Virginity and the Catholic Hierarchy

Nearly four hundred years after Jerome’s false translation ("Under the man's authority shall you be and he will rule over you") was rejected by Protestant theologians, Genesis 3.16 was returned to its original position as a description of a consequence of sin (in the 1980s). The Catholic response to the changing of the interpretation of Genesis 3.16 is seen in that although Rev. Regis Scanlon refers to Thomas’s twofold subjection, he views the verse as a description of a “bad” subjection given to Eve as a punishment and “a constant threat” from which the married couple escapes, for the husband’s authority is given to bring about mutual submission based upon their free commitment.[1] I.e., Scanlon no longer agrees with Thomas’s view that Genesis 3:16 mandates the man to rule over the woman. Scanlon believes also that virgins overcome the negative effect of the Fall and “the threatened rule of the male over the female” by being under the authority of the Catholic Church, for in his view it is “the perfect fulfillment of that hierarchy of authority found in God’s creation.” But by this statement he contradicts himself, for the church has always been, and still is, considered feminine, and thus he makes a celibate man subject to a woman, so to speak. Perhaps Scanlon considers the celibate man to be subject to the authority of the bishop, who is always male, and not to the church per se. But even if we would allow for such a distinction, the celibate man’s subjection does not fulfill the hierarchy in which a man has authority over a woman, unless we consider the celibate man to have become a woman.

If the church has always taught a creation based hierarchy, why does Scanlon refer only to the thirteenth-century theologian Thomas Aquinas? In fact, it is Scanlon’s own argument which proves the impossibility of implementing such a hierarchy in the case of virgins, which accords well with the patristic belief that virgins and chaste women were equal with men. Thus we may conclude that the early church did not teach a creation based hierarchy in which the man had authority over the woman, for although virginity was highly esteemed, also marriage was approved of and not viewed as a consequence of sin.