, and not a duty. As has been shown, this coheres most rigorously with both Christian and feminist principles, which makes it the strongest position to adopt.