The Four Virtues: Temperance

Winter has settled in. The fickle weather has settled in to a less fickle cold. Things are gray and holidays are passing and past. We curl up under covers, warm our hands around hot drinks, gather in our knitting circles, and talk of deep, old things. We’re women. We pass the fire of tending from hearth to hearth to hearth, holders of family memories, and keepers of the young and old. We talk of the deeper magic our world has decided to ignore to its detriment.

We’ve passed around the concept of prudence, justice, and courage. Now let’s talk of temperance.

“Temperance is the virtue that attempts to keep us from excess, and, as such, requires the balancing of legitimate goods against our inordinate desire for them. Our legitimate use of such goods may be different at different times; temperance is the "golden mean" that helps us determine how far we can act on our desires.” [1]

Temperance isn’t a very in-vogue word. It has almost entirely fallen out of fashion to temper one's self. We live in days of excess and indulgence. Temperance is boring, fuddy-duddy, dull, probably cultish, and legalistic. Of course, it doesn’t help that Prohibition was instigated by the so-called Temperance Movement. That didn’t help its public image, even though it was a complete misuse of the term. Temperance is about moderately using legitimately good things, not about prohibiting good things. We treat Temperance as if it is synonymous with prohibition.

Moderation and self-restraint, being in control of one’s more animal instincts like food, drink, sex, sleep, etc. is the heart of temperance. We have been given the gift of reason and we should use it to practice some control over our passions.

Personal Temperance: Temperance is something in our character that affects how we handle things and people. As wives, mothers, the tenders, temperance is often seen in our attitudes. We don’t indulge in out-of-control emotions. If we want calm, quiet homes, we must be calm and quiet ourselves. This requires self-control, not allowing our anxiety or frivolity to have rulership in our lives.

This is being careful of ourselves. Not overeating (easy to do when you’re anxious) and not becoming dependent on alcohol to soothe our fears (easy to do the longer life weighs on you). Watching our thought life about men is practicing temperance. This can be other husbands or just actors on TV that we find attractive. Being temperate is not overindulging in true crime or chick flicks and rom-coms. It is also paying attention to our social media use. Social media can be good, but overindulging in it can rob you of time with the people you actually live with, fill your mind with lies and misinformation, and push you into gossip and envy.

Temperance guards our thoughts, actions, and words to our children, husbands, and friends. It helps us to be calm, happy, and loving tenders of our people.

Temperate Home Management: Temperance in our home management works well with prudence. It is seen in not needing each new-fangled thing, bigger and better homes, prettier décor, new this, new that. Temperance doesn’t need to placate emotional trauma by buying new things. (This is not to say that any of that is wrong. Remember, temperance is balancing the good so as not to excessively pamper ourselves.)

Temperance is also found in our cooking and cleaning. It is taking time to do the job right while also knowing we can’t take forever. Good flows and systems have good shortcuts. This requires study, observation, and thought.

It’s making sure we’re not families of gluttons and drunks. It’s learning to eat what is good for us, not only what is sweet and easy. This requires us to educate ourselves on nutrition. We are the tenders; we need to tend to the food for our families.

Temperate women take their work in the home seriously. We will balance all the different aspects of the home so that things are calm and under control. We will also be the kind of women who can flex, bend, and dance around things that come up because we’re temperate. We’re not being jerked around by the whims of the world, God’s providences, or human failings. We’re temperate.

This virtue is how we balance between the chores that need doing and the people that need our attention. Indulging in one or the other will make our homes chaotic. Balancing rest and work, play and chores will raise wise children and honor the responsibilities our husbands have delegated to us.

Ladies, temperance flies in the face of our culture’s view of women. The world preaches that feral, wild women are free. It screams that we need to be assertive, loud, bossy, and even mean.

This virtue, along with the others, is real freedom because we won’t be chained to our emotions and the tides of time. Temperance allows us to make room for prudence, justice, and courage. These are the things to teach our daughters. Wildness won’t free them. It’s only a cage of damnation. Help them tame themselves and they’ll excel. If we let ourselves and our daughters be wild, we’ll be no better off than the ugly, scarred, spitting cats with no homes, living short, rotten, diseased lives that stalk our neighborhoods.

Side Note: For those of you with wilderness, forests, and earth entrenched deep in your soul that is not the feral I’m talking about. Wildness and feralness that makes you want to run your fingers across the bark of trees, grow herbs, and get lost in spaces void of humanity are a wonderful and human delight in God’s majestic, and sometimes frightening, creation that I think haunts those of us who live in apartments stacked deep in cities and have no way to get our toes in the dirt. I’m talking about women who are out of control, and the mindset that training our children to be self-controlled somehow breaks them instead of healing them. The virtues set them free. Cages are being incapable of saying no to food, drink, or sex. That’s a cage. Give your children the freedom of self-control and then go plant a garden.

Let’s gift our daughters with temperance and grow it in the garden of our hearts. We’ll be richly rewarded with good fruit. Our homes will be calmer and controlled. We’ll be able to balance the needs of our family and the things they enjoy. We’ll be able to enjoy good things because we’re not using them to make ourselves sick, physically or spiritually. Temperance, and all the virtues, are a blessing to us as individuals and to the management of our homes.

[1] www.learnreligions.com/the-cardinal-virtues-542142