Dr. Robert Hickson 15 November 2014

Saint Albert the Great (d. 1280)Saint Leopold the Good (d. 1136)

Allowing Polyandry in China:A Development of Doctrine and of Mercy

--Epigraphs--

Oh what a tangled web we weaveWhen first we practice to deceive!

(Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto VI-Stanza 17)

***The Moral is, it is forsooth,

You mustn't monkey with the truth.

(A Variation upon Hilaire Belloc's Poem, The Example)***

Editor's Note: This article was originally written in November 2014

At a recent unashamedly Catholic Traditionalist Conference in New Hampshire (a part of which was held concurrently with the 5-19 October 2014 Synod in Rome on Marriage and the Family), I began to write my own Retractationes (Retractations), in imitation of Saint Augustine (the Bishop of Hippo), since I discovered at the Conference reliably that Pope John Paul II made none, nor did Pope Benedict XVI, at least not yet. (John Paul II at least apologized for his predecessors.

One of the things I immediately proposed to retract was my lifelong writings against, and even formidable moral resistance to, Polyandry: i.e., the state or practice of having more than one husband at the same time. That is to say, a Woman's concurrently having more than one Man as a Husband. It is sort of the converse of traditionalist Islamic Polygamy (i.e., Polygyny) and the Historical Turkish Harem. In other words, after my Retractation, my New Proposal to be discussed at the 2015 Follow-Up Synod in Rome would be a sort of consolidated (or even well-distributed) Male Harem this time, with a Real Woman on top!

For, the Synod Fathers of 2014 apparently did not consider this clearly merciful and progressive, polyandrous structure of a Family at least for the greater good of some countries and marginalized minority cultures although the Synod Cardinals spoke quite enough about homo-sexual men, it seems, and about their enduring and purportedly loyal bonds to each other to include their maybe having, in their open generosity (as distinct from any undifferentiated promiscuity), more than one man partner at a time. However, we dare not we should not

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call this kind of pluralistic openness in any way anything pejorative. We must be merciful and non-judgmental (though we must vote or choose at last).

Nonetheless, women, too, should have the opportunity, in justice, not just out of mercy, to have more than one man at the same time! i.e., more than one husband under their sway and feminine sovereignty, and building upon the indispensable example and lusty experience of Chaucer's own irrepressible Wife of Bath, whose Christian name was Alice! (Thinking of the diverse set of Cardinals gathered and extensively confabulating at the recent Synod on the Family and Marriage in the Modern World made me mirthfully think also of Chaucer's own artful Mock Heroic Epic and Beast Fable, entitled The Nun's Priest's Tale! That memorable Parable (or Apologue) especially concerns a barnyard couple, Chanticleer and Pertelote: the Strutting, but Hen-Pecked, Rooster and his Favorite Hen, Lady Pertelote. Pertelote is clearly shown to be more competent and dominant, but she is deceived by her uxorious husband, Chanticleer, because she does not know Latin! She appears not even to know Italian, though Chaucer himself did! In any event, Lady Pertelote could operate and firmly rule a Sustainable Form of Polyandry, I believe, even if it meant the Herding of many Strutting and Blustering Macho Roosters, not just Chanticleer though, I admit, she should now learn Latin!)

Admittedly, there is such a thing as Serial Polyandry which means that your many men are not under feminine control concurrently, but only seriatim. Analogously, just as King Henry VIII was a Serial Wife-Killer, he did not do it all at once; and he indeed so vividly practiced his Serial Polygamy that, as a consequence of one such public act of defiance to the (Illiberal and Astigmatic) Catholics, he thus also founded his own church! And this Creative Maneuver is still to be found today for those men who have such vitality (as well as quite impressive endurance and forbearance). For, they, too, can now live a rumbustious life of Serial Polygamy within the Positive Law as long as they do not have all those sequential wives at the same time, nor overlapping in any way! The Mormons have had some historical difficulties with such a predicament, I hear; but they, too, together with the growing number of Immigrant (and now Legitimately Resident) Muslims who still want to imitate the virile Mohammed, might soon have their earlier polygamous allowances restored: a truly Concurrent Polygamy. Nonetheless, our growing patterns of divorce and re-marriage in the United States are now admittedly making Serial Polygamy a much more fashionable form of Domesticity, especially given our current economic (hence usurious financial) difficulties. But, I want to go even further; and, to return to the original and mercifully constructive proposal, what about Polyandry and the desirability of its pastoral implementation, at least in China (especially in Mainland China), where there is such a shortage of Chinese women?!

The recent Catholic Synod of Bishops in Rome (with the Pope himself pulling some good strings behind the scenes, I think) has greatly helped me to make not only my just Retractation, but also this deepening polyandric conversion of thought, so as to effect, finally and with pastoral sensitivity, this proposed experiment with Polyandry in China, at least by beginning with China. The Synod has also inspired me to assist their own Paramagisterial Developments of Doctrine concerning Inculturation and Mercy or, in other words, both Misericordia and Cultural Pluralism (as distinct from cultural and historical Relativism). The Demography of China

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certainly calls out for our further Mercy.

For, as you know, the professional, scientific field of inquiry known as Demography consists essentially of three things: Births, Deaths, and Migrations. And, what is more, it is certainly so that many, many more little boy babies are now being born in China than little girl babies (and this culturally induced disproportion of Policy, along the deeper Cultural Revolution, has been going on for a long time, indeed for many years now, at least since 1949). Do we agree? If so, I have another question of moment: what kinds of sacrifices have these little girls made when they grew up? Did they think of all those men, all those lonely men who would have very little chance of finding a Chinese wife? Did they think do they think that captured Korean women are any substitute? Do they know how difficult Abductions now are, especially Cross-Cultural Abductions? Moreover, along with Muslim Immigrations into the United States, we may soon be also seeing greater Chinese Immigrations, at least as searching Visitations, in order to find Suitable Wives, even though these prospective wives be neither of the Culturally (nor of the Biologically) Superior Chinese Breed, at least not the Authentic Racially Superior Breed of Chinese: the Han Chinese. All of this together could well be another National Security Danger for the Multi-Cultural United States the Chinese being themselves much more formidable than the Caliphate of ISIS! In any case, as Jean Raspail taught us in his widely admired The Camp of the Saints (1973), Migrations are not only an elemental part of Demography, but also a fundamental challenge to Humane Social Ethics. How does one mercifully deal with (or repel) large numbers of peaceful and materially starving Immigrants? And, a fortiori, what about those who are Lonely and Spiritually Starving?

Concerning the Concept and Reality of Doctrinal Developments to include those Discontinuous Developments of Doctrine which are not, thank God, impaired by the Principle (or Law) of Non-Contradiction I even know of a resourcefully intelligent man who, upon reflection, extended the Claim for a Baptism by (of) Desire to another Old Sacrament and he helpfully came up with the new Concept of a Marriage by (of) Desire, which could even lead to a new Understanding of a Sacrament! Now clearly, there are many possibilities here, especially to bypass Monogamy and the constrictions of the Indissolubility of Marriage, and even to offset the all-too-confining Meaning of a Vow! Freedom and Autonomy will certainly increase here and help gain many unexpected advantages.

We must allow Polyandry in China and thereby have a more Pastoral Form of Mercy for the Chinese men themselves, who have been for so many years broken down and dispirited under their historically continuous and preponderant system of Governance originally the autocratic hybrid of Chinese Legalism, which was a deftly disciplined and receptive preparation for a dynamic Communism, its even sterner complement, indeed another form of intrusive stifling Political Culture. As Zhengyuan Fu so well understood, the unique blend of Chinese Legalism was the preparatory Culture (Vital Medium) indeed, the receptive and further fertilizing Culture for Communism itself. That is, for Communism's Historical and Dialectical Materialism (and also that distinctively Chinese blend of Modern Socialism, as well as a Manifestation of the older forms of Oriental Despotism). In order that we may instill our Merciful Polyandric Experiment, we should at least read and savor Professor Zhengyuan Fu's

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two profound books: (1) China's Legalists: The Earliest Totalitarians and Their Art of Ruling (1996); and (2) his deeper and more learned work, Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics (1993Cambridge University Press). Under such an Elitist Autocratic Rule for so long, the Chinese Men need to be helped!

The forthcoming 2015 Synod in Rome, in ecumenically dealing with the Family (and Marriage itself) in a Multi-Cultural Context sensitive to the historical and theological differences of the World's Comparative Religions, must sympathetically examine not only the Progressive Features of Polygamy (if the women are not to be harmed), but also the even more advanced arrangements of Polyandry (if the men are not to be harmed). We do hope that the Synod Fathers in 2015 and perhaps even the Pope will finally also give at least a little consideration (and even more Mercy) to the Children. For, lest we be unpastorally unmerciful, we do not want the Little Ones the Parvuli of Christ to be harmed, much less to be adopted and raised by autocrats or by criminals or by perverts.

--Finis-- 2014 Robert D. Hickson

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