In recent years there have been a number of sociological studies linking marital happiness/success with methods of birth regulation. Most of them show positive differences between those couples who practice NFP and those who use other methods of birth control, although not always to the degree that NFP Catholics like to advertise. This is mostly due to the fact that couples practicing NFP fall into two categories—those who do so with a contraceptive mentality and those who live an NFP lifestyle. It is the latter group which would likely show a significantly higher marital satisfaction.
I called it a “lifestyle” because it is about so much more than just family planning. NFP reinforces the one flesh union of marriage even when the couple is not engaged in the marital embrace. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I will mention that, unlike woman, man’s fertility is non-cyclical. He is fertile all the time. This means that the burden of self-mastery often falls upon him. In fact one could say self-mastery is at the heart of being a man. The man, as he finds stamped into his body, is made to make a gift of himself. But to give oneself away, you must first own yourself, that is, have total self-mastery. Your yes only means something when you are free to say no. Without this requisite self-mastery comes the constant temptation to “lord it over the woman” (c.f. Gen 3:16). When you do not have control over yourself, you will attempt to control other people, especially those that are close to you.
The Burden of Fertility
While man does not experience his fertility as a burden per se, the woman does. This doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing, only that it carries with it “labor” even if that labor is joyfully and willfully endured. She is the one who, ultimately, must bear the consequences of fertility. Family planning and birth control often fall upon her. As proof of this, despite all the nasty side effects, a woman is willing to take a birth control pill. This is also the arena in which NFP can facilitate a true one flesh union by enabling the man to help carry the load of her fertility with her.
The most obvious time of her cycle is during menstruation. The man experiences his constant fertility as a burden so as to be united bodily with his wife during a particularly painful period of time. The burden of fertility that she is feeling can also be felt, albeit in a different way, in his body too. He literally is practicing compassion, that is suffering with. When borne with love and patience he is making a bodily gift of himself to his wife.
Most men already do this, although perhaps in not such a deliberate way. But for those men who practice NFP and have experienced the “disappointment” of the arrival of an early period, this can enable them to see how the one flesh giving might continue. Likewise, when for “just reasons” the couple is using NFP to avoid pregnancy the man puts aside the drive of his constant fertility so as to share in and through his body her fertility. This is where real manhood, that is manhood founded upon self-mastery, is particularly felt because he feels an increase in the burden of his fertility because of the inviting presence of her pheromones signaling her fertility. Even in abstaining from the marital embrace the couple is experiencing a type of one-flesh union when they join their wills together in postponing pregnancy.
NFP’s Effect on Family Life
An NFP lifestyle also makes for a happier home life in general in the relationship between the parents and children. Schooled in self-mastery by NFP the parents are better able to love their children in a disinterested fashion. As John Paul II, in a defense of Humanae Vitae once said:
“[parents that are contracepting] cannot sacrifice their egoism to the good of their spouse, will likewise lack generosity, patience, serenity and calm assurance in their relations with their children. They will love their children to the degree to which their children bring them joy—that is selfishly and not for their own sakes; they will cajole them and teach them self-indulgence and self-love. Instead of the peace given by self-mastery, unrest will reign in the family, because the state of tension created by a truncated sexual act surrounded by precautions, an act that is to be an unreserved gift of self, must in the long term be communicated to the children. It seems that the increasing prevalence of anxiety and even certain neuroses results in large part from contraceptive practices.”
For the better part of the last half-century, the teaching Church has been (at best) silent promoting her teachings on birth control. It is time that the rest of the Church step out into the void and preach the freedom that comes from ditching contraception. The one flesh union within marriage is a daily lived experience.