This is all rather surprising. You don't usually associate the Catholic Church - the force behind the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, the sanctifier of Franco, the crusader against socialism - with any kind of support for the aspirations of women. Once, so the legend tells us, St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland. His successors are attempting the same miracle - but for lack of It's not often that Marxists pay very much attention to the Virgin Mary. This year however, someone has managed to make us aware of her. That someone is a certain Archbishop Murphy, writing in the Catholic newspaper The Universe. His article, believe it or not, is headed, "The Woman who initiated Women's Lib'. The Archbishop explains that she is 'the woman who created Christmas, and placed woman for the first time on a pedestal".
of certain vital ideas. JANICE MILLS mess as usual. That is the reality of the family. But it is a reality that depends on the acceptance The one the good Archbishop has put his finger on is what the feminist writer Lee Comer has called the 'Myth of Motherhood' - the Led. varies greatly.
In the time of the industrial revolution, the family practically disappeared in the working class. With men, women and children working twelve or more hours a day, and with child care taking place in pit or factory, there was settled down, however, later in the nineteenth century a big effort was made to ensure that workers accepted the joys of family life.
This was one of the principal messages of evangelists like Moody and the Salvation Army. It was also part of the message of Dickens. The sickly sentimentality of A Christmas Carol and other such outpourings are nothing more than propaganda for acceptance of the role of women as comforters and manufacturers of plum pudding.
But that old style propaganda will no longer do. and Archbishop Murphy knows it. The social and political crises of the early part of this century shook up the extended family structure of the nineteenth century, leading to the emergence in the '20s and '30s of a smaller unit, the nuclear family. It is this form that Archbishop Murphy wants to defend, and Dickens and co. are no longer much help.
There is an aspect of all this that Archbishop Murphy manages to neglect. The defence of the family at a time of crisis involves not merely rebuilding the structure but also accommodating many of the horrors that have been unleashCr Brock.
ility of throwing out the family, together with its seed-bed of class society, once and for all.
So fresh ways of wrapping the old package are appearing. Hence the Archbishop's more trendy statements. Hence also a new all-time low in sexual values with the rise of the porn market, wife swapping magazines and the like.
Archbishop Murphy concludes his article: "If you want a meditation this Christmastide, think of d Oh, a wonderful pudding!
gross.
represents, woman walking the streets during nine months expecting God. It will make your Christmas.' I would like to rephrase this intelligent enemy. If you want a meditation this Christmas, think of the mass starvation caused by capitalism, think of the tyranny of the factory and the petty tyranny of the home, think of the degradation and obscen ity this society has spawned. It will ruin your Christmas, but determine you to destroy everything Christmas