Post date: Oct 3, 2016 3:56:34 AM
First, before I discuss my topic of women and marriage, can I just say that I think Augustine (if he lived today) should really see a therapist for his self-esteem issues and unhealthy emotional suppression? Buddy. This lifestyle cannot be good for your mental health.
The only woman consistently mentioned throughout Confessions is Augustine's mother, Monica. He has a lover, who is dismissed so Augustine can marry someone else, and Augustine says that he is "deeply attached" to her (109). He rarely talks about women, but when he does, I've noticed that they tend to be more virtuous than him. His lover, who is never named (which is very rude of him), is at once an object of his lust but also someone he deeply cares for and is in many ways his moral superior. She vows never to take another man and Augustine, "incapable of following a woman's example", finds another woman (109). Her strength of character comes from the ability to deny wants of the flesh while Augustine is continually tormented by them. Women are at once the best of humanity and the worst within the Confessions.
Augustine's mother is depicted as the epitome of the womanly servant of God. She is steadfast in her faith, a loving mother, a devote Catholic. Yet, she's also depicted as an obstacle that Augustine must overcome to be truly with God. He talks about her death as if his grief were a weakness, a "fresh wound caused by the break in habit", something that hindered his faith because it was in direct opposition to the idea of eternal paradise (174). Augustine sees detachment from all earthly things as the way to true enlightenment and since his mother (at least her body) is temporal, his attachment to her is a moral defect that hinders him from becoming one with God.
The way Augustine portrays women makes me wonder if they were actually like this or if he was using them to further an archetype of Christian or pious women. Women, From Empress Justina to the virgin wives of Ponticianus's friends, are depicted again and again as unwavering in their beliefs, even if the beliefs are erroneous. Augustine rarely portrays the wavering faith of women, instead focusing on how they lived their lives for Christ.
Augustine also uses women as a way to show the temptations of Earth. Marriage, sex, and lust all lead men astray from their closeness to God. He portrays wanting to marry as a weakness of his, calling marriage and sexual desire "captivity" (107). when Augustine finally does convert, he turns his back on marriage, equating the "effect of [God's] converting" him was that he "did not now seek a wife and had no ambition for success in this world" (153-154). Marriage and wives were temporal temptations and therefore against God; they both only obscured the path to Him.