Contentment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  before marriage with regard to sexual pleasures, and insofar as they are engaged in, let them be lawful. Yet do not become oppressive or reproachful toward those who do indulge, and do not hold forth all the time on your own restraint.” It would be harder to craft a statement more alien to the fl amboyant renunciations and pellucid interdictions of Christianity. Th e quiet placability of Epictetus in his sexual morality is not far removed from the stance of the latest and most remarkable of the Roman Stoics, Marcus Aurelius. His Stoicism is known through the cheerless if not funereal collection of meditations preserved under the title To Himself. Th e pessimism of Marcus was not just the by- product of a sickly, world- weary emperor. His obsession with the cosmos was in the mainstream of Stoic thought. Indeed, it was only through the contemplation of the universe, and the place of human life within it, that man’s reason could truly com-prehend what a “cheap, contemptible, fi lthy, perishable, defunct” thing pleasure was. Th e life of man was a narrow point, crushed in on either side by eternity. Meditation on the cosmos put sex and marriage in true perspective. For Marcus, sex was “a commotion of the innards and a convulsive secretion of mucus.” Marriage was a sign of perishability and meaningless-ness: “meditate on the times of Vespasian, see all these things: people marrying, raising children, falling sick and dying, warring, reveling . . . and yet there is nowhere any trace of that life of theirs. Switch now to the times of Trajan, and again the same things, and that life too has perished.” In time, all the deeds of the body passed away for eternity. Plea sure was an indiff erent, not an evil; reason should conquer the false impressions arising from desire. Sexual morality hardly looms over the philosophy of Marcus. He reminds himself, in oblique language, that he had not rushed into sexual activity as a young man. We know, too, that his marriage to Faustina was exceptionally fertile, producing fourteen children, and that after his wife’s death Marcus did what many Roman widowers did for solace, he took a freedwoman as a concubine. As Epictetus would have advised, the Stoic emperor’s indulgences were lawful, and his restraint was not oppressively vaunted. Th e cosmology of Marcus, which is so important to his ethical outlook, was inseparable from orthodox Stoic determinism. “Th e peculiar quality of the good man is to love and to embrace what ever things have been bestowed and allotted to him.” At its deepest spiritual core, Roman Stoicism assumed that moral action was made possible by a benevolent providence. T H E M O R A L I T I E S O F S E X I N T H E R O M A N E M P I R E 

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  How they decide creates striking differences in the entire life experience of their children, as Gary’s story reveals. Gary, the Fort Builder “I ’VE FOUND some time!” Although we had not met in person, Gary Bates and I had been playing phone tag for nearly three weeks, trying to set up an interview. As the owner of a successful hardware store, dedicated jogger, and father of three young children, time was his scarcest commodity. Gary’s wife, Sara, was just leaving for a birthday party with the two older children, aged ten and seven. The baby was fast asleep inside the house. “I’m really curious to know what you find out,” she said, leaning out of her car window. “My sister just got divorced and sold her house. I haven’t told her this but I think she’s made a terrible mistake. Her kids are really young. I think she could have stayed in her marriage and toughed it out at least a little longer.” As Gary and I walked into the house, he confided, “Sara and Janine were raised in a very traditional family where divorce is unheard of. And so when Janine got a divorce, her folks were crushed. They just can’t understand why she did it.” After we had settled down with “mid-morning depth charges”—Gary’s name for his homemade double lattes—I asked him to describe his own family. What was it like growing up in a middle-class neighborhood in Marin County in the 1970s and 1980s? Gary scrunched his face comically. “Do you want the outdoor version or the indoor version?” “Both, of course.” “Well, the outdoor version is what I think of when I remember my childhood. We lived in a big, old Victorian house just a couple of blocks away from downtown. My folks still live there. All my friends lived close by, and by the time I was seven or eight I could ride my bike to their houses and we’d go all over to town together. I just remember being outside as much as I could. There was a huge old live oak tree in our backyard and we’d spend hours in it, pretending to be explorers or astronauts. My best friend Eric had a tree house in his yard and we used to build magnificent forts and whoop it up with war games that drove our moms crazy. That of course was the point. Another friend’s house was right on a creek. When we got older we took great hikes up the canyon. We just were outside and going as much as we could. I remember how tough it was to come in for dinner, not to mention to have to stay in and do homework!” He laughed, obviously enjoying sharing his memories. As I listened to Gary describe what it was like to play in his backyard, it struck me that children from divorced families do not talk this way.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (Serm. 104.) Our Lord then does not blame the actions, but distinguishes between the duties. For it follows, Mary hath chosen that good part, &c. Not thine a bad one, but hers a better. Why a better? because it shall not be taken away from her. From thee the necessary burden of business shall one time be taken away. For when thou comest into that country, thou wilt find no stranger to receive with hospitality. But for thy good it shall be taken away, that what is better may be given thee. Trouble shall be taken away, that rest may be given. Thou art yet at sea; she is in port. For the sweetness of truth is eternal, yet in this life it is increased, and in the next it will be made perfect, never to be taken away. AMBROSE. May you then like Mary be influenced by the desire of wisdom. For this is the greater, this the more perfect work. Nor let the care of ministering to others turn thy mind from the knowledge of the heavenly word, nor reprove or think indolent those whom thou seest seeking after wisdom. AUGUSTINE. (de Qu. Evang. l. ii. q. 30.) Now mystically, by Martha’s receiving our Lord into her house is represented the Church which now receives the Lord into her heart. Mary her sister, who sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word, signifies the same Church, but in a future life, where ceasing from labour, and the ministering to her wants, she shall delight in Wisdom alone. But by her complaining that her sister did not help her, occasion is given for that sentence of our Lord, in which he shews that Church to be anxious and troubled about much service, when there is but one thing needful, which is yet attained through the merits of her service; but He says that Mary hath chosen the good part, for through the one the other is reached, which shall not be taken away. GREGORY. (6. Mor. c. 18.) Or by Mary who sat and heard our Lord’s words, is signified the contemplative life; by Martha engaged in more outward services, the active life. Now Martha’s care is not blamed, but Mary is praised, for great are the rewards of an active life, but those of a contemplative are far better. Hence Mary’s part it is said will never be taken away from her, for the works of an active life pass away with the body, but the joys of the contemplative life the rather begin to increase from the end. CHAPTER 11 11:1–41. And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  If Roman marriage was an erotically charged institution, it is worth noting how firmly the actual practices of the Roman bedroom lay beyond explicit regulation, even among the moralists of the age. The fact is that authors like Plutarch, who goes so far as to advocate orderly sexual habits, retreat into pragmatic discretion before legislating on specific acts. So, notably, did the rabbis, who refrained from heavy-handed interference in the married couple’s sexual life. In turn we are left to glean from a largely barren field. We find in different types of evidence a distinction between the sexual acts to be expected of a wife and those to be expected of a disreputable woman. A magical papyrus casts a spell on a woman in the hopes of achieving “whorish sex,” as though that more or less summarizes a style, or intensity, of amorous encounter. Seneca, among others, counsels men not to love their wives as though they were mistresses. Fellatio is regularly assumed to be the domain of the prostitute. Still, Roman art depicts a wider range of positions and configurations than ever before, and not all of these have to involve paid professionals. Whereas late classical Greek art had tended to focus on the gratification of the man, Roman erotic art takes a far more variable perspective. Scenes of women on top, mulier equitans, focus on the reposed beauty of the woman’s body. If the representation of male fulfillment was still predominant, there was undoubtedly a new visual emphasis in Roman art on the mutual pleasure of the partners.91 Still, it can only be wondered how well women fared in the bedroom. There was an abiding prejudice against acts that were considered to pollute the mouth. Visual evidence suggests that women could turn to male prostitutes to enjoy exotic pleasures, but this cannot have been an option to many women. There are signs that sometimes the possibilities were even unknown. More often there is simply blind disgust. Galen, who was not a prude, could claim as a matter of fact, “We find cunnilingus even more repulsive than fellatio.” Cultural conventions of male dominance could be a powerful force. Or they could just act to draw a curtain around what really happened in the bedroom. The truth is that there is more discussion about female orgasms in the Roman Empire than ever before, and for a long time after. For Ovid, mutual satisfaction was a vital part of his sexual code. For the author of the Lucianic Amores, it is what recommends heterosexual love. But nothing can match Clitophon’s panegyric. For him, the climbing ecstasy of shared pleasure encapsulated the real meaning of eros. When the woman neared the “climax of Aphrodite,” she became frenzied with pleasure, and at the peak of orgasm the woman’s gasps even carried a little of her vital spirit into the mouth of her lover, where it mingled with his wandering kiss and returned to the heart.92

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  The four of us sleep head-to-toe in the living room; and in the morning, Camille starts the coffeepot and sets out a box of gooey glazed donuts while Frank dresses Frankie and steps out to warm up the car. “Rosie, how about we head out to the mall and get you some warm, new clothes?” Camille says. Rosie’s eyes light up. She looks out the window at the car and then back to me. “Can I sit on your lap?” “Sure, lovebug,” I tell her, securing a lock of loose hair the color of sand behind her ear. “You remember the Smith Haven Mall, where we used to hang out when we were working on the farm?” She smiles. “Yes.” Cherie wiggles in next to Frankie’s car seat, and I close my eyes with my cheek against Rosie’s back the entire way to the mall. While Rosie and Cherie browse through the racks, Frank, Camille, and I powwow in the car. “I think we need to wait a few weeks to register her for high school here. We don’t want to make it easy for anyone from Idaho to track her down with the help of the school system,” Camille says. “I agree.” “And when we do register her, we don’t tell the school that she’s a transfer from Idaho. As far as they’re concerned, she’s just moved to a new part of Long Island.” “I know. We’ll work with her on dropping the twang.” “She’ll catch on fast,” Frank says. “She still talks like a Long Islander. ‘My teacha,’ she said— did you hear that? She’s still got Long Island in her.” The three of us laugh as Frankie coos and clenches his fists from his car seat—he, too, is in on our important scheme. When Rosie and Cherie are back with their bags a half-hour later, the mood goes quiet again. “What’d you get, cutie?” I ask Rosie. “Some jeans, a coat and sweater . . .” Her voice trails off. Frank calmly pulls out of the parking lot, onto the highway. At no point during the weekend do we ask Rosie what she experienced. There’s just no reason to make her relive it, and her silence has told us enough already. On the third day, Rosie and I move into Cherie’s studio apartment in Bayshore, but just as Rosie begins to feel comfortable with her new home, Camille calls us: She’s begun getting calls from Cookie’s brother, Nick. “Shit,” Cherie says. “What’d he say?” Rosie and I crowd close to her. She tilts the receiver so we can hear Camille speak. “Well, the first time, he called and informed me that Rosie was missing and the Idaho authorities think Regina is hiding out with her somewhere in Idaho.” Just like always, Cookie’s blame points straight to me.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  There was a kind of handsomeness lost in his heavy, square face. He sat down on the bench, where he could politely talk while also watching me take my clothes off. It was typical of his behaviour, discreet, but not prurient: his was the old-fashioned ethos of a male community, delighting in men, but always respectful and fraternal. I knew he would never ask a personal question. ‘That boy Phil’s coming on well,’ he said. ‘Very nice definition. Said he was a bit loose after being off for a spell, but I should say he’d put on a centimetre or two this week alone.’ Phil, I knew, was a lad he had a bit of a soft spot for; I’d seen him hanging around to count for him when he was on the machines, and because Phil was genuinely interested in his own body Bill was always able to engage him in earnest analyses of methods and results. I could see, too, that Phil, who was shy and stocky, might be a tricky proposition, and sensed some resistance in him to Bill’s cheery and paternal chatter across the crowded shower room. ‘Phil’s all very well,’ I suggested, ‘but he’s the plump type: he’ll always have to work hard.’ I pulled off my T-shirt and Bill shook his head. ‘I’d like to see you do some more work,’ he said with a sucking in of his breath. ‘You’ve got the makings of something really choice.’ I looked down, as it were modestly, at my lean torso, the smooth, tight tits, the little fuse of hair running down to my belt. The swimming-pool at the Corry is reached down a spiral staircase from the changing-rooms. It is the most subterraneous zone of the Club, its high coffered ceiling supporting the floor of the gym above. Corinthian pillars at each corner are an allusion to ancient Rome, and you half expect to see the towel-girt figures of Charlton Heston and Tony Curtis deep in senatorial conspiracy. Instead, a bored attendant paces around the narrow mosaic border of the pool in flip-flops. The water comes to within an inch or so of the margin, and any waves run over the floor, which glistens and, being uneven, holds little cold puddles. Some regulation, I suspect, stipulates how many turns around the pool the attendant must take each hour, for he combines his vigilance with relaxing in the spectators’ seats and reading a book; after a longish spell of this he will then trot around the pool for a minute or two as if to make up his ration. I have never known, or known of, any occasion on which his services were needed.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  Plus, I’m aware that I’m in the healthiest, fittest shape of my life. My legs, which were once scrawny and bruised are now tanned and muscular. My shoulders and torso, once sunken from malnourishment, are sturdy and strong. By the time Monday rolls around again, my colleagues poke fun at my morning chirpiness . . . and I have no intention of letting them know that this job is the easiest, most lucrative, most fun responsibility I’ve ever been granted. At the end of July, when Coach hands me my pay envelope, I hold the package in my hand, feeling its thickness and weight. For the first time, it occurs to me that maybe my impossible upbringing sets me apart from the rest. I’ve cultivated a strong work ethic and faith in my capacity to take care of myself. THE WEEK OF Thanksgiving 1985 I receive a letter accepting my transfer to the State University of New York at New Paltz, majoring in education with my friend Sheryl from high school. With Frankie now a year old, such a fun and engaging baby, there couldn’t be a more conflicted time for me to consider leaving Long Island. I’ll tell Addie closer to the holidays, I tell myself. I want my own life. In my bedroom at the Petermans’ the night before Christmas Eve 1985, I’m deciding where to pack my Baby Jesus figurines when Addie raps on my door frame. “What’s all this?” I glance around my room, where I’ve begun piling warm clothes into black garbage bags and a shoe box of cassette tapes that I’m alphabetizing—the Cure, the Four Seasons, Genesis, Billy Joel, Diana Ross, and Van Halen. There’s no more hiding what I’ve been putting off. I tell her: “For the spring semester I’ve decided to transfer upstate to SUNY New Paltz.” After a moment of shock, Addie tugs on her cardigan to gain control of her expression. “I didn’t know you’d applied,” she says. “When will you be leaving?” “First week of January. What’s that, three weeks?” “Well,” she says, “congratulations. I’m sure with Camille’s marriage and the new baby you’ve gotten the itch to experience adulthood, too. Why are you packing now?” I shrug. “Just excited, I guess.” Addie nods curtly. I hear wheels turning in her head. “Regina, I have to say this, and I’ll only say this once: If you go away, that’s it. That’s the start of life on your own.” She’s affirming my fear; the reason I didn’t want to tell her. “What do you mean?” “If you leave, you will be on your own for good—do you understand? Once you’re out, you’re out.” “But—even for holidays, and intersession . . . and the summer?” “Yes, Regina. Let me tell you something: This house is not a hotel. You’re constantly in and out, spending the night at Tracey’s and Camille’s and all the places I know you prefer to be.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  These are homes where the children do not feel safe, where the adults are often out of control, but where the parents stay together for reasons I’ll explain later. At the other end of the spectrum are those families that seem to someone like me, who is so used to family troubles, too good to be true. The parents not only get along, they genuinely love each other and continue to show one another respect and affection. The children feel that they are central to their parents’ interest and that the family is a priority to both adults. It’s very important to understand that these happy families suffer the same kinds of setbacks—automobile accidents, job loss, death in the family, bouts with cancer—that other families encounter in everyday life. They are not immune to tragedy or blessed by incalculable good luck. It’s just that they negotiate these issues in ways that preserve the rock solid marriage. In several instances, as people talked lovingly about their parents and their parents’ marriages, I felt like I had wandered into another country where the inhabitants look familiar but the language and customs are new. I have grown so used to talking to children of divorce that I hadn’t given much thought to what it would mean to grow up in a very happy family in our divorce-ridden culture from the child’s point of view. How would their life experiences and perceptions of the world differ from the young people down the street being raised in divorced families? Finally, there is the largest group comprising all the families in between. These are homes in which there can be many serious problems—loneliness, infidelity, chronic illness, depression, sexual deprivation, and countless other woes—but the marriage stays intact. These are homes in which there are also gratifications, especially in shared concern and love of the children. There often is a history of love and friendship that still binds the couple together despite their growing distress and anger at each other. In other words, these are families that stay together in the face of adversities that drive many other couples into divorce court. As I learned more about these families, I began to recognize striking similarities to the families that divorced back in 1971 when my study began and to the thousands of divorcing families that we saw at the Center for the Family in Transition in the 1980s and 1990s. Families like these can go either way depending on a host of factors. At the core of their interactions and ambience, they are alike. These are the parents who are most likely to ask, should we divorce or would it be better for the children if we stayed together? What happens to their children is a key issue.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  Under cover of all these splendors negotiations were concluded; the bargaining invariably ended in my favor; I continued to be the player who wins at every throw. The winter was passed in that palace of Antioch where in other days I had besought soothsayers to enlighten me as to the future. But from now on the future had nothing to bring me, nothing at least which could count as a gift. My harvests were in; life's heady wine filled the vats to overflowing. I had ceased to control my own destiny, it is true, but the disciplines so carefully worked out in earlier years seemed now to me no more than the first stage of a man's vocation; they were like those chains which a dancer makes himself wear in order to leap the higher after casting them off. On certain points austerity was still the rule: I continued to forbid the serving of wine before the second watch at night; I remembered the sight of Trajan's trembling hand on those same tables of polished wood. But there are other forms of inebriation. Though no shadow was cast on my days, whether death, defeat, or that subtle undoing which is self-inflicted, or age (which nevertheless would surely come), yet I was hurrying, as if each one of those hours was the most beautiful, but also the last of all. My frequent sojourns in Asia Minor had put me in touch with a small group of scholars seriously concerned with the study of magic arts. Each century has its particular daring: the boldest minds of our time, weary of a philosophy which grows more and more academic, are venturing to explore those frontiers forbidden to mankind. In Tyre, Philo of Byblus had revealed to me certain secrets of ancient Phoenician magic; he continued in my suite to Antioch. There Numenius was giving a new interpretation to Plato's myths on the nature of the soul; his theories remained somewhat timid, but they would have led far a hardier intelligence than his own. His disciples could summon spirits; for us that was a game like many another. Strange faces which seemed made of the very marrow of my dreams appeared to me in the smoke of the incense, then wavered and dissolved, leaving me only the feeling that they resembled some known, living visage. All that was no more, perhaps, than a mere juggler's trick, but in this case the juggler knew his trade. I went back to the study of anatomy, barely approached in my youth, but now it was no longer a question of sober consideration of the body's structure.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, Nothing prevents certain things being more excellent in themselves, whereas they are surpassed by another in some respect. Accordingly we must reply that the contemplative life is simply more excellent than the active: and the Philosopher proves this by eight reasons (Ethic. x, 7,8). The first is, because the contemplative life becomes man according to that which is best in him, namely the intellect, and according to its proper objects, namely things intelligible; whereas the active life is occupied with externals. Hence Rachael, by whom the contemplative life is signified, is interpreted “the vision of the principle,” [*Or rather, ‘One seeing the principle,’ if derived from {rah} and {irzn}; Cf. Jerome, De Nom. Hebr.] whereas as Gregory says (Moral. vi, 37) the active life is signified by Lia who was blear-eyed. The second reason is because the contemplative life can be more continuous, although not as regards the highest degree of contemplation, as stated above ([3743]Q[180], A[8], ad 2;[3744] Q[181], A[4], ad 3), wherefore Mary, by whom the contemplative life is signified, is described as “sitting” all the time “at the Lord’s feet.” Thirdly, because the contemplative life is more delightful than the active; wherefore Augustine says (De Verb. Dom. Serm. ciii) that “Martha was troubled, but Mary feasted.” Fourthly, because in the contemplative life man is more self-sufficient, since he needs fewer things for that purpose; wherefore it was said (Lk. 10:41): “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and art troubled about many things.” Fifthly, because the contemplative life is loved more for its own sake, while the active life is directed to something else. Hence it is written (Ps. 36:4): “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may see the delight of the Lord.” Sixthly, because the contemplative life consists in leisure and rest, according to Ps. 45:11, “Be still and see that I am God.” Seventhly, because the contemplative life is according to Divine things, whereas active life is according to human things; wherefore Augustine says (De Verb. Dom. Serm. civ): “‘In the beginning was the Word’: to Him was Mary hearkening: ‘The Word was made flesh’: Him was Martha serving.” Eighthly, because the contemplative life is according to that which is most proper to man, namely his intellect; whereas in the works of the active life the lower powers also, which are common to us and brutes, have their part; wherefore (Ps. 35:7) after the words, “Men and beasts Thou wilt preserve, O Lord,” that which is special to man is added (Ps. 35:10): “In Thy light we shall see light.”

• From The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—and Us (2017)

  Although Darwin was too proper, shy, or fearful of his audience’s responses to explicitly discuss the sexual pleasure of humans in The Descent of Man, he did discuss sexual pleasure in animals, proposing that the sexual displays of animals evolve precisely because of the profound sensory pleasures they elicit. By the same reasoning, because female sexual pleasure and orgasm are fundamental components of the experience of mate choice in action—including all the physical interactions involved in sexual behavior—the exercise of sexual evaluation is inherently pleasurable. The pleasures that are part of it, including and especially the experience of orgasm, are the data upon which mate choice, or more to the point remating choice (see chapter 8), is made. Which leads us back to the question of how these pleasures evolved. According to the Pleasure Happens hypothesis, female sexual pleasure and orgasm have evolved (that is, expanded in capacity and intensity since common ancestry with chimpanzees; evolutionary context 2) through indirect selection by women’s mating preferences for those male traits and behaviors that they find sexually pleasurable. Because human mating preferences are largely remating preferences, based on repeated sexual encounters, female mate choice can encompass aesthetic evaluation of the physiological, sensory, and cognitive experiences of sex itself. As selection by female mating preferences gradually transformed male mating behavior, females’ own capacity for subjective pleasure coevolved and expanded to become more complex, intense, and satisfying. To be as explicit as possible, the aesthetic proposal is that human female sexual pleasure and orgasm have evolved because females have preferred to mate, and remate, with males who stimulated their own sexual pleasure; females have thereby also selected indirectly for those genetic variations that contributed to the expansion of their own pleasure. By selecting on male traits and behavior that elicit orgasm more frequently, female mate choice has evolutionarily transformed the nature of female pleasure. In the Pleasure Happens scenario, female orgasm is not an adaptation to accomplish any extrinsic, naturally selected function—sperm upsuck or anything else that adaptationists might come up with in their search for rhyme and reason. Nor is female orgasm merely a historical accident, second fiddle to male sexual pleasure. Rather, female sexual pleasure and orgasm are the evolutionary consequences of female desire and choice, and they are ends unto themselves. — The Pleasure Happens hypothesis of orgasm evolution is consistent with much of the evidence on female sexuality and sexual response—for example, its inherent variability. I agree with Elisabeth Lloyd’s suggestion that the variability in female capacity for orgasm is an indicator that orgasm did not evolve by adaptive natural selection, because natural selection should result in much more reliable, highly functioning, and consistent experience. However, I disagree with the conclusion Lloyd then draws—that this means orgasm is simply a historical (but fortunate) accident. I think that human female orgasm is a highly evolved experience that is about something and has evolved for something. That “something” is pleasure, which evolves through the evolutionary action of their mate choices.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Like a good caregiver child, Karen reinstalled her troubled relationships with her mother and father into her early relationships with men. As rescuers, most young women like Karen are used to giving priority to the needs of others. Indeed, they are usually not aware of their own needs or desires. Karen confessed that she had never in her life thought about what would make her happy. “That would be like asking for the moon,” she said. “I was always too worried about my family to ask for me.” As a result, these young women are often trapped into rescuing a troubled man. How can they reject a pitiful man who clings to them? The guilt would be unbearable. Others find troubled men more exciting. One young woman who had frequent contact with both parents during her growing up years explained: “I think I subconsciously pick men who are not going to work out. Men who are nice and considerate bore me. My latest is irresponsible. I don’t trust him. I’m sure he cheats. But he’s the one I want.” WHAT PROMPTS SO many children of divorce to rush into a cohabitation or early marriage with as much forethought as buying a new pair of shoes?3 Answers lie in the ghosts that rise to haunt them as they enter adulthood. Men and women from divorced families live in fear that they will repeat their parents’ history, hardly daring to hope that they can do better. These fears, which were present but less commanding during adolescence, become overpowering in young adulthood, more so if one or both of their parents failed to achieve a lasting relationship after a first or second divorce. Dating and courtship raise their hopes of being loved sky-high—but also their fears of being hurt and rejected. Being alone raises memories of lonely years in the postdivorce family and feels like the abandonment they dread. They’re trapped between the wish for love and the fear of loss. This amalgam of fear and loneliness can lead to multiple affairs, hasty marriages, early divorce, and—if no take-home lessons are gleaned from it all—a second and third round of the same. Or they can stay trapped in bad relationships for many years. Here’s how it works: at the threshold of young adulthood, relationships move center stage. But for many that stage is barren of good memories for how an adult man and woman can live together in a loving relationship. This is the central impediment blocking the developmental journey for children of divorce. The psychological scaffolding that they need to construct a happy marriage has been badly damaged by the two people they depended on while growing up.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  It is going to let me depart, without too much concern, into death itself. In my twenty years of rule I have passed twelve without fixed abode. In succession I occupied palatial homes of Asiatic merchants, sober Greek houses, handsome villas in Roman Gaul provided with baths and hot air heat, or mere huts and farms. My preference was still for the light tent, that architecture of canvas and cords. Life at sea was no less diversified than in lodgings on land: I had my own ship, equipped with gymnasium and library, but I was too distrustful of all fixity to attach myself to any one dwelling, even to one in motion. The pleasure bark of a Syrian millionaire, the high galleys of the fleet, the light skiff of a Greek fisherman, each served equally well. The one luxury was speed, and all that favored it, the finest horses, the best swung carriages, luggage as light as possible, clothing and accessories most fitted to the climate. But my greatest asset of all was perfect health: a forced march of twenty leagues was nothing; a night without sleep was no more than a chance to think in peace. Few men enjoy prolonged travel; it disrupts all habit and endlessly jolts each prejudice. But I was striving to have no prejudices and few habits. I welcomed the delight of a soft bed, but liked also the touch and smell of bare earth, some contact with the rough or smooth segments of the world's circumference. I was well inured to all kinds of foods, whether British gruel or African watermelon. Once I tasted that delicacy of certain Germanic tribes, tainted game; it made me vomit, but the experiment had been tried. Though decided in my tastes in love, even there I feared routines. My attendants, reduced in number to the indispensable, or to the exquisite, separated me but little from other people; I took special care to be free in my movements, and to remain accessible to all. The provinces, those great administrative units for which I myself had chosen the emblems (Britannia on her throne of rocks, or Dacia with her scimitar) were entities for me composed of distinct parts, forests where I had sought shade, wells where I had slaked my thirst, chance encounters at halts, faces known and sometimes loved. I began to know each mile of our roads, Rome's finest gift, perhaps, to the world. But best of all, and unforgettable, was the moment when a road came to an end on a mountainside, and we hoisted ourselves from crevice to crevice, from boulder to boulder, to catch the dawn from an Alpine peak, or a height of the Pyrenees. A few men before me had traveled over the earth: Pythagoras, Plato, some dozen philosophers in all, and a fair number of adventurers. Now for the first time the traveller was also the master, free both to see and to reform, or to create anew.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Our Lord adds a ninth reason (Lk. 10:42) when He says: “Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her,” which words Augustine (De Verb. Dom. Serm. ciii) expounds thus: “Not—Thou hast chosen badly but—She has chosen better. Why better? Listen—because it shall not be taken away from her. But the burden of necessity shall at length be taken from thee: whereas the sweetness of truth is eternal.” Yet in a restricted sense and in a particular case one should prefer the active life on account of the needs of the present life. Thus too the Philosopher says (Topic. iii, 2): “It is better to be wise than to be rich, yet for one who is in need, it is better to be rich . . .” Reply to Objection 1: Not only the active life concerns prelates, they should also excel in the contemplative life; hence Gregory says (Pastor. ii, 1): “A prelate should be foremost in action, more uplifted than others in contemplation.” Reply to Objection 2: The contemplative life consists in a certain liberty of mind. For Gregory says (Hom. iii in Ezech.) that “the contemplative life obtains a certain freedom of mind, for it thinks not of temporal but of eternal things.” And Boethius says (De Consol. v, 2): “The soul of man must needs be more free while it continues to gaze on the Divine mind, and less so when it stoops to bodily things.” Wherefore it is evident that the active life does not directly command the contemplative life, but prescribes certain works of the active life as dispositions to the contemplative life; which it accordingly serves rather than commands. Gregory refers to this when he says (Hom. iii in Ezech.) that “the active life is bondage, whereas the contemplative life is freedom.” Reply to Objection 3: Sometimes a man is called away from the contemplative life to the works of the active life, on account of some necessity of the present life, yet not so as to be compelled to forsake contemplation altogether. Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xix, 19): “The love of truth seeks a holy leisure, the demands of charity undertake an honest toil,” the work namely of the active life. “If no one imposes this burden upon us we must devote ourselves to the research and contemplation of truth, but if it be imposed on us, we must bear it because charity demands it of us. Yet even then we must not altogether forsake the delights of truth, lest we deprive ourselves of its sweetness, and this burden overwhelm us.” Hence it is clear that when a person is called from the contemplative life to the active life, this is done by way not of subtraction but of addition.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  It is going to let me depart, without too much concern, into death itself. In my twenty years of rule I have passed twelve without fixed abode. In succession I occupied palatial homes of Asiatic merchants, sober Greek houses, handsome villas in Roman Gaul provided with baths and hot air heat, or mere huts and farms. My preference was still for the light tent, that architecture of canvas and cords. Life at sea was no less diversified than in lodgings on land: I had my own ship, equipped with gymnasium and library, but I was too distrustful of all fixity to attach myself to any one dwelling, even to one in motion. The pleasure bark of a Syrian millionaire, the high galleys of the fleet, the light skiff of a Greek fisherman, each served equally well. The one luxury was speed, and all that favored it, the finest horses, the best swung carriages, luggage as light as possible, clothing and accessories most fitted to the climate. But my greatest asset of all was perfect health: a forced march of twenty leagues was nothing; a night without sleep was no more than a chance to think in peace. Few men enjoy prolonged travel; it disrupts all habit and endlessly jolts each prejudice. But I was striving to have no prejudices and few habits. I welcomed the delight of a soft bed, but liked also the touch and smell of bare earth, some contact with the rough or smooth segments of the world's circumference. I was well inured to all kinds of foods, whether British gruel or African watermelon. Once I tasted that delicacy of certain Germanic tribes, tainted game; it made me vomit, but the experiment had been tried. Though decided in my tastes in love, even there I feared routines. My attendants, reduced in number to the indispensable, or to the exquisite, separated me but little from other people; I took special care to be free in my movements, and to remain accessible to all. The provinces, those great administrative units for which I myself had chosen the emblems (Britannia on her throne of rocks, or Dacia with her scimitar) were entities for me composed of distinct parts, forests where I had sought shade, wells where I had slaked my thirst, chance encounters at halts, faces known and sometimes loved. I began to know each mile of our roads, Rome's finest gift, perhaps, to the world. But best of all, and unforgettable, was the moment when a road came to an end on a mountainside, and we hoisted ourselves from crevice to crevice, from boulder to boulder, to catch the dawn from an Alpine peak, or a height of the Pyrenees. A few men before me had traveled over the earth: Pythagoras, Plato, some dozen philosophers in all, and a fair number of adventurers. Now for the first time the traveller was also the master, free both to see and to reform, or to create anew.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  We did a lot more of this, and a lot more reading, on his first weekend off, when he came to Holland Park. Its ‘country-house’ smell and the established presence of my things subdued him rather. He gazed abashed at my Whitehaven picture and, with an access of solemnity, embarked on a reading of Tom Jones. I was glad of his self-reliance; and companionable hours passed with him, sprawled in an armchair with his book, and me behind him, at my writing-table, going through Charles’s papers and looking up now and again with a sudden rush of the blood at his powerful figure and sober head, his face, full of thoughts, turned from me in a lost profile. The quiet, slightly contrived domestic mood made me think of Arthur again, and I couldn’t help being grateful for the open windows, the normality, the cool of the new set-up. Not that there weren’t things I missed. It was fine, making love to Phil, and I was obsessed with his body. But he lacked the illiterate, curling readiness of Arthur, his instinct for sex. Both of them were teenagers over whom I had many advantages; both of them watched me for the moves I would make. But where with Arthur, when I did move, there was an immediate transport, a falling-open of the mouth, a mood of necessity that was close to possession, with Phil there was a more selfconscious giving, callow at times and imitative. When I was rough with him it was to break through all that. Phil’s affection expressed itself too in a kind of wrestling, which was sweatily physical but which wasn’t quite sex. There were no rules and it generally involved him in his pants and me in nothing at all, clinching wildly on the sofa or wherever we happened to be, tumbling on to the floor, straining, twisting and squeezing at each other but showing enough decorum not to knock things over. I suppose all this assertion of muscle was his familiar shyness, and silly as it was it had something authentic of him in it, which was beautifully exposed over those few seconds when our eyes at last held each other’s, he fell into a silent slackness of submission and the ragging and bragging dissolved into tenderness and release.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  Thus the most dreary tasks were accomplished with ease as long as I was willing to give myself to them. Whenever an object repelled me, I made it a subject of study, ingeniously compelling myself to extract from it a motive for enjoyment. If faced with something unforeseen or near cause for despair, like an ambush or a storm at sea, after all measures for the safety of others had been taken, I strove to welcome this hazard, to rejoice in whatever it brought me of the new and unexpected, and thus without shock the ambush or the tempest was incorporated into my plans, or my thoughts. Even in the throes of my worst disaster, I have seen a moment when sheer exhaustion reduced some part of the horror of the experience, and when I made the defeat a thing of my own in being willing to accept it. If ever I am to undergo torture (and illness will doubtless see to that) I cannot be sure of maintaining the impassiveness of a Thrasea, but I shall at least have the resource of resigning myself to my cries. And it is in such a way, with a mixture of reserve and of daring, of submission and revolt carefully concerted, of extreme demand and prudent concession, that I have finally learned to accept myself. Had it been too greatly prolonged, this life in Rome would undoubtedly have embittered or corrupted me, or else would have worn me out. My return to the army saved me. Army life has its compromises too, but they are simpler. Departure this time meant travel, and I set out with exultation. I had been advanced to the rank of tribune in the Second Legion Adjutrix, and passed some months of a rainy autumn on the banks of the Upper Danube with no other companion than a newly published volume of Plutarch. In November I was transferred to the Fifth Legion Macedonica, stationed at that time (as it still is) at the mouth of the same river, on the frontiers of Lower Moesia. Snow blocked the roads and kept me from traveling by land. I embarked at Pola, but had barely time on the way to revisit Athens, where later I was so long to reside. News of the assassination of Domitian, announced a few days after my arrival in camp, surprised no one, and was cause for general rejoicing. Trajan was promptly adopted by Nerva; the advanced age of the new ruler made actual succession a matter of months at the most.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  I was interested in Gary’s response because it was different from what children of divorce were saying. There were very few father-son relationships among the adult children of divorce that grew to have the emotional richness that many sons in intact families described with so much pleasure. Rather, there was a widening gap between the generations. (Because this is so important, I will describe it in greater detail in Chapter 15.) But men like Gary became close friends with their dads, even when those same fathers had not been around all that much during their childhoods. They said, “He’s changed, I’ve changed. We have more time to ourselves together.” It was a time of mellowing. What did they talk about? They talked shop, politics, sports, and grandchildren. This was a welcome second chance, which both men treasured, to become good friends. Those raised in intact marriages have a ringside seat at the changes in their parents’ relationship over the years, and this, too, helps them cope with vicissitudes in their own marriages. They understand that adults can treat each other differently at turning points such as when children leave home, a crisis hits, work schedules change, or their roles shift. They witness gradual changes as their parents reach middle age and retirement. As a result, they come to their own adult relationships with an understanding of how a couple maintains a balanced relationship, of how that balance fluctuates over time, of how partners protect each other. Moreover, they enter their own marriages with the sense that change is going to happen and that they have power to influence the direction of those changes. When I asked Gary about his parents’ current relationship, he said, “I think that they’re happier. They went through a serious crisis a few years ago when my mom got breast cancer, and we all worried that she’d die. But she’s in remission and their whole life has changed. He’s more attentive, and when they’re together he sticks by her instead of going off and making the social rounds. They’ve worked on finding activities that they both enjoy doing together. Mom is more relaxed than she’s ever been.”

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  As we turn onto Washington Avenue and edge closer to home, I notice our new neighborhood lacks actual neighbors . This time of year, residents are either at the local beach or inside where it’s cooler, keeping to themselves. There are no kids playing ball in the street or riding bikes up and down the lane. The air is quiet and empty with no friendly conversation or laughter. The few homes we do pass sit with bare lawns and neglected landscaping in a way that suggests passers-by should simply look away and mind their own business. This we appreciate. We aren’t comfortable with eyes on us either. Isolation isn’t foreign to us. A few years earlier, we lived together in the town center of Saint James, about eight miles from here. Our apartment then, in a building at 621 Lake Avenue, was on the second floor, above a glue factory. Across the street was the Saint James Fire Department—a giant white building that looked out at us as if it were watching our every move. We lived above the intersection of three major roads, not among the storied homes in the wealthy neighborhoods that overlooked the Long Island Sound with views of Connecticut. Living separate from our better-heeled neighbors ensured that we could stay “under the radar” in Saint James. I would walk through the kitchen door out to the black tar roof of the glue factory, which served as our patio. There I’d observe the townspeople as they hurried along the quaint and preserved main street to the local butcher or Spage’s Pharmacy. No matter how long or hard I stared, just daring for someone to catch my eye, no one ever noticed me. That was actually the home where we lived together the longest as a family. At that time, Cherie was still with us. She, Camille, and I would stroll up the street to the King Kullen supermarket to collect our groceries, but there was another spot we preferred to gather our meals. A long walk led us to Cordwood Beach. To us, Cordwood Beach was an amusement park—it had a floating dock anchored offshore, and we’d swim out and jump off of it over and over again. To the left of the dock stood the curved brick wall of a hollowed-out old house that delighted us as a glorified jungle gym and play castle. But the best part was, at Cordwood Beach we got dinner for free! We’d walk home with our shirts hammocking a heavy load of clams, mussels, and onion grass, which Cherie and Camille would steam for dinner. It was a simple way to live, but we were together. That’s what was important to us. “HEY !” I HOLLER . “We’re back!” Rosie and Norman are stretched out on opposite couches, watching the news. Rosie looks up, waves to us, and turns back to the TV.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  was a precious biological commodity. But it was not a fi nite one. It was continually regenerated. It was present in snot as in semen. What mattered, for the doctors, was an equilibrium that would not unduly accelerate the inexorable pro cess of putrefaction. Roman medical advice was more interested in establishing healthy and balanced rhythms than in stemming the leak of vital fl uids. Th e doctors were, to be sure, not erotic enthusiasts. Galen could recommend sex for its hygienic eff ects, but not for its pleasures. He put forward the Cynic phi los o pher Diogenes as a model. Diogenes engaged in sexual intercourse to expel sperm, and he retained the ser vices of a courtesan for his regular evacuations. One day when she was tardy, he manually recalibrated his system. Th e lesson drawn for Galen was that the self- controlled man would view sex as the satisfaction of an urge, a necessary transaction in the maintenance of the body’s fl ux. In his estimate sex was much like the evacuation of stool or urine— a purely natural act but nothing to sentimen-talize. Unlike digestion, sex was discretionary, a voluntary pro cess that, once started, triggered an autocatalytic chain reaction. From this perspective, sex, with its perfervid internal cycles, was a mildly hazardous necessity. Th e ideally healthy man would achieve a mea sured state of self- control by regulating the consumption system of the body, amorous expenditures included. Plea sure was a valueless term in the equation of health. Overall, the attitude toward sex in the Roman medical literature is one of attentive suff erance. But it would be a mistake to treat Roman medicine as a midway point between a classical cult of the healthy body and a later obsession with sensory deprivation. What is novel about Roman medicine is less its stance on sex than its popularity. It seems likely that in the age of Aelius Aristides and Marcus Aurelius more people than ever before looked upon themselves as life- term convalescents. But the pervasiveness of medical culture in the high empire is not to be ascribed to a public mood of weariness or even a new anxiety toward the body. Th e peculiar vigilance toward the body that we encounter in Roman medicine is the product of an affl uent society. Medicine was a branch of learning that fl ourished with the support of public and private patrons in a wealthy empire. Abundance created the anxieties of imbalance that fueled an interest in medical knowledge. Th e medical literature addressed the concerns of a well- fed elite whose physical labors were few and artifi cial. Th e doctors spoke to the greying crowd, who could take comfort in hearing that wine was healthful and  F R O M S H A M E TO S I N sexual deceleration was natural. Roman medicine was neither morbid nor ascetic; it was bourgeois, and a little geriatric. Th