Ruth Institute Blog

In the comments of this blog, people have accused me of being “cruel,” “heartless,” and “the kind of guy who would repeatedly pound a burlap bag full of cute and fuzzy puppies with a rubber mallet” on account my opinions about romantic love, especially how it relates to marriage redefinition.

Rather than bask in the warm glow of such heartfelt and fulsome praise, I’m going to set out to earn it still further by pointing out some recent scientific findings.

If my posts have a general theme it is this:  love is not what you think it is.  Happiness is not what you think it is.  Without knowing the nature of love and happiness, we cannot have a meaningful discussion about love, marriage, and marriage redefinition.  To discuss these things without this knowledge is to fail to engage the real world.  Unfortunately, the real world is a lot less enchanting than sappy love songs and the movies that populate the “Romantic Comedy” section of Netflix.

So, what’s romantic love?  Essentially, it’s an addiction.  (I guess Huey Lewis was on to something).

The team of researchers, which included Arthur Aron, Ph.D., professor of social and health psychology in the Department of Psychology at Stony Brook University, and former graduate students Greg Strong and Debra Mashek looked at subjects who had a recent break-up and found that the pain and anguish they were experiencing may be linked to activation of parts of the brain associated with motivation, reward and addiction cravings. The study was published in the July issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology. Read more…

Caitlin Flanagan has an interesting article in the Atlantic.  In it, she discusses the narrative some proponents of the sexual revolution had in mind when they promoted the new sexual morays to the next generation of girls.  That narrative can be called “The Boyfriend Story.”  What is the “Boyfriend Story”?  It is “the gossamer-wrapped quest for true and perfect love.”

Flanagan describes how her mother was one of those who hoped her daughter would attain happiness via the “Boyfriend Story.”  (Emphasis added).

[M]y mother became one of those kindly, kooky older ladies whose dedication to volunteering at Planned Parenthood bordered on the unseemly, given the distance between their age and their own need for the services provided. She was part of a generation of women who helped build an infrastructure not just of attitudes but of medical services (from birth control to abortion) rendered to teenage girls and built on a host of assumptions: that a girl is capable of great sexual desire, and that this desire should not cause her to lose her chance at an education or an independent life; that a huge number of modern mothers were committed to helping their daughters incorporate sexual lives within a normal teenage girlhood, one in which sex did not cleave the girl instantly and permanently from her home and her family. These mothers were willing to run as much interference as was needed to make these things possible—with dads, who tended not to be as enthusiastic about the prospect of a cherished daughter’s becoming sexual; with PTAs, which often balked at the kind of sex education these beliefs would require; with the long-entrenched double standard that said a boy could have sex and retain his good reputation, but a girl who went all the way was ruined. Read more…

Many of the discussions in the comments section of this site fall into a very familiar pattern.  Take, for instance, one issue that we here at the Ruth Institute support: lifelong marriage.  Lifelong marriage means that we are not particularly fond of divorce.  (I’m sure my opinion as a Jew differs from that of Dr. J who is Catholic, but I think we can agree that divorce is, generally speaking, a bad thing).

And these discussions are usually not very productive because they are addled with illusion.

So, we don’t like divorce.  How does this play out so predictably in the comments?  And how are the comments beset by illusion?

Read more…

If you were to ask me, the wisest rabbi now in practice is Abraham Twerski.  Here are some of his thoughts on marriage:

The Talmud says that the relationship of a husband to his wife should be “to love her as much as he loves himself, and to respect her even more than he respects himself” (Yevamos 62b). It is of interest that Rambam, in citing the Talmud, reverses the order and places respect before love. Why? Because it is unrealistic to expect that one can have so intense a love from day one. It takes time for true love to develop. However, respect is something that can begin on day one.

See what I mean.  Wisest rabbi around.

Some of his phrases are untranslated Hebrew, but I think it may be self explanatory from the context.  If not, just ask for translation in the comments, and I will answer.

These two articles about picking the right person to marry are old (here) and (here).  But they are worth reading.

Such a nice article. I did see the Superbowl, as I’m sure many of you did too. The very end when winning quarterback Drew Brees held up his son was truly the highlight. Seeing a picture of it even now brings tears to my eyes. This article is a great perspective on the significance of that moment.

The poster says, “Life. Better than lifting the Lombardi.”

by Kathryn Jean Lopez

This Super Bowl MVP would rather hold his son than the Lombardi Trophy.

‘Don’t you live for that moment right there?” Read more…

This article confirms something I have long been saying: you can learn nothing useful or accurate from the movies.

The television program Mythbusters has pretty comprehensively discredited the physics, chemistry and other “science” depicted in the movies.  Reading a good history or biography will discredit Hollywood’s take on those subjects.

But the most destructive myth that Hollywood portrays is that “love conquers all” (somehow, Hollywood confines the love that conquers all exclusively to the love that exists between two young and good looking protagonists).

People who subscribe to the romantic ideal portrayed in movies are in for a rude awakening.  This article does a good job of pointing that out.

For all the good points this article makes, I cannot believe the ignorant use of literature that characterizes it.  Romeo and Juliet did not portray some romantic ideal.  Romeo and Juliet, to the best of my recollection were two impulsive and impetuous young people who let their emotions get the best of them.  If memory serves, their relationship ended, rather poorly. Frankly, I think Romeo and Juliet can serve as an object lesson in the importance of controlling ones’ emotions when making love and marriage choices.

Perhaps a better example would have been, I don’t know, every single romantic comedy since the 1970s?

This article is terrific.

Stuart Schneiderman discusses whether you should marry young.

There is currently a huge prejudice against marrying young.  When I got married, my bride was nineteen years old.  People came out of the woodwork to discourage us from getting married with her so young.   I wish I could have shown them this article.  That was eleven years ago.  They were wrong.  Schneiderman is right.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but still, nice to see some confirmation by someone overtly stating it.

Carolyn Moynihan

A British feminist is sounding the alarm about the effects on teenagers of easy access to pornography, saying that a skewed view of sex is becoming the norm in society and the idea of intimacy is dying. Read more…

Here is a fantastically put together document on all of the far-reaching negative effects of pornography. I knew the stuff was bad, but, wow. (This article originally appeared at FamilyResearchCouncil.org.)

by Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D. and Ruth Institute Academic Advisory Board Member

Pornography is a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual’s concept of the nature of conjugal relations. This, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behavior. It is a major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual happiness. In undermining marriage it is one of the factors in undermining social stability. Read more…

To put it simply, porn will cause the destruction of the universe! Or just marriage and real, meaningful relationships, but it’s just the start, I tell you!

Patrick F. Fagan, Mercatornet.com

By undermining marriage and family life, by assailing them on the internet, pornography is doing serious harm to young people.

“Pornography is a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual’s concept of the nature of conjugal relations. This, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behaviour. It is a major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual happiness. In undermining marriage it is one of the factors in undermining social stability.” Read more…

A Japanese man married a video game character.  Those of you who think marriage is whatever we say it is: is this man validly married to an imaginary animated character? He sounds for all the world like same sex marriage advocates when he looks forward wistfully to the day when anyone can marry anyone they love. So, what is wrong with this picture?

H/T Tony Listi, via Facebook

Inquiring Lefty minds want to know.  Speaking as a dyed-in-the-wool, unapologetic right wing-nut who hangs around with others of same description of all colors: I can tell you there are plenty of blacks with traditional religious and family values who are disgusted with Obama. Let me lis the things I’ve heard them say they don’t like: cutting off abstinence education funds, appointing a lesbian as a commissioner to the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, allowing his people to shove same sex marriage down the throats of the District of Columbia, and promoting abortion in the health care bill.

Yes, many blacks don’t like abortion. They feel targeted by the population controllers.

We feel this song would be a good theme song for the Ruth Institute. What do you think?

Here are the lyrics: Read more…

I’ve already made it clear that I love this letter by the US Catholic Bishops. As I begin to write about this, a couple of notes. First, all page numbers refer to the internet version linked here.

Second, don’t let anyone tell you this document is about same sex unions. The internet version is 60 printed pages.  Of these, less than 3 full pages deal directly with same sex unions. That is, less than 5% of the document deals with same sex unions.  That is about the correct proportion.

Third, the bishops are hopelessly romantic: Read more…

is the name of the Catholic Bishops’ Pastoral Letter on Marriage. I will be writing about this in upcoming days. This document is really great and is not getting the attention it deserves. It is being upstage by the Manhattan Declaration, which is also good and worthwhile. Oddly enough, the Pastoral letter of the Catholic Bishops is actually more ecumenical than the Manhattan Declaration because the Declaration is specifically and emphatically Christian. Now, of course, the Bishops’ letter is too, not only Christian, but Catholic Christian. But I think that a Jewish person would have an easier time embracing the Bishops’ letter than the Manhattan Declaration. Maybe not. Jewish readers, what say you?