What the Parish Dance can and can’t do

There is an interesting article in the UK Catholic Herald this week about the dearth of young couples in society. The author draws a distinction, as well he might, between consecrated virginity and the plain old single state. “If it is good at all it is only good as a Cross faithfully born,” he says of the latter, and I note he doesn’t even mention the concept of “undedicated celibacy” or “the Single Life” as a vocation. (Single Life as a vocation is as post-Vatican II a concept as ever there was one. In my own writings, I concluded that protracted Singleness is a vocation to patience, trust and an openness to God’s will–the vocation to wait for one’s marching orders.)

Three blocks to marriage

Peter Day-Milne lists three reasons why men and women don’t marry: a lack of suitable spouses, boredom from our sex-saturated culture, and resentment of any sexual tie that curtails liberty. (At least, this is how I interpret his paragraph–not safe for children–linking the contraceptive mentality to sadomasochistic practices.)

I am particularly struck by what young men and women apparently think of each other. According to Day-Milne, young women find young men “whiny, immature, irresponsible and self-absorbed” and the young gentlemen complain that young ladies are “hard, fierce and un-nurturing.”

The Church’s responsibility

Day-Milne suggests that the Church ought to do more “to fight the decline of romance” and to help young people find a spouse. He looks back to an era when there were lots of marriages and is half-apologetic, half-bullish about the good old Catholic ghetto:

In pre-Vatican-II days – before the tight-knit social rituals of British Catholic culture came to be seen as insular and unevangelical, as well as the outward expression of a timorous Church still mentally living in priest-holes and hidden chapels, and far too suspicious of converts – the Parish Dance was a normal institution.

Thousands of Catholics met their spouses at them (and this, notably, in an age when vocations were still common). Now, though, one hardly hears of parish dances except at a few big, thriving, markedly traditional city parishes. That the pre-Vatican-II Church really was somewhat insular is probably true; but surely the time has come to consider the losses as well as the gains of post-conciliar cultural change? Ought we not to be helping Catholics to find other Catholics to marry? Isn’t it time for a revival of the parish dance?

Parish dance as dubious cure

At this I had a not-so-jolly laugh because a Parish Dance full of “whiny, immature, irresponsible and self-absorbed” young men and “hard, fierce and un-nurturing” young women who are jaded by the sex-saturated culture and terrified of losing their liberty to wailing babies is not going to do anything to improve the situation.

Also, what does this Parish Dance look and sound like? As a fun-loving teenager, I was once at a Catholic high school dance in which the DJ decided to play Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It.” I have always had a problem hearing lyrics properly, but in this case, I heard enough to walk off the dance floor. There is a massive catalogue of pop songs offensive to pious ears, and such experts as Dr. Peter Kwasniewski takes issue with rock’s strong backbeat in itself. Contemporary pop music is a card-carrying member of sex-saturated society; in fact, pop music is one of its authors. And, yes, we can blame Elvis:

His performance was the most disgusting exhibition this reporter has ever seen. For Presley is the male counterpart of a hoochee-koochee dancer in a burlesque show.” — Sioux City Journal, May 24, 1956 

Thus, to be any kind of force for moral good, the Parish Dance is going to have to both attract uncomplaining, mature, responsible and aware young men and soft-hearted, kind and nurturing young women and offer them something better than another opportunity to gyrate to obscenities backed by brutish music.

A Parish Dance is not in itself going to make a “whiny” young man uncomplaining or a “hard” young woman softhearted. However, I firmly believe that regular activities arranged for young people can encourage friendship among them so they no longer A) harbour these tendencies or B) think so badly of each other.

Parish dancing lessons as social therapy

I think dance classes–run on traditional lines–are ideally suited to this. They offer young men a challenge–learn to dance–in which they will lead and also be forced to act to win female attention. (When it is clear the women aren’t asking any man to dance, there is no opportunity to “whine” about lack of female attention.) To take the challenge to learn a skill well is a sign of maturity, especially when it is rough going at first. To be willing to assume a woman’s safety on the dance floor is a mark of responsibility. To learn proper form so as to lead a woman in a dance successfully is the opposite of self-absorption.

As for young women, seeing how difficult it is for men to learn to dance (for leading is much harder than following) should make girls appreciative, and indeed soft-hearted, when men do. Developing smiling patience while waiting to be asked–and accepting invitation gratefully–should smooth out scary fierceness (if scary fierceness there be). Concentrating hard on helping the man lead successfully could be a form of nurturing; thanking or praising him for a good dance definitely is.

The social benefits of dancing

As a motherly (avuncular? mateteral?) kind of woman who organizes dance lessons for young people, I can say that it is an absolute joy to dance with a young man who I know has improved as a dancer. I know it is a social skill that is very likely to excite female admiration; I have heard encomiums about one man I know who habitually infuriated women with his conversation but then floored them with his excellent partner-dancing. Good dancing involves paying strict attention to footwork, music, and one’s partner: it is the opposite of self-absorption. It also levels the playing field: with enough practice and determination, any man who can walk gracefully and direct a lawnmower can learn to dance and lead a woman in a dance gracefully.

Reader: Mrs McLean, are you seriously using lawnmowers as a metaphor for women?

Mrs McLean (woman): Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

The advantages to women are much more controversial, for women were worn down over the generations with contradictory strictures about attracting men (“unmaidenly!” “your sole value!” “sinful!” “crucial to your happiness!”) before the idea took root that it is best not to, really. But it should not be next door to a thought crime to say that psychologically healthy men like women who are kind, thoughtful, patient and smiling. In fact, everyone in good psychological health likes women who are kind, thoughtful, patient and smiling.* Anne of Green Gables is fiction: no man ever loved a woman because she hit him with a slate.

In my view the Parish Dance should be an opportunity for Catholics–of all ages, if feasible–to acquaint themselves with proper partner dancing and its traditional customs, or to practise proper partner dancing and its traditional customs, as well as making introductions, chatting, offering to get each other glasses of wine or cups of tea or plates of cake. But to make people grow in virtue, it would have to be–and this is a tall order for a single, or biannual, event–transformational.

One easy-going annual or biannual Parish Dance cannot do that. What is needed are a series of parish dancing lessons, which do the transformative work, and then a Parish Dance at which to reap and share the rewards.

The transformational nature of learning to partner-dance, by the way, is an answer to the question of why just bringing young men and women together to pray or listen to homilies or theological lectures is not an adequate response to the marriage question. Those activities, though excellent in themselves, are passive. Learning to dance–which includes lessons in traditional ballroom deportment–is active. It makes such virtues as kindness, confidence, perseverance and patience corporeal. It also fosters and celebrates the complementarity of the sexes, which is more than marital, by the way: it is social.

Putting my money where my mouth is, I am sponsoring dance classes for TLM Catholics (and those, Catholic or other, who like us) planning to attend the Edinburgh Eastertide Dance on April 25. These workshops will be on Sunday, February 23 (Waltz & Ceilidh); Sunday, March 2 (Lindy Hop, Waltz, & Ceilidh); and Easter Monday (review). To solicit an invitation or information, please contact me.

*By the way, I thought I’d address the “Why aren’t you smiling, honey?” remarks of men on the street. First of all, the only acceptable things a man can say on the public street to a woman to whom he has not been introduced are “Good morning” or “Good evening” and, if necessary, “Excuse me, I think you dropped this”, “After you,” or “Duck!” Second, the smiling I am thinking of is at social events, not every moment of the day. Some of us presumably waft through life with a smile on our lips and a song in our heart, but really there is no responsibility to look like you are having a wonderful time unless you are at a social event.